These days, customers aren't just looking for a great product or service. They want an experience that's smooth, hassle-free, and feels like it was designed just for them. If you're not delivering that, your competitors are ready and waiting to steal them away. Salesforce's "State of the Connected Customer" report makes it clear: 80% of customers say the experience a company offers is just as important as its products or services.

What will this emerging technology mean for service teams? Here are early thoughts.

Customer service organizations today are fighting an uphill battle. Service agents face record case volumes, and customers are frustrated by growing wait times. Often, to manage the caseload, agents will simultaneously work on multiple customers’ issues at once while waiting for data from legacy systems to load.

Starbucks customers say lines are getting long, and the wait times are probably making customers cranky as they wait 15 minutes or more for their coffee. But Starbucks says everything is fine--and that its staffing algorithm, which supposedly led to the line issue, is "upgraded," along with the company's staffing policies.

In November of last year, I spoke at the CX NXT - Customer Experience Summit in Dubai on the topic of failure, fumbles, and fiascos in customer experience. Now, we can all learn from failures, but rather than just doing a talk about service and experience mishaps and what we can learn from them specifically, I wanted to try and elevate the discussion to illustrate that failure is inherent in every organizational system and is something that we need to both acknowledge and do something about.

When I have an unreasonable customer, I have no problem encouraging them to do business elsewhere (again, after making reasonable attempts to satisfy them). The investment of time and emotional resources are often not worth trying to satisfy such a person. Better to lose one out of 50 customers--especially if that customer is taking 10 times the time and effort to deal with.

By the time we hit the age of 18, we have years of buying decisions behind us and generally feel like we’re too smart to be “sold” anything. Instead, we’re looking to be inspired to buy. Inspiring is the new selling. If you’re in sales or business development, one of the easiest ways to inspire customers is to show enthusiasm for your product. Arguably, there is nothing more contagious than enthusiasm, at least nothing that is still good for you.

The pandemic changed the world and customer expectations, and the most successful companies recognize that their customer experience needs to change in turn. But many leaders are deploying the same digital customer experience (CX) strategies that they used in 2019, thereby risking customer defection and dissatisfaction at a time when they can least afford it. This article addresses three common CX missteps, and strategies to address them before your competitors seize the opportunity. By engaging cross-functional teams in CX discussions and understanding customer values, leaders can ensure that their brand remains relevant for years to come.

Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, service robot technology has been on the rise in the past few years. Self-service automated kiosks are here to stay, and robots are the future of customer service. service robots must be designed and implemented the right way, otherwise customers — and human coworkers — will avoid interacting with them. Robot technology should not simply be added as a novelty, but carefully integrated to deliver value to customers and support employees — maintaining a balance between automation and human interaction.

Successful businesses focus on three core principles of their customer experience: They put the digital experience in the business context. They recognize that customers are not created equal. And they make zero-based decisions. Continuous improvement is fine, but it’s important to be willing to think from first principles, and to re-examine and justify what you are doing and what you could do differently. This helps ensure that the digital roadmap is prioritized and focused on the highest impact actions.

Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan apologized for over 15,000 canceled flights over the winter holidays. "I am extremely sorry. There's just no way to apologize enough. …The storm had an impact, but we had impacts beyond the storm," Jordan said in a letter. Despite the airline's stellar record in customer service, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of his recovery response, even after giving each impacted Southwest passenger 25,000 frequent flyer points. But Southwest did a lot correct in their attempt to regain betrayed passenger trust.

With the New Year just around the corner, it’s time to consider the new B2B sales strategies you may have been putting off. The B2B landscape is changing rapidly. New technology and changing economic environment are forcing companies to change plans. To stay ahead of the curve, sales leaders must adapt or fall behind. This article explores the 2023 sales landscape and how sales leaders can position their teams for greater success.

The fifth edition of Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report reveals how trust, personalisation, and digital-first experiences are increasingly central to meeting customer needs. Based on a global survey of consumers and business buyers, the report also highlights how customer expectations and behaviours have changed over time.

Customers are, more often than not, willing to talk about your business. When they do talk, the information they share is called customer feedback, and it can help you improve all aspects of your business. In this post, learn exactly what customer feedback is, why it’s important, and discover insight from HubSpot experts about the specific benefits it brings.

The constant connectivity. The steadfast march of technology. The "know everything" environment. It's all changing the way you, me, and your customers perceive a company or brand. In some cases, our perception is influenced by word of mouth — recommendations from friends, online reviews, tweets, and Facebook rants. In other cases, it's our own experiences — both online and off — that shape the way we think about a brand.

Think about the last time you received service that was exceptional. And by exceptional, I mean exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. How you were communicated with is often what shapes your impression — good or bad.

The fact is, better customer experiences are better for business. Great CX means your customers are happier, feel taken care of, and are more loyal—all of which leads to more profits. It takes the right tools and data to fuel those experiences, and a lot of it is already at your fingertips.

During the early stages of the pandemic, many B2B companies considered remote interactions as a temporary patch, a way to stay in touch with customers while sales reps were confined to their home offices. Now, it’s becoming clear that omnichannel is here to stay, and many businesses aren’t prepared for this permanent change.

The amount of product and service information available to B2B customers—reports, blogs, display ads, email marketing, and more—has become overwhelming, leading to indecision and a sharply reduced likelihood of making a substantive purchase.

The best reps have turned this conundrum into a prime selling opportunity. Above all else, they help buyers make sense of the information they’ve encountered. Their approach is a form of sensemaking, and it encompasses three broad activities.

"Embrace customer complaints" is probably a cringe-worthy idea to some of you. The thought of negative feedback may trigger something inside of you that frankly, makes you want to crumble up all the papers on your desk or just throw your laptop against the wall. Wait, please, help is on the way.

At my company, we LOVE to get negative feedback. It's rare and candidly, if there was a lot, maybe my team wouldn't embrace it as much. My company is able to do well even though we don't have a gold standard service method like The Ritz-Carlton hotel or follow ten core values like Zappos.

Recent transformations in the market have put power squarely in the hands of buyers. As a result, the world revolves around buyers and their needs.

That means sellers have to work harder than ever to attract buyers and convince them to purchase — not just once but every time. To forge these lasting customer relationships, sellers must create a world-class customer experience that engages customers and keeps them coming back.