Introduction
This paper presents an annotated bibliography that will help one get acquainted with books that can help improve one’s communication skills when working with customers.
Annotated Bibliography
Purvis, C. (2020). The customer communication formula: How to communicate with your customers and boost your customer service brand. KDP Print US.
The first title on this list would be The Customer Communication Formula: How to Communicate with Your Customers and Boost Your Customer Service Brand. This book contains the so-called communication formula, combining friendliness, formality, and focus (Purvis, 2020). This formula should help customer service because these skills look helpful in this business.
According to Charlotte Purvis, one can achieve absolute professionalism by having three qualities from this formula (2020). Therefore, this book can help communicate with clients in various situations. Purvis’s book explains in simple language all the intricacies of communication and their application to a customer service practice in the present era.
Penn, M. J., & Fineman, M. (2019). Microtrends squared: The new small forces driving today’s significant disruptions. Simon & Schuster paperbacks.
The next book will be Microtrends Squared: The New Small Forces Driving Today’s Big Disruptions. One of the world’s leading sociologists and political technologists, Mark Penn, along with writer and entrepreneur Meredith Fineman, talks about how microtrends affect the world and business (2019). Global trends always arise from many microtrends, so navigating the trends in politics, economics, business, and culture is essential.
The authors talk about 50 new microtrends already influencing the future and present. For example, open marriages, marijuana legalization, biohacking, drones, and declining trust in banks (Penn & Fineman, 2019). These trends reflect people’s behavior in the modern world – businesses must consider them when developing new products and communication strategies.
Rackham, N. (2017). Spin selling. McGraw Hill Book Company.
Neil Rackham is a sales consultant, author of several books, and founder of the Huthwaite Inc. consulting company. Their clients are Google, Bank of America, MasterCard, IBM, UPS, and Johnson & Johnson (Rackham, 2017). The book is based on 12 years of research by Huthwaite. The bottom line is to understand how the laws of small sales differ from those of large sales.
The author and the team studied 35,000 situations, identified 116 factors that affect the completion of a transaction, and developed a spin-selling system – a technique for conducting meetings with a client (Rackham, 2017). They argue that the main thing is to ask the right questions and divide them into four types: situational, problematic, extracting, and guiding. The SPIN is the abbreviation for these types of questions.
Goldstein, N., Martin, S., & Cialdini, R. B. (2017). Yes! 60 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion. Profile.
Social psychology evangelist Dr. Robert Cialdini, educator Noah Goldstein, and entrepreneur Steve Martin talk about psychological tricks that can help one at work and with one’s loved ones. The authors claim that anyone will communicate more effectively (2017). One will learn how, by changing just a couple of words in an advertisement, one can significantly increase its effectiveness, which phrase in a letter will attract attention and provide one with a mandatory answer, how mood, appearance, and even the sound of a name affects the power of persuasion. The book is also worth reading to appreciate the role of positive and negative social proof in persuasion (Goldstein et al., 2017). Understand that when persuasion backfires, turn weaknesses into strengths using persuasion strategies.
Fader, P. S. (2018). The Customer Centricity Playbook: Implement a winning strategy driven by customer lifetime value. Wharton Digital Press.
Customer-centricity is where information about the client is put at the heart of the company’s marketing strategy. This approach will help identify current, and future customer needs to maximize long-term financial value (Fader, 2018). In other words, one’s information about customers becomes more accurate, and they stay with one longer and bring in more money.
The author also touches on the issue of marketing budgets: customer-centricity helps to spend less on marketing, increasing its effectiveness (Fader, 2018). This book details how to approach customers in a customer-centric way to improve one’s marketing strategy. In addition, the work also expresses the author’s personal experience in the customer service sphere.
Dew, R., & Allen, C. (2018). Customer experience innovation: How to get a lasting market edge. Emerald Publishing.
A successful breakthrough product and its customer experience make a company successful. Apple did not invent the first phone or player, but it dominates the market because it offers a unique experience: access to a music library or a high-quality camera (Dew & Allen, 2018). Using the example of small companies and corporate giants, the authors consistently tell one why it is necessary to create a customer experience and what to do so that customers always choose one. They also offer ready-made strategies for implementing Customer Experience in one’s business (Dew & Allen, 2018). Thus, with the help of this book, one can learn an advanced way of interacting with customers.
Goodman, J. A., & Broetzmann, S. M. (2019). Strategic Customer Service: Managing the customer experience to increase positive word of mouth, build loyalty, and maximize margins and profits. HarperCollins Leadership.
In Strategic Customer Service: Managing the Customer Experience to Increase Positive Word of Mouth, Build Loyalty, and Maximize Profits, professor and author of over 50 articles, John Goodman, writes about new technologies, analytics, and metrics in marketing. The reviews note that this edition gives an accurate picture of marketing in large companies. The writer talks in detail about the market, segments, target audience, differentiation, customer service, and sales channels (Goodman & Broetzmann, 2019). Formulas and calculations accompany the fundamental theoretical part; after each chapter, some questions will help evaluate new knowledge. This book is practical and valuable and can explain how to work with clients in a market environment.
Duncan T., & Duncan D. (2019). The 10 Golden Rules of Customer Service: & the Story of the $6,000 Egg. Sourcebooks, Incorporated.
This book is about how the over-complexity of services takes time, tests patience, and erodes trust. The simpler the area with which the client interacts, the easier it is for them to agree to the service. It does not matter if it is about buying a book or getting a mortgage (Duncan & Duncan, 2019). The authors are convinced that the more complex the field of activity, banking, insurance, and management, the more it benefits from the fact that it begins to put the client’s interests at the forefront. Duncan identifies them early on as the book’s writer, and their voice rings throughout as brash but not bullying, trustworthy, and easy to agree with (2019). They bring loads of case studies, including JetBlue, Southwest, Oxo, Google, Apple, Philips, IBM, the Cleveland Clinic, and Kaiser Permanente.
Hinson, R., Adeola, O., Nkrumah, K. O., Agyinasare, C., Adom, K., & Okoe, A. A. F. (2019). Customer service essentials: Lessons for Africa and beyond. Information Age Publishing, Inc.
Customer Service Essentials is a must-read and a definitive source of information on the effective management of customer service in Africa and beyond. Leveraging unique concepts and practices developed in the field of customer service management, this book uses case studies and vignettes to reinforce learnings, drawing parallels to real-life experiences (Hinson et al., 2019). The book is a valuable resource for individuals and organizations to achieve excellent customer service, increased productivity, and enhanced employee satisfaction. It explores the practical challenges of African customer service, examines critical success factors, and provides guidelines for effective customer engagement in this evolving, highly networked digital era (Hinson et al., 2019). Policymakers, directors, managers, and students will gain valuable and actionable insights into service management as they navigate the chapters.
DeLisi, R., & Michaeli, D. (2021). Digital Customer Service: Transforming Customer Experience for an on-screen world. Wiley.
Digital Customer Service: Transforming Customer Experience for an on-screen world describes the importance of digital technologies in working with clients. In the book, Michaeli talks about how the advent of Digital Customer Service promises to make interactions seamless and effortless by creating experiences that occur entirely on a customer’s screen, even when it is preferable to speak to an agent (DeLisi & Michaeli, 2021). The author makes it clear that customer service has changed significantly over the past ten years, mainly due to the development of digital technologies. In addition to changes in interaction technologies, the change in the psychology of the modern buyer is also affected.
Conclusion
Using the above-annotated bibliography, you can get a much deeper understanding of working with clients in any field. These books can help one reach a new level of customer interaction and succeed in this business.