16 Customer Experience Blogs You Should Be Reading in 2018
Customer experience is the very lifeblood of a business. From what customers find on your website or in your physical location, to the salespeople they work with and the customer service and support they receive, their likelihood to remain loyal and recommend you depends on more than just the quality of your product. Whether your customers are consumers or businesses, their experience with your brand carries a big influence with their peers. This often extends even beyond their personal networks.
Presently, we are in the age of review sites. On the B2C side, you have sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. Alternatively, you have TrustRadius and others on the B2B side. All in all, it’s more important than ever to learn how to not only meet but exceed your customers’ expectations. A great customer experience can set you apart from your competitors. This is especially true in highly saturated markets where customers have many options to choose from.
Thankfully, there are plenty of experts in the field who blog about customer experience management (CXM or CEM for short), turning their own successes, failures, and observations into helpful advice, tips, and tricks for you. Curious about who knows their stuff and who to avoid? Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of the best customer experience leaders out there today. Here are the blogs you should be bookmarking. The first two blogs are created by a CX Software company. It is followed by five consulting firms, then eight individual bloggers that also do consulting work.
CX Software Blog
1. People Metrics
People Metrics, a software platform for CXM, maintains the blog theme of being “written by CEM experts who live and breathe customer experience every day.” The People Metrics blog feels like the equivalent of a positive motivational speech, with encouraging advice and praise for the customer experience above all. Having been awarded by Inc and Customer Guru, this blog boasts a clean and easy-to-navigate interface and caters to all industries—from pharmaceutical to nonprofit volunteers.
People Metrics gives you expert advice, tips, and real stories about how to develop your understanding and implementation of your customer experience strategy by setting goals, earning trust, and really putting yourself in your customers’ shoes. Altogether, with a laid-back and even humorous approach to their content, the People Metrics blog is entertaining, engaging, and educational. Blog highlight posts include “How to Keep Your Customers’ Data Secure” and “CEMs vs. CRMs (And Why You Need Both).”
2. ProProfs Customer Support
Equipped with experience and knowledge towards building a delightful customer support service, ProProfs Customer Support blog aims to bring all resources together that help businesses create better relations with clients. Avid readers of the blog will find strategies, latest updates, how to guides and even expert opinion on providing customer support service and boosting better experience. The blog content focuses on topics like “Top 10 Live Chat Etiquettes to Boost Customer Satisfaction” and “How to Provide a Delightful Customer Service Experience“.
3. Userlike Blog
Aimed at Mobile and Website support, Userlike pride’s itself on prioritizing providing excellent customer support by connecting businesses and their customers through live chat. The Userlike blog aims to provide service professionals with meaningful content centered around customer service and communication. They offer many articles based on how to build and train your customer support and success team. Check out their article about “The 10 Roles of Customer Success” to understand the many hats that customer success managers have to wear.
CX Consulting Groups
4. CX Journey
The consulting firm that runs this blog believes in the adage that success isn’t just a destination, but a journey. Overall, CX Journey focuses on helping you create a customer experience strategy for the best positive outcome, both on your end and the customers’. By using market research and a robust resume of consulting experience, CX Journey teaches readers how to adapt to customers’ evolving needs. One of their highlight blog articles include “8 Must-Read Posts to Start Your CX Strategy On the Right Foot,” and they also offer insight into employee experience through articles such as “We have a Crisis in Leadership.”
5. My Customer
My Customer dedicates itself to learning what drives human behavior, and how those motivations help map the customer journey and build customer loyalty. Run by Sift Media, a brand management company, My Customer offers an educational blog and downloadable reports and guides. Ultimately, their goal is to help you tailor your business for the most effective customer experience possible. The content gears towards businesses with customer experience initiatives in place already and allows roles focused on CX to network with their peers. Standout articles from their blog include “How to Ensure Your CX Training is Successful” and “4 Common Customer Journey Mapping Mistakes.”
6. Customer Experience Matters
With blog topics like “Benchmarking Your CX Organization” and “5 Promises That Define B2B Customer Success”, this blog offers content that’s a bit more metrics and data-driven. Led by Bruce Temkin (founder of the CX research and consulting firm Temkin Group), the blog’s research-backed topics offer a fascinating look at the customer journey. It takes on a perspective that’s a bit broader than just one company’s, industry’s, or individual’s experience managing customer experience. You can subscribe to blog articles like “15 CX Factoids: Customer Experience Efforts & ROI” and “15 Customer Experience Trends for 2018” for free. Additionally, Temkin also offers paid premium content, such as annual benchmark reports that are available to download on the site. Be sure to check out their posts.
7. 360 Connext
As a consulting firm specializing in customer experience, 360 Connext sees the frustrations on both sides of the experience—and it’s precisely what makes them CX experts. 360 Connext has a passion for identifying pain points and strengthening both the customer experience and business relationships. The team has a wealth of expertise that they share through workshops and free webinars, their podcast Crack the Customer Code, and their blog. Their content sheds light on topics like “How Do Smart Leaders Create the Best Experiences?” and “The Right Employees OWN the Customer Experience.”
8. Forrester
Created by a team of industry analysts, the Forrester blog for Customer Experience Professionals covers all facets of managing the customer experience, from strategy and people resources to marketing methods and technology requirements. Unlike some of the influencers who focus on customer service and support as key elements of CXM, the Forrester blog contains a lot of useful information for marketers who want to create a better pre-sale experience for customers (even before they’re technically customers!). Check out their posts on “Why Carl Jung Would Criticize Today’s Value-Based Marketing” and “Drive More Impact From Data and Analytics With Insights Storytelling.”
