The only thing more important than improving your Customer Experience for your organization is reading about how to improve your Customer Experience for your organization. The good news is there is no shortage of great resources available. Unfortunately, that’s also the bad news; finding the best stuff can be difficult.
I read about Customer Experience. A lot. Here are a few resources with which every Customer Experience expert or aspiring expert should be well-acquainted:
The Book?
Thinking Fast and Slow by Nobel-Prize-Winning author and psychologist Daniel Kahneman.
Why I recommend it?
Kahneman explains to us how we think and why we do the things we do. It seems we have two systems at work at all times. They not only work at different times for different activities, but they also work together to create a layered approach to decision making. Understanding better what drives people psychologically to behave the way they do helps you better predict what they will do in the future, which is extremely valuable when you are working to improve your Customer Experience.
The Book?
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
Why I recommend it?
Business is all about relationships. This book, which can be a tough read to get all the way through, I realize, is invaluable at helping to break through your barriers perceived or otherwise and make connections with others, a skill all of us need in business today.
The Blog?
Forrester’s Blog for Customer Experience Professionals
Why I recommend it?
Forresters is a respectable research company that doesn’t get caught up in jargon. It regularly delivers insight on trends and remains a thought-leader in the industry. More than once I have been inspired by something I read here.
(And now, for a little shameless self-promotion!)
Not only do I read a lot about Customer Experience, but I also write about Customer Experience a lot, too. As a Customer Experience consultant, I also have an active blog where I publish my latest thinking on Customer Experience. Here are a few posts from the recent past that resonated with my audience (in reverse order of their popularity):
Losing Customers’ Trust is the Worst Penalty VW Will Face
Since I wrote this post, VW has paid $ billions for their mistake. It seems obvious but bears repeating: Lying to your Customers is bad business. After the fines are paid, your organization will
face an even harsher penalty—losing your Customers’ trust.
Why Men & Women Remember Things Differently
For anyone who has been in an argument with the opposite sex bout whose facts are straight, science proves that you are right, and he/she is wrong. Or is it the other way round? Men and women remember things differently because they process emotions differently. Here’s why.
Creating Successful Relationships
From a new boss to a new Customer, how you establish the relationship has long-term consequences on the health of the relationship. Communication is important to start them off right. By the way, I learned #2 and #8 from my mum.
Amazon’s Destructive Culture Exposed—or Not?
The New York Times posted an article about Amazon’s destructive work culture last year. I questioned it, and I still do. Broken cultures do not produce a fantastic Customer Experiences. So be careful about believing everything you read—unless I wrote it, of course (kidding).
How to Get People to Do What You Want
Helpful skills for any business person are garnered from these two recent scientific studies.
(But wait! There’s more!)
This fall, I have a new book The Intuitive Customer: 7 imperatives for moving your Customer Experience to the next level (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Fellow author Ryan Hamilton and I explore where Behavioral Economics meets Customer Experience in an easy-to-understand and practical way. We seek to share the understanding of the intuitions that drive your Customers’ Behavior at an emotional, subconscious and psychological level. By taking academic and scientific studies of Behavioral Economics and Consumer Psychology and applying them to real-world situations, we present accessible concepts that innovative organizations use today to take their Customer Experience to the Next Level.
Whatever resources you choose to further your knowledge about Customer Experience, be sure that you choose those that help you focus on the emotions of interaction. For as I always say, more than half of any Customer Experience is about the way it feels for customers.
What would you add to the list?