10 Books for your CX Holiday Wishlist
Caught up on your CX reading this year? There’s still time! And with the holidays in full swing, there’s no better time to politely request some light reading as a stocking-stuffer. But what books to cozy up to the fire with, you ask?
Look no further; we’ve done some of the heavy lifting for you! These 10 CX authors and forward-thinkers each gave us some big ideas to think about this year, and they’re sure to give you more inspiration than Santa can stuff in his sleigh. We’ll be incorporating more than a few of their ideas going into 2020…at least, the ones we’re not using already!
- Marketing Rebellion — Mark Schaefer
- The Service Culture Handbook — Jeff Toister
- Indistractable — Nir Eyal
- ABM is B2B — Sangram Vajre
- Fizz — Ted Wright
- Customer What? — Ian Golding
- Customer Understanding — Annette Franz
- Winning at Social Customer Care — Dan Gingiss
- Fusion — Denise Lee Yohn
- The Experience Economy Updated Edition — Pine, Gilmore
Marketing Rebellion — Mark Schaefer
⭐Editor’s Pick: If there was one entry that really grabbed our attention this year, it was Mark Schaefer’s Marketing Rebellion. The message in this book resonates loud and clear across industries and verticals: no one likes to be ‘marketed to’ anymore. We’ve got to go to back providing authentic experiences to our customers.
The Marketing Rebellion is knocking at your door. Are you ready? In this book Mark Schaefer provides an achievable and realistic framework to help readers stay ahead of the curve by re-imagining marketing in a world where hyper-empowered consumers drive the business results. Through new research, singular insights, and inspiring case studies, this entertaining book challenges your view of what it means to be a marketer today and provides an innovative blueprint for business growth.
LISTEN TO MARK SCHAEFER ON: VOICES OF CX
The Service Culture Handbook — Jeff Toister
In The Service Culture Handbook, Jeff Toister helps you develop a customer-focused culture so powerful that your employees always seem to do the right thing, one where employees are obsessed with a culture of customer service. Whether you’re just beginning your journey, or have been working on culture for years, this handbook will prepare you to take the next step. The book is packed with actionable advice, straightforward exercises, and proven tools you can put straight to work.
LISTEN TO JEFF TOISTER ON: VOICES OF CX
Indistractable — Nir Eyal
It’s more difficult than ever to follow through on your best intentions. But that’s precisely the goal of Indistractable — to teach you how to break the habits that keep your focus on everything but the task at hand. It turns out, the problem isn’t as easy as just putting all your devices down, contrary to popular belief. Nir Eyal gives you the tools you need to become truly “indistractable”, and make your devices work for you instead of the other way around.
ABM is B2B — Sangram Vajre
In this book, Sangram Vajre and Eric Spett detail their signature TEAM — Target, Engage, Activate, and Measure — framework to transform your approach to market, increase sales, and retain your ideal customers. The TEAM framework coupled with the Account-Based Marketing (ABM) approach enables your company to focus on the target accounts, engage them in a meaningful way, activate the sales team with top tier accounts proactively, and finally measure success based on business outcomes over vanity metrics.
LISTEN TO SANGRAM VAJRE ON: VOICES OF CX
Fizz — Ted Wright
“Word of mouth marketing has always existed. We’ve just found a better and more efficient way to do it.” — Ted Wright
It may not be the oldest profession, but word of mouth is the oldest form of marketing (from when humans still wrote on stone tablets). It’s also the most effective. Now, Ted Wright has figured out how to execute WOMM in ways that are methodical, replicable, and consistent. In this guide, he reveals everything you need to know to create, drive, measure, and leverage word of mouth for maximum impact on your bottom line.
LISTEN TO TED WRIGHT ON: VOICES OF CX
Customer What? — Ian Golding
Part practice handbook, part novel, part therapy, Customer What? is divided into four sections — each contains an overview of what needs doing; a set of practical activities and approaches to help you do it; and a story or two to illuminate your path. The book is written in four parts — the fundamentals, culture, making it happen, and sustaining. How you go about driving change is just as important as what you do, and in what order. The book outlines a step-by-step blueprint for CX success that will leave you with a scientific process for outstanding results.
LISTEN TO IAN GOLDING ON: VOICES OF CX
Customer Understanding — Annette Franz
Annette Franz is a widely respected speaker and author in the field of Customer Experience. She is also a strong evangelist of Employee Experience and corporate culture and brings a refreshing perspective with Customer Understanding — the guide to putting the “customer” in customer experience. In this book, Annette covers the three approaches to customer understanding: surveys and data, personas, and journey mapping. And spoiler alert: it all starts with a company culture that deliberately puts the customer at the heart of its CX efforts.
LISTEN TO ANNETTE FRANZ ON: VOICES OF CX
Winning at Social Customer Care — Dan Gingiss
Dan Gingiss is one of the biggest CX speakers in the current conference circuit. His in-depth knowledge and know-how on both Customer Experience and Social Customer Care make him a two-edged sword when dealing with today’s market. From his conversations with dozens of business leaders and his own real-world experience at multiple Fortune 300 companies, Dan has developed a series of best practices called “8 Steps to Winning at Social Customer Care.” Don’t miss him breaking these steps down in his book and on our podcast as well.
LISTEN TO DAN GINGISS ON: VOICES OF CX
FUSION — Denise Lee Yohn
Brand and culture are powerful business drivers. But Denise shows that when you fuse the two together to create a mutually reinforcing relationship between them, you create organizational power that isn’t possible through one or the other alone. The book includes detailed case studies from companies like Amazon, Airbnb, Adobe, Nike, and Salesforce. Combined with interviews with company executives and insights from Denise’s 25+ years working with world class brands, FUSION provides readers with a roadmap for increasing competitiveness, creating measurable value for customers and employees, and future-proofing their business.
LISTEN TO DENISE LEE YOHN ON: VOICES OF CX
The Experience Economy: Updated Edition — Pine, Gilmore
Joe Pine and James Gilmore’s updated book focuses on the concept of the customer experience, and how in recent years it has been more and more distinct from goods and services. The authors posit that quality goods and services are no longer enough — that there is also value in creating memorable experiences for customers. The book offers several original and creative ways companies can create these kinds of experiences for their customers, and offer examples from successful companies like Disney to illustrate how important experience is as a value proposition for customers.
