5 Must-Read Customer Support Books

Kevin Leonor notes that the foundation of customer success lies in understanding the customer journey and recognizing your value events and where you need to be mindful of your experience pitfalls. Business owners and digital markets also work hard to attract new leads, but just because you land their contact information doesn’t mean you’ve sealed…

Zight | December 28, 2021 | 7 min read time

Article Last Updated: September 08, 2023

5 Must-Read Customer Support Books

Table of Contents

Kevin Leonor notes that the foundation of customer success lies in understanding the customer journey and recognizing your value events and where you need to be mindful of your experience pitfalls. Business owners and digital markets also work hard to attract new leads, but just because you land their contact information doesn’t mean you’ve sealed the deal. Excellent customer support requires an effective lead nurturing process, along with an outstanding customer experience in this book Gingiss to improve customer retention rates across each stage of the marketing funnel.

That’s crucial, especially now that most companies adopt subscription pricing and recurring revenue models that require them to deliver outstanding customer experiences month after month. 

Customer support should always be a top priority for businesses, though some brands don’t know how to excel in this area because the market keeps changing. Today, customers have higher expectations for businesses than ever before, and as new platforms and technology emerge, companies must keep up.

Fortunately, plenty of great resources out there can help you provide excellent customer support. This article will look at 5 of the best customer support books that can help you deliver outstanding customer experiences in the year 2022 and beyond. 

1. The Seven Pillars of Customer Success by Wayne McCulloch

Wayne McCulloh is a Top 100 Customer Success Strategist with over 25 years of experience in customer support and success. His book The Seven Pillars of Customer Success offers readers a comprehensive framework to drive impactful customer support outcomes for any brand.

McCulloh teaches his readers to build a firm foundation by leveraging a “customer success culture.” The seven pillars act as individual building blocks that companies can leverage to build their foundation around. 

In this book, McCulloh notes that the key to creating loyal and lifelong customer bases is your customer success team. To achieve that, your customer support team must help you deliver on the promise of why a potential client became a customer. That requires a thorough investment into the entire customer journey. Also, it means your customer support must be immersed deeply in your customer’s journey. They should be readily available to help your customers derive maximum value from your products and services to improve customer trust and loyalty.

Most directors with decades of experience in customer support across multiple industries recommend this book as one of the go-to best customer support books.

2. Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue by Nick Metha, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy

This book is written by three authors: Nick Metha, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy, who have distinctive experience in customer support and success. 

This book is divided into three distinct sections. The first section defines the term ‘customer success’ and how many businesses in the SaaS industry are shifting to subscription-based models. Also, the authors note companies can get an accurate idea of their growth and profitability by keeping their customers happy. The book also features some valuable pointers on how to reduce customer churn rates:

  • Provide increased value for existing customers;
  • Deliver outstanding customer experiences and ensure all customers are happy with your products; and 
  • View customer success as a business-wide change.

 

The second section explores the ten laws of customer success. This section explores how business owners can build a successful recurring revenue business and be great at customer support and success. 

The third section is called Chief Customer Officer, Technology, and the Future, and it points out that customer success is a new function and hiring the people to fill this role is crucial. 

This book is an excellent read for business owners to understand why more businesses and customers are adopting subscription-based revenue models and why it’s crucial for companies to consistently provide value to their customers.

3. Farm Don’t Hunt: The Definitive Guide For Customer Success by Guy Nirpaz and Fernando Pizarro

Farm Don’t Hunt: The Definitive Guide for Customer Success is written by Guy Nirpaz and Fernando Pizarro. Besides being an informative read, it’s also fun and engaging. 

Nirpaz and Pizarro argue that traditionally, businesses have a “hunting” mentality to attract new customers enough to generate more sales. Still, with the new normal of subscription-based recurring revenue models, it’s crucial to “farm” and nurture existing customers instead. 

This book is an excellent read for those looking to learn more about how they can offer more value to their customers at every stage of the customer journey and optimize their company’s Customer Success program.

Nirpaz and Fernando advise business owners to implement:

  • A revenue model that helps customer support and success teams speak the same language.
  • An analytical framework for customer support efforts.

 

Since it’s easier to farm than hunt, Nirpaz and Fernando explain how making a sale is no longer a defining moment in a business relationship, from the consumer’s view, but what matters is the relationship built afterward.

Nirpaz is one of the earliest pioneers of customer success, and this book reflects on that because it’s full of actionable advice for transitioning your business to adopt this model. So every B2B brand must grab their copy to learn how to deliver value to their customers and improve the customer lifetime value (CLV).

4. Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman

Although reducing customer churn rates to zero is impossible, the truth is that the strategies discussed in Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman can help you get a little closer to achieving that goal.

Coleman’s primary focus isn’t on the strategies that can help you gain lead information or even close sales. Instead, this book’s entire focus is on what happens during a customer’s or user’s first 100 days after they’ve purchased your product and how you can leverage every interaction and touchpoint to improve brand advocacy and create loyal customers.

The idea is to keep customers as excited about your products as they were when they discovered your app or product and focus more on frequent drop-offs that most brands experience within the first 100 days.

Customer onboarding is an essential part of this book, and it’s fundamental in starting off strong with your clients. Also, the book dives into anticipating customers’ needs and emotions so that you can be ready through video, in-person, or email to deliver maximum value and create long-lasting relationships.

This book takes its readers through the entire customer journey once customers have made the first purchase, guiding you on where you need to go next.

5. The Experience Maker by Dan Gingiss

In this book, Dan Gingiss notes that nowadays, competition is stiffer than ever before, and competing based on your product or price alone no longer works well. So how can your brand stand out in a crowded market that is constantly changing? 

That’s why customer experience comes in handy, and the good thing is that customer experience is delivered by customer support agents who are unique to every company. In The Experience Maker, Gingiss helps customer support managers and other executives focus on clients who are already spending their money on their brand instead of attracting new customers. Gingiss teaches that delivering an excellent customer experience can ensure customers become a brand’s top referral sources and salespeople in this book. 

By learning from other brands and implementing the proprietary WISER (Witty, Immersive, Shareable, Extraordinary, and Responsible) method, executives and managers can create outstanding customer experiences that encourage their customers to refer their brand to their family, friends, and social media followers. 

This book is an excellent read for those looking to provide a better customer experience to their existing customers and create a pool of raving fans and brand advocates.

 

Final Thoughts

By now, you know the value that comes from investing in customer support and delivering excellent customer experiences, even if you don’t have a formal customer support program or team yet. If you’re looking to optimize your customer success strategy, any of these five customer support books can guide you through your journey.

There’s always a lot more to learn. So, top customer support experts and strategists created these excellent resources to offer honest and actionable advice, strategies, and templates to help you scale your business. 

Zight (formerly CloudApp) is an excellent customer support software that helps customer support teams provide outstanding customer experiences and reduce customer churn rates. For instance, the customer support team at Outreach saves 21 hours per week by leveraging Zight (formerly CloudApp) to report bugs and fixes. As a result, Zight (formerly CloudApp) saves the customer support team at Outreach a lot of time, allowing them to handle urgent and important tasks.

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