8 Best Customer Service Books of All Time

Customer service is both art and science, and as such, it has accumulated a wealth of knowledge, experience, and history.
There are principles and best practices that work for most businesses, and customer service experts are willing to share them expressing their ideas in dedicated customer service books.

We believe that studying books by customer service experts should be one of the basic components of any business’ service strategy.

We have put together our list of the top eight books on customer service that can help in building your customer relations and improving customer loyalty.
Of course, there are many more books out there, but we decided to recommend the best books in different areas related to customer service.

For our list, we have chosen the books that look at customer service from different angles and can teach the reader various service-related techniques.

OK, we hope your e-books are fully charged – let’s start!

Top 8 customer service books

#1 The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk

• Print Length: 277 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (March 8, 2011)
• Publication Date: March 8, 2011
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English

Type: book on building personalized relations with customers

Even though this book was written almost a decade ago, it is still very relevant to today’s businesses.

In The Thank You Economy, Gary Vaynerchuk, an American entrepreneur, author, CEO of VaynerMedia and expert in digital marketing, proves that you can achieve better success by establishing a personalized and attentive approach to your customers than by focusing primarily on the profit.

Today’s customers value honesty and creativity and can always detect true and authentic statements. By taking such an approach, a business has better chances of not only retaining its customers but also of triggering powerful viral marketing loops bringing more users and increasing its brand awareness.

Rating: 4.5/5 – 261 customer reviews

Where to buy: Amazon

#2 The Amazement Revolution: Seven Customer Service Strategies to Create an Amazing Customer (and Employee) Experience by Shep Hyken

• Print Length: 229 pages
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group (April 4, 2011)
• Publication Date: April 4, 2011
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English

Type: book on customer service strategy

This book by Shep Hyken, a renowned American customer service expert and speaker, is full of realistic examples and business models where you will definitely find a couple to identify with.

Moreover, you may be a business owner, a manager or a service agent – you will still find a lot of useful takeaways, as the book is focused on building wonderful customer experiences at any level. 

In his no-nonsense approach, the author offers seven customer service strategies that work. All of them are aimed at building both customer retention and employee loyalty.
Thus, by adopting one or several of them, you can create a working environment that your agents are comfortable with and, as a result, will communicate their satisfaction with the company to customers.

Rating: 4.6/5 – 307 customer reviews

Where to buy: Amazon

#3 Customer Experience 3.0: High-Profit Strategies in the Age of Techno Service by John Goodman

• Print Length: 279 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM (August 12, 2014)
• Publication Date: August 12, 2014
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English

Type: book on creating great customer experiences and the tools to use

In the age of advanced technology, it would be rather unwise not to use the advantages of tools that were specially created to assist marketing campaigns.
This is what John Goodman, a customer service expert with about 1,000 studies in the field, is stating in his book, Customer Experience 3.0.

The book provides step-by-step guidelines on all components and stages of building customer experiences, from designing the customer service operation to practical instructions on using tools and metrics that show how well your team is performing.
The techniques John Goodman offers allow you to anticipate your customers’ expectations and amaze them with great experiences. 

Rating: 4.3/5 – 27 customer reviews

Where to buy: Amazon

Some of the metrics you come across in Customer Experience 3.0 are available in popular customer service tools on the market. For example, the HelpCrunch tool allows measuring customer satisfaction rate displaying it in a highly visual manner:

Customer satisfaction is, by far, not the only metric you can monitor with Helpcrunch or other similar tools. For more examples of customer service metrics and KPIs, see our blog.

#4 The Best Service is No Service: How to Liberate Your Customers from Customer Service, Keep Them Happy, and Control Costs by Bill Price and David Jaffe

• Print Length: 342 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (June 13, 2008)
• Publication Date: June 13, 2008
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English

Type: book on customer service management

This book is written by two business management consultants, Bill Price and David Jaffe, who use a rather non-standard approach to customer service.

They believe service is needed only when something is wrong, thus, improvements should start at earlier stages and concern the overall company performance as viewed by the customer.
In other words, if customers have no issues, no service is needed.  

Of course, such a situation cannot be achieved in reality, thus, the authors also provide practical recommendations on how to establish an effective and proactive customer service, how to provide self-service options for customers, how to make contacting the company easy and hassle-free.

