Brand & Customer Experience Gold - 36 Blogs That Make Customers Sing

In today's customer world, marketing is considerably more about "what you do" vs. "what you say you do".  Whereas, the majority of ads get missed and 70% of the population would like to skip them completely,  beyond-the-expected, customer service and branded customer experience has a profound effect on purchase decision-making and customer advocacy.

CEO's are not ignorant to this reality - their # 2 and #3 stated priorities are viewed as customer service and customer experience (Microsoft Exec. Roundtable). Winning brands like Apple, American Girl,  Starbucks,Nordstrom and SouthWest Airlines are maniacal in getting this component of their marketing formula right. Unfortunately, in many organizations, the marketing departments have become quite detached and aloof from the customer.

With that in mind, attached are the 36 blogs  we've run across that cover the arena of brand and customer experiences. Read one a day for June and heck we even threw in 4 more for the July long weekend:

June

1 -  Experience Curve (Karl Long)
http://blog.experiencecurve.com/

2 - The Perfect Customer Experience (Dale Wolf) 
http://contextrules.typepad.com/transformer/

3 - Customer Experience Crossroads (Susan Abbott)
http://arc.typepad.com/customercrossroads/

4 Customer World (Sivaraman Swaminathan) http://customerworld.typepad.com/swami_weblog/

5 - Experience Solutions (Ali Carmichael/Damian Rees) http://www.experiencesolutions.co.uk/about.html

6 - How To Create Powerful Customer Experience (Kim Proctor)
http://customerevangelism.blogspot.com/

7 - Experience the Message (Max Lenderman)
http://experiencethemessage.typepad.com/

8 - Get Elastic (Jason Billingsley/Linda Bustos)
http://www.getelastic.com/

9 - Creating Passionate Users (Kathy Sierra)
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/

10 - Customer Experience Leaders (Brian Lunde)
http://customerexperienceleaders.typepad.com/

11- Customers Rock! (Becky Carroll)
http://customersrock.wordpress.com/

12 - Customers Are Always (Maria Palma)
http://www.customersarealways.com/

13 - Seth Godin (Seth Godin)
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/

14 - ConverStations (Mike Sansone)
http://www.converstations.com/

15 - Experience Matters (Bruce Temkin)
http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/

16 - Get Satisfaction (Thor Muller and team)
http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/

17 - Logic + Emotion (David Armano)
http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/

18 - The Brand Builder Blog (Oliver Blanchard)
http://thebrandbuilder.blogspot.com/

19 - IdeasonIdeas (Eric Karjaluoto)
http://www.ideasonideas.com/

20 - Social Customer Manifesto (Christopher Carfi)
http://www.socialcustomer.com/

21 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah (Jeremiah Owyang)
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/

22 - Brand Autopsy (John Moore)
http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/

23 - Service Untitled
http://www.serviceuntitled.com/

24 - Customer Service Experience (Glenn Ross)
http://www.allbusiness.com/sales/customer-service/10783-1.html

25 - Flooring the Customer (C.B. Whittamore)
http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com/

26 - Your Customers Matter…Don’t They (Lori Adrianse)
http://www.yourcustomersmatter.com/

27 - The Experience Economist (David Polinchock) http://blog.brandexperiencelab.org/experience_manifesto/

28 - Experienceology (Stephanie Weaver)
http://experienceology.blogspot.com/

29 - Six Pixels of Separation (Mitch Joel)
http://www.twistimage.com/blog/ 

30 - EMF Blog (Neil Burns/Erik Hauser)
http://www.experientialforum.com/content/blogsection/2/49/

July

1 - Jack 360 Degrees (Jack Morton’s team)
http://360.jackmorton.com/index.html

2 - Advent Marketing Blog (John Roberson & Company)
http://www.adventresults.com/blog 

3 - Alternative Marketing 101 (Kristopher Saim)
http://www.alternativemarketing101blog.com/alternative_marketing_101/

4 – Buzz Canuck (Sean Moffitt)
http://buzzcanuck.typepad.com/agentwildfire/