Ten books on improving customer service

One of the best ways to improve your business is to actively seek new learning opportunities. That’s why many business owners, employees, and stakeholders choose to read books that add to their business knowledge, improve their strategies, and inspire proactive change. It’s impossible to read all these books which is why we’ve put together this list of our top ten choices to help you take your customer service to the next level. 

The Nordstrom Way to Customer Experience Excellence

Creating a Values-Driven Service Culture

Written by Robert Spector and BreAnne O. Reeves, this book delves into the core values that turned the Nordstrom brand into a leading luxury department store chain, renowned for its customer-centric approach. Former Co-President Blake Nordstrom summed it up perfectly by when he said, 'The best way for our company to achieve results is to do what's best for the customer.'

In this book you’ll discover: 

• How to provide Nordstrom-level customer service in your industry.
• 10 principles that shape a customer-focused company.
• Practical strategies for delivering exceptional experiences across all touchpoints in the buyer’s journey. 
• Interviews with high-level executives and the Nordstrom family. 
• Tools to implement within your business to improve your Customer Experience.  

The Amazement Revolution

Seven Customer Service Strategies to Create an Amazing Customer (and Employee) Experience 

This New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller by Shep Hyken gives readers seven highly effective strategies that anyone can apply to their organization. These tactics lead to significant increases in both customer and employee satisfaction by changing the way businesses interact with their audience. 

The seven strategies include: 

• Treating customers like members of the brand community. 
• Incorporating fun and entertainment into the customer journey. 
• Thinking of customers as partners, not just another faceless transaction.
• Hiring the best employees with innovative HR processes. 
• Improving the post-purchase experience. 
• Generating positive word-of-mouth marketing through a network of loyal customers. 
• Building a culture of proactive, excellent customer service. 

Hug Your Haters

How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers 

This book, by bestselling author Jay Baer, is all about how to handle unhappy customers. Dealing with these potential detractors is a core part of customer service because, if done well, it can stop them from jumping ship. 

In this book, you’ll find techniques for dealing with critics with both empathy and efficiency. No matter what type of business you run, Baer’s tips, anecdotes, and case studies will give you the perspective you need to address complaints, turn haters into promoters, and turn negativity into growth. 

Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit

The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization 

The message in this book is clear – the most powerful driver of growth is customer loyalty. That’s because loyal customers are more forgiving and more likely to recommend the brand to others. Authors Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon explain how to provide superior service that guarantees customer loyalty, both online and offline. 

The insights in the book are proven to work, as demonstrated by many successful businesses, including the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, luxury giant BVLGARI, Solomon’s entertainment, Carquest, and the technology company Oasis.

The Effortless Experience

Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty

In this book, authors Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, and Rick DeLisi rethink conventional marketing wisdom. Many brands subscribe to the belief that customer loyalty is only earned by going above and beyond expectations. But this book has a different angle, explaining that it’s more important to meet expectations consistently. For the most part, customers don’t need to be amazed, they just want an easy and seamless Customer Experience. This book tells you how to deliver constant, reliable service and build that enduring trust with customers. 

Digital Customer Service

Transforming Customer Experience for an On-Screen World

Our world is becoming increasingly digital and the customer service sector is no exception. Digital Customer Service (DCS) promises to make customer interactions effortless, but in some cases, the digital takeover could be detracting from a business’s success. This book by Rick Delisi and Dan Michaeli explores three key pillars of Customer Service that must be balanced:

• Creating a Customer Experience that encourages retention and satisfaction. 
• Keeping costs of customer service low while keeping sales high. 
• Moving with the times and seeking “digital transformation” where appropriate.

Uncommon Service

How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business 

In this book, authors Frances Frei and Anne Morriss delve into putting customers at the heart of your business. Instead of viewing customer service as an afterthought, you can use it to boost productivity, profitability, and get an edge over your competitors.  

The key questions this book poses are: 

• How do customers define “excellence”? It could be accessibility, helpfulness, affordability, for example.  
• How will customers pay for excellence? Will you charge higher prices? Or increase self-service?  
• How will you empower employees to provide excellent service? This starts with recruiting, training, and team culture. 
• How do you want customers to behave? You can influence this with design, communication, and new technologies. 

Be Our Guest

Perfecting the Art of Customer Service 

The Disney Institute and Theodore Kinni wrote this book to share the best practices that have served Disney well for over eighty-five years. It helps professionals to apply these revolutionary concepts in their own workplaces, no matter where they’re based or what industry they operate in. In fact, businesses from more than thirty-five countries have worked with the Disney Institute to apply these principles to their respective customer base, with resounding success. 

Strategic Customer Service

Managing the Customer Experience to Increase Positive Word of Mouth, Build Loyalty, and Maximize Profits

This book unpacks all the customer service wisdom John Goodman has picked up in his time as a Customer Care and Measurement consultant. You’ll find out how to leverage customer service to convert customers into effective word-of-mouth marketers and loyal paying investors. With decades of experience working with globally successful companies like Coca-Cola, Cisco Systems, American Express, and Toyota, this is advice you can rely on. With his tips, any company can convert more customers and increase sales by learning to incorporate customer service principles in the corporate strategy. 

The book digs into: 

• The financial impact of good and bad customer service. 
• Getting buy-in from senior leadership for customer service improvements.
• Identifying common problems and causes with efficient systems.
• Integrating good customer service into the brand identity. 
• Aligning customer service strategies with the internal culture of the organisation.  

Delivering Happiness

A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Zappos is a hugely successful online retailer with over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales every year. In this book, CEO Tony Heish shares the tactics that helped to establish Zappos as one of Fortune magazine’s “Best Companies to Work For” and led to a $1.2 billion deal with Amazon. 

Delivering Happiness is a fast-paced and down-to-earth guide to improving company culture for the benefit of both customers and employees. The various tactics it covers include: 

• Making everyone in the company responsible for quality customer service. 
• Improving company culture and maintaining it. 
• Running a business based on research about the science of happiness. 
• Providing opportunities for employees to grow professionally and personally. 

Improving your customer service 

Businesses are beginning to realise that quality customer service is a key driver of success, hence why they’re looking for expert advice from these best-selling authors. If you want to improve your customer service, it’s important to implement a strategy that measures and analyses customer satisfaction through feedback. This helps you to make practical improvements, extract valuable insights, and give your customers what they need sooner. 

To get started, you can sign up for more tips or download our free guide where you’ll find everything you need to implement a customer feedback strategy.