Customer experience, as any business phenomenon, has been disrupted over the past years. Start-ups strive to align customer happiness and brand values and the SaaS revolution has changed the way customer lifecycle is approached, measured and valued. Customers are now more than ever an asset to the company.
Customer experience has undergone a dramatic transformation for some time now with a shift from helping companies delight, convert and retain customers to what it is today, mainly focused on aligning strategy, process and culture to audiences’ lifecycle expectations.
Because customer experience is so important, we have put together a curated list of go-to resources.
The True Definition of Customer Experience
Customer Experience (CX) is a customer’s perception of their rational, physical, emotional, subconscious, and psychological interaction with any part of an organisation.
Understanding the Concept
Customer experience has become a very commonly used phrase in recent years, but like ‘innovation’ and ‘design’ it is actually difficult to find a clear, commonly-held definition, even though many businesses see improving their customer experience as a competitive differentiator.
Customer Experience is Today’s Business Benchmark
How the advent of social media and real-time interactive feedback via the Internet allows every customer to build and expect a relationship with your business, rather than just touch-points
Customer Experience is a Culture Problem
Customer experience is in the process of being redefined. It’s not software that automates engagement or predicts which customer an employee should or should not pay attention to.
Top Customer Experience Media
CX Network
CX Network provides global customer experience, service, insight, digital and marketing leaders with high quality content, including expertly produced market reports, CX TALK videos, industry interviews, infographics, case studies, podcasts and more.
The Forrester Blog
Independent knowledge partner of CX Network, Forrester’s blog is a go-to resource for customer experience professionals.
The Clarabridge Blog
Full of actionable insight, this blog is at a crossroads between community, technology, customer experience, marketing and empathy. Clarabridge is also a CX Network sponsor.
Aircall Blog
This blog covers a wide range of customer related topics, from CX and customer service to customer success, call centre tips and best practices.
The Satmetrix Blog
A very handy resource for all things customer related, which is especially focused on customer experience and customer journeys.
The 360Connext Blog
As Jeannie Walters highlights, this blog is about ‘all the magical experiences’ that don’t arrive by magic.
The People Metrics Blog
The customer experience management blog written by CEM software and service experts who live and breathe customer centricity every day.
The Heart of the Customer Blog
A lot of useful tips for an in-depth understanding of customer experience.
1to1 Media
1to1 is the go-to multimedia resource for CRM and customer service professionals.
Retail Customer Experience
Because customer experience is not fully approached without talking about retail, here is the must-know retail customer experience resource.
Top Customer Experience Influencers
Kerry Bodine
Kerry is a CX Network Advisory Board member and an independent customer experience consultant with expertise in human-centred design, marketing, and branding. She helps executives co-create innovative products, services, and experiences that truly matter — for their customers, for their employees, and for their business.
Bruce Temkin
Part of the Temkin Group, Bruce is widely viewed as a customer experience visionary. He has helped hundreds of large organisations to define and accelerate their customer experience journeys. He is also the past chair and co-founder of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA).
Steve B. Towers
A seasoned practitioner with 35+ years of hands-on experience, Steve is one of the industry’s noted experts in Business Process Management (BPM), Customer Experience Management (CEM), Outside In & the High Performance Organization (HPO). He leads the professional network within the BP Group.
Blake Morgan
Blake is #20 on ICMI’s top 50 thought leaders of 2015 and a frequent speaker and writer on the topic of customer experience. She is also highly involved with SOCAP, the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals, and serve as the VP Marketing and Communications for the North West Chapter. Blake is also a Forbes contributor.
Eric Tamblyn
Customer experience and journey professional, Eric knows a great deal about customers. He’s the VP Cloud Sales at Genesys.
Natalie Petouhoff
A radio and television guest expert, Natalie provides insights on how the top companies use great experiences to retain loyal customers. She also speaks about how social media is changing business as we know it.
Steve Levine
Steve’s expertise includes digital marketing, user experience, customer journey, and even traditional market research. He especially enjoys helping non-profits and start-ups. Other areas of interests are mobile and innovation.
Annette Franz
Annette is passionate about helping companies understand the importance of the employee experience and its role in delivering an exceptional customer experience, as well as how to transform their cultures to ensure the customer is at the centre of every conversation. You can find her blogging at CX Journey.
Micah Solomon
Author, keynote speaker, customer experience consultant, customer service thought leader and an expert on consumer trends, Micah contributes to Forbes and offers free resources at www.micahsolomon.com.
Don Peppers
Don is a business executive, author, keynote speaker, and a founding partner of Peppers & Rogers Group, a customer-centric management consulting firm.
Martha Rogers
Dr. Martha Rogers is an author, customer strategist, and founding partner of Peppers & Rogers Group. Her work is published in academic and trade journals, including the Harvard Business Review, Journal of Advertising Research, and the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing.
Top Customer Experience Books
Hooked on Customers
Written by Bob Thompson this is a must-have for any business leader who wants to have a healthy relationship with customers.
Customer Experience 3.0: High-Profit Strategies in the Age of Techno Service
Author John Goodman provides first hand guidance on what customer strategies work and what don’t – and the revenue and word-of-mouth payoff of getting it right.
Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Centre of Your Business
Based on fourteen years of research by the customer experience leaders at Forrester Research – Kerry Bodine and Harley Manning – Outside In offers a complete roadmap to attaining the experience advantage.
Customer Experience: What, How and Why Now
If you’re looking for advice on how to think about, improve, and deliver a better customer experience, then this book written by Don Peppers is for you.
Chief Customer Officer 2.0: How to Build Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine
Written by Jeanne Bliss, Chief Customer Officer 2.0 will give you a proven framework that has launched and advanced the customer experience transformation in businesses in every vertical around the world.
Customer Experience 365: Daily Advice for Better Customer Service
Author Roy Barnes has filled this book with insight and humour. Customer Experience 365 reminds us of the key enablers of great service: empathy, listening, genuine care and, most of all, quick action.
SEE ALSO: 30-Minute Customer Experience Remodel Webinar: Creating a Customer-Oriented Culture
Do you have any customer experience media, influencers, books or other resources to add to this list? Email Zarina.deRuiter@iqpc.com with more information.