Individual Bloggers/Consultants
9. Conversation Agent
Featured on such media giants as Inc, Forbes, Business Week, and Fast Company, expert strategist Valeria Maltoni, aka Conversation Agent, is a frontrunner in the world of customer experience thought leaders. Valeria Maltoni infuses her blog with the expertise she delivers when helping companies—from Fortune 500s to medium size organizations— set goals and optimize their business practices. By and large, she takes a deeply humanistic approach, venturing into the psychology of business relationships. Some of her featured blog posts include “The Difference Between Strategy and Operational Effectiveness” and “Why Cognitive Empathy Matters, and How it Works in Tandem With Reason.”
10. Beyond Philosophy
Focusing on CX has become trendy in the past couple of years, but this consulting and training company has been forging the path for 15 years already. Beyond Philosophy is headed by customer experience expert, Colin Shaw, author of The Intuitive Customer: 7 imperatives for moving your Customer Experience to the next level, who is notable for being one of LinkedIn’s top 150 business influencers.
Altogether, Beyond Philosophy has worked with some of the most esteemed organizations worldwide, such as Microsoft and American Express. They offer consulting services, customer research, and much more. Check out their blog for a well-rounded and educational approach to customer experience analytics and the why behind different CX management techniques, with insightful content like ”Why Customers Create Shortcuts When Making a Decision” and “Why Should You Care If Your Company Is or Isn’t Built Around Stakeholder-Centricity? Here Are Some Key Factors to Consider.”
11. Jackie Huba
If you’re looking for a customer experience thought leader with a dynamic personality, Jackie Huba is someone you’ll want to follow. She moonlights as a female drag queen. Significantly, that very theatrical confidence landed her a book deal, as well as a TED Talk on the same topic. Her go-getter attitude makes her a sought-after keynote speaker and Forbes.com contributor who consults with some of the world’s most prestigious organizations like Yahoo and Paypal.
Jackie is well known in the social media world, rising from a marketing and digital consulting background. Truly, it’s easy to see why she is so popular. With book titles such as Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanatics, she merges her customer experience expertise with the Internet culture that drives it. All in all, she has a truly dynamic approach to human-focused marketing. Highlight blog articles include “Gaining Loyalty: Sometimes It’s As Simple As Responding When a Customer Reaches Out.”
12. Kerry Bodine
Customer experience consultant Kerry Bodine provides innovative and inspiring solutions to help businesses map their customer journey, with the end goal of exceeding customer expectations. Kerry Bodine is the author of Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business and a passionate customer experience consultant with an inspiring touch. Her blog, which focuses on a “human-centered design,” offers key insights and analysis of every facet of the modern customer experience landscape. Check out the thought-provoking op-ed posts like “Why You Need to Measure Journeys, Not Just Touchpoints” and “Do you think about the end of your customer relationships?”. Additionally, she includes roundups of CX events in different cities.
13. Shep Hyken
If there was ever a Tony Robbins of the customer experience world, Shep Hyken would be the man. This New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author has established quite a reputation for his expertise in the customer service field and was even inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for a lifetime achievement award. Fortunately, you don’t have to pay top-dollar for a weekend retreat with Shep. His blog gives you everything you need to know about creating a “customer service culture.” His content ranges from tips and industry updates to personal anecdotes and even a weekly newsletter to keep you focused. Sheps’ featured blog articles include “Why You Should Train Frontline Personnel to Be Great Listeners” and “The Power of the Last and Lasting Impression.”
14. Win The Customer
Flavio Martins has a passion for “architecting customer experiences and innovating customer service delivery.” In addition to his book Win the Customer: 70 Simple Rules for Sensational Service, he was awarded one of Huffington Post’s Top 100 Customer Experience Leaders title. Martins offers 15 years of experience and valuable insights on human behavior and how service interactions shape a customer’s relationship with your brand. Standout blog posts like “Up the Ante With Your On-Hold System to Win Over Customers” and “Empowering Your Customer Service Team With More Mobility” provide practical advice about how to improve service processes.
15. Customer Bliss
Jean Bliss serves as the founder and president of Customer Bliss and the co-founder of The Customer Experience Professionals Association. Moreover, she has a pretty impressive resume as a consultant, influencer, and the author of three books on the topic of CX— including Chief Customer Officer 2.0: How to Build Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine.
Altogether, she’s an all-around expert in helping businesses optimize CX journey, with the goal of increasing customer retention. Check out her wealth of insight on her blog, Customer Bliss. There, she dives deep into the whats and hows of improving customer loyalty in the modern marketing landscape. She includes tangible examples from companies that are doing it right. Standout articles are “Take Action Against These 4 Culprits That Hinder CX Growth” and “My Rock, My Story: How Airbnb Uses Customer Listening to Determine Goals.
16. Take Their Breath Away
Last, but certainly not least, is Take Their Breath Away, a simple, old-school blog and newsletter written by John R. Patterson and Chip Bell. Patterson and Bell give CX advice through narrative storytelling, a format that’s pretty unique among the blogs on this list. In Essence, their methodology, relevance, and expert insight is anything but simple or old school. These two CX experts have quite the impressive resume. Collectively, they’ve authored six best-selling books on the topic of CX. In addition, Leadership Excellence Magazine named Chip Bell one of the Top 30 Thought Leaders in America.
Together, they’ve helped countless Fortune 100 companies to “effectively integrate customer experience strategies and encourage customer and employee loyalty with efficient management. Check out their blog and don’t miss such articles as “Innovative Service: Delivering Service That Creates Customer Advocates” and “Connecting With Today’s Wired and Dangerous Customers.”
Whether you’re a seasoned business looking to brush up on the latest CX tips and industry trends, or you’re leading a transformation in your company’s overall strategy, hopefully, there’s something for you in these 14 customer experience blogs!
Know of any great customer experience blogs we’re missing? We’d love to hear about your favorites.