“What blogs do you read?”

Answering this question a few times this week got me thinking about my favorite blogs, which triggered the idea to assemble them here as a resource for you. My list covers a spectrum of customer experience thought leaders and business innovators, so I will break the list up into a few posts. Of course, since customer experience is the signpost of THIS blog, I’ll start there.

If you’re a regular reader here you know my definition of customer experience. You’ve joined in conversations about the performance payoff that comes from clearly defining an ideal customer experience and then using it to drive decisions across your entire organization. This is customer experience as operating strategy. Among the peers I follow regularly, you’ll find some focus on service or marketing or emotions or expectations or brand. Some discuss mostly online experiences. Some live in a particular industry. All meaty discussions – here we go:

Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog: This blog comes from an assemblage of sharp minds in marketing and strategy innovation, who often refer to customer experience at the intersection of these two areas. With a variety of authors comes a variety of thinking, but overall I find posts here that pull readers out of the tactical and up to the larger “where is my business going?” plane. Posts to check out:

• Why you should listen to customers even if they’re wrong
• Measuring emotion in the customer experience

Customer Experience Matters: Bruce Temkin authors this blog. Bruce is a Vice President & Principal Analyst at Forrester Research and his focus is customer experience. You’ll find pieces of his research findings and practical examples of customer experience in today’s leading businesses. On whether customer experience drives financial performance outcomes, Bruce gets it. This one is a must read. Posts to check out:

• Customer experiences need work across channels
• Take 5 minutes to build customer loyalty

The Perfect Customer Experience: At the heart of journalist, former ad agency executive, and software marketer Dale Wolf’s blog is a post entitled “The perfect customer experience.” What a provocative conversation starter about a phrase that is often discussed but rarely defined. I enjoy the coverage of the operational excellence, technology, automation, and metrics elements of customer experience. Posts to check out:

• The perfect customer experience
• Is CRM the same as CEM?

Church of the Customer Blog: The great thing about this popular blog written by word of mouth and customer loyalty gurus Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, is the do-this-don’t-do-that real-world examples of companies doing good (and bad) for their customers. I find the posts here pithy and useful. Posts to check out:

• Hype vs. Excitement: Expanded
• The 1 book on . . .

Customers Rock!: This blog is written by Becky Carroll, president of Petra Consulting Group/Customers Rock! For me, Becky’s blog is a cornucopia of observations about the brand, service, employee, and loyalty elements of customer experience. You’ll find she incorporates guest and comments into her blog, too. Posts to check out:

• It’s about the relationships
• What does brand look like in a digital world

Experience Matters: Over at Harvard Business Publishing, Peter Meinholz the founding partner and president of Adaptive Path, an experience strategy and design firm, shares his insights on (often online) customer experiences that work and those that don’t. You’ll find Peter to be refreshingly direct and bold in his point of view. Posts to check out:

• How Nintendo delights their customers
• Tropicana’s marketing folly

 
More to come. In the meantime, what are some of your favorite customer experience blogs? What is it about a blog that keeps you coming back?