Articles

  • What does AI Think its Good For in Customer Service?

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    Now that Chat GPT has gotten so good at writing articles—or at least first drafts of articles, I decided to ask Chat GPT 3.5 to write an article about using AI for customer service. My instructions were: “Please write a short (500-word) article about the pros and cons of using GPT for customer service in the style of Patricia Seybold, the author of Customers.com, The Customer Revolution, and Outside Innovation, as well as many articles which are found on her web site at www.customers.com.” Here, you’ll see the resulting article, generated almost 100% by Chat GPT (except for typos and missing words). As a writer, I found it a little scary! As a consultant, I’m intrigued when I think about how much time I can save doing research, while focusing my intellect and experience on the challenges I’m trying to help clients address.
    Jun. 15, 2023
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  • The Evolution of African Rural University

    Co-Designed by Its Faculty, Students, and End-Customers (People the Grads Will Serve)

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    Discover how 29 young Ugandan women helped shape a unique innovative educational institution. Learn how necessity led them to create a new profession. Find out how a university should measure its success.
    Jan. 5, 2023
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  • Identifying the RIGHT Customers for CABs

    You Want Customers with Insights and Passion for the “Jobs” They Do

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    Whom should you invite to be on your Customer Advisory Board? The answers may surprise you. Try recruiting insightful, strategic thinking end-users rather than purchasers or decision-makers.
    Nov. 15, 2022
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  • How Customers Want to Get Their Products Fixed and Problems Resolved

    Identifying and Measuring the Key Moments of Truth in "Break/Fix" Customer Scenario® Patterns

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    When something breaks, customers want it fixed! And they want a common set of actions. Learn about this customer scenario pattern.
    Sep. 22, 2022
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  • Three Mistakes that Make Customer Co-Design a Waste of Time and Money

    Don’t Bother If You Aren’t Going to Take Advantage of Your Customers’ Input

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    Not every customer co-design initiative nets improved customer relationships and financial gains. Avoid these costly errors to reap the rewards you and your customers want.
    Apr. 22, 2022
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  • There’s Gold in Those Customer Metrics!

    Mine Them Well and Reap the Benefits of Loyalty and Increased Business

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    What do your customers care about and how do they measure how well you help them succeed? The key is capturing Customer’s Success Metrics. Once you have, you can keep track of how well you’re doing and identify new opportunities for your company.
    Sep. 23, 2021
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  • 10 Characteristics of Customer-Centric Execs

    How Many Do You Embody?

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    Here are 10 characteristics that every customer-centric executive should demonstrate. They range from having a customer vision to monitoring what matters to customers. How well do you stack up?
    Jul. 17, 2021
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  • How Customers Want to Find and Purchase Your Products/Services

    Identifying and Measuring the Key Moments of Truth in "Select & Buy" Customer Scenario® Patterns

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    Each customer’s context is different, but there are patterns to what they care about in common scenarios. Measure how well you meet these customer priorities to ensure success.
    Apr. 5, 2021
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  • How Customers Want to Buy More of Your Products

    Identifying and Measuring the Key Moments of Truth in Reorder/Renew/Replenish Customer Scenario® Patterns

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    What happens when a customer runs out of the needed product he gets from you; or a values service expires? There is a common set of action that customers want to happen to reorder and ensure that they never run out again. Learn more about this customer scenario pattern!
    Nov. 6, 2020
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  • Top 12 CX Issues for Business Customers

    How to Improve Customer Experience thru your Customer's Lifecycle

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    What does it take to satisfy your business customers? A lot. First, you need to understand who they are, what jobs they are doing, and where your products and services fit in. Next, you need to know where the pitfalls are likely to be in the customer journey as they engage with your firm and your products throughout the lifecycle of their relationship with you. We have worked with thousands of businesses and their customers over the past three decades. We have identified recurring customer experience expectations and patterns from these co-design sessions. In this article, we summarize the dozen customer-critical customer experience issues that are cuurently the most prevalent in B2B accounts. Then we report on what customers' expectations are and suggest ways you could meet those expectations.
    Aug. 8, 2020
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  • The History of Customer Scenario Design

    Co-Designed and Evolved with Customers

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    Hear the story of how we co-designed our Customer Scenario Mapping methodology with our lead customers.
    Mar. 20, 2020
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  • Secret to Successful Customer Engagements

    Beware of These Four Things that Will Doom Your Customer-Centric Initiatives

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    If you want to involve customers in co-designing products, services, and/or customer-impacting business processes, you should know about, and avoid, these four common pitfalls.
    Nov. 15, 2019
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  • 10 Requirements for Personal Information in Health & Fitness Apps and Patient Portals

    Personal Health Records Will Flip Control in the Healthcare Industry from Payers to Patients

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    Customers want control over their health and medical information. What’s needed for a new wave of health & fitness apps? 
    Sep. 11, 2019
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  • Getting the Desired Outcome Right

    Citizens Bank Did a Good Job Selling a Prospect, but Couldn’t Meet the Ultimate Goal

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    Do you consider a prospective customer’s scenario when pitching them? Do you understand the desired outcome, the priorities, and the emotional concerns they have? If you do, you can sell much more effectively.
    May. 29, 2019
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  • Customer Experience and Operational Excellence Success in B2B

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    Read why it's best practice to combine your Customer Experience initiatives with your Operational Excellence initiatives. You'll streamline business processes and reduce cycle time in the areas that matter most to customers.
    Jan. 26, 2018
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  • Salesforce Service Cloud Summer 17

    Enterprise-Class Case & Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Communities, Search, & Social Customer Service

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    Salesforce Service Cloud is a product in transition. By June, 2018, some of the newer features will be better integrated. This review of the current version of Service Cloud provides an accurate picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the current offering. Many Service Cloud features already use the new Lighning user interface. But other features, including apps for many mobile devices, are still awaiting Lightning support.
    Jan. 25, 2018
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  • Virtual Assistant Update

    Technologies, Products, Suppliers, Customers, Markets

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    What's hot in customer service? Virtual Assistants extend customer self-service options by providing accurate answers to context-rich questions that customers have. Today's virtual agents are omni-channel: they can be accessed via smartphone, regular phone, web, or texting. Here is an update covering 2017 market leading virtual assistants from [24]7, Creative Virtual, IBM, Next IT, and Nuance.
    Jun. 23, 2017
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  • Microsoft: Competitive in Customer Service

    Microsoft Now has a Serious Customer Service Offering: Dynamics 365 for Customer Service

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    Here's an overview of Microsoft's latest customer service offering: Dynamics 365 Customer Service. It can be deployed in-house or in the cloud.  It is only appropriate for enterprise accounts and large non-profits. Microsoft does not yet offer a competitive SMB offering for customer service.
    Dec. 5, 2016
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  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service

    Broad Cross-Channel Customer Service Capabilities

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    Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service packages case management, knowledge management, communities/forums, and social customer service capabilities on assisted-service, self-service, and social customer service channels for large and enterprise-class businesses. Read our evaluation in this report.
    Nov. 30, 2016
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  • Desk.com from Salesforce.com

    Customer Service for Small to Midsize Organizations

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    Desk.com is Salesforce.com's cloud-based customer service offering for very small to medium-sized businesses. Its strengths include case management and reporting capabilities, as well as channel and mobile device support. Desk.com’s knowledge model and knowledge management services support multiple languages very well.
    Jun. 15, 2016
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