Rating: 4.6/5 – 18 customer reviews

Where to buy: Amazon

#5 New Sales. Simplified.: The Essential Handbook for Prospecting and New Business Development by Mike Weinberg

• Print Length: 241 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM (September 4, 2012)
• Publication Date: September 4, 2012
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English

Type: book on how to increase sales and provide excellent customer service

This book is rated high on the list of the best selling customer service books on Amazon.

Mike Weinberg, a sales consultant and coach, shares his views on how businesses can increase sales and bring new customers using proactive communication techniques that help to overcome the rejection that most people tend to feel toward sales agents and involve potential customers into a dialog.

The book teaches how to build trust and make people like you.

New Sales. Simplified. is full of examples of how to establish customer communication, structure sales calls, and take advantage of today’s technologies, such as email, voice communication, and social media.

Rating: 4.8/5 – 568 customer reviews

Where to buy: Amazon

#6 Be Our Guest: Revised and Updated Edition: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service by The Disney Institute and Theodore Kinni

• Print Length: 224 pages
• Publisher: Disney Editions; Revised, Updated edition (December 16, 2011)
• Publication Date: December 16, 2011
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English

Type: book on customer service excellence

If you want to learn customer service, why not learn from the best?
Disney definitely knows a lot about customer service and is willing to share the knowledge. 

Disney’s approach to customer service is in anticipating their customers’ wishes rather than just performing them.
In addition to the examples of quality customer service by Disney, Be Our Guest also shares success stories of businesses that adopted their techniques in their operations.

Disney proves that customer service is a wealth of opportunities that just need to be used wisely.
If you want to know how to use them – well, read the book.

Rating: 4.6/5 – 228 customer reviews

Where to buy: Amazon

#7 The Customer Support Handbook: How to Create the Ultimate Customer Experience For Your Brand by Sarah Hatter

• Print Length: 204 pages
• Publisher: CoSupport; 1 edition (March 20, 2014)
• Publication Date: March 20, 2014
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English

Type: book on customer service skills

Sarah Hatter is an entrepreneur and a customer support consultant, and her experience became the core of The Customer Support Handbook.

The book is targeted at people who see customer service and support as their careers.
What is especially valuable is that both CEOs and customer service agents will find the recommendations in The Customer Support Handbook useful for their everyday work.

The book covers all matters related to customer support, from forming a team of engaged and dedicated people and investing in the support team development to learning to phrase your statements properly and handling difficult customers.

Rating: 4.7/5 – 23 customer reviews

Where to buy: Amazon

#8 Getting Service Right: Overcoming the Hidden Obstacles to Outstanding Customer Service by Jeff Toister

• Print Length: 237 pages
• Publisher: Toister Performance Solutions, Inc.; 2 edition (April 2, 2019)
• Publication Date: April 2, 2019
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English

Type: book on customer service training

Getting Service Right addresses the issues of substandard customer service and gives practical recommendations on improving it.

You will be amazed at the real reasons that may be behind poor service, burnt-out agents and unhappy customers.
Your policies may be too strict, your product may be far below the customers’ expectations, your company culture may be conflicting with the common principles of excellent customer service.

Simply put, when your customer service is struggling, maybe you need to zoom out and take a wider look at your business.
It may happen that you need to revise your general policies and rules to make your agents comfortable with their jobs and your customers satisfied with your service.

Jeff Toister’s book offers lots of real-life examples of how companies managed to overcome difficulties in organizing their customer service and, finally, achieved the customer satisfaction level they deserve.

Rating: 5.0/5 – 7 customer reviews

Where to buy: Amazon

Wrapping up

Organizing quality customer service is not easy. It is a challenge that requires a lot of careful planning, preparation, monitoring, and adjustment. This challenge can become easier if you use the experience of other people and companies who have walked this path before you.

We hope you find our selection of the best books on customer service helpful and insightful and will be able to adapt the recommendations they provide to the specifics of your business.

Of course, one of the essential components of excellent customer service is the choice of tools. You need tools to communicate with customers, measure the KPIs, design your marketing campaigns.
You can use different tools for each of these tasks or you can have one that has all of them in a complete package.

Try HelpCrunch to see how it can help you organize all aspects of your customer service.