Why Reading Matters
The best support professionals invest in continuous learning. Books provide depth that blog posts and podcasts cannot match. These 15 books will transform how you think about customer support.
On Service Excellence
- The Effortless Experience — why reducing effort beats delighting customers
- Delivering Happiness — building a customer-centric culture
- Setting the Table — hospitality lessons that apply to every industry
- Unreasonable Hospitality — going above and beyond systematically
On Leadership and Management
- The Manager Path — from engineer to VP (applicable to support leadership)
- Radical Candor — giving feedback that improves performance
- Turn the Ship Around — empowering your team to make decisions
- Dare to Lead — vulnerability and courage in leadership
On Customer Psychology
- Thinking, Fast and Slow — how customers make decisions
- Influence — the psychology of persuasion in service interactions
- Never Split the Difference — negotiation tactics for difficult conversations
On Communication
- Crucial Conversations — handling high-stakes interactions
- Nonviolent Communication — empathetic communication frameworks
- Made to Stick — making your messages clear and memorable
- Writing Without Bullshit — clear business writing (essential for email support)
Building a Team Reading Practice
Start a support team book club. Read one book per quarter. Discuss one chapter per week in a Slack channel. Apply insights to real support scenarios. This builds team culture and shared vocabulary.
