We’re all getting an abundance of email these days from the companies we do business with – restaurants, banks, grocery stores, airlines and more. The messages are focused on what these organizations are doing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and how they are working to put their customers at ease.
During uncertain times, customers crave this communication. They also want their voices heard. As CX professionals, our jobs are now more important than ever. This is not the time to put a pause on customer feedback – but instead, to adjust.
Here are 6 easy-to-implement tips for adjusting your Voice of the Customer program to navigate the pandemic.
1. Use your survey to communicate.
Surveys offer a unique opportunity to communicate directly with thousands – or millions – of customers. You can:
- Adjust your survey invitation wording
- Integrate video messages directly into the survey experience
- Route customers (after the survey) to landing pages that contain information on how you’re responding to the coronavirus crisus.
2. Ask a hot topic question
Survey technology is flexible, so you can learn and adjust quickly. Add a temporary hot-topic question to ask customers what they need from you during this time, what is their perception of your company’s response, etc.
3. Expect a halo effect
Customer experience scores are typically impacted by global events. Anxieties are higher and you’ll see that reflected in the way customers feel about their experiences with you. You’ll need to proactively communicate this halo effect to stakeholders and discuss adjustments to employee goals and compensation metrics.
4. Tune text analytics
Align your text analytic topic profiles to coronavirus chatter. This will help your company quantify customer concerns around the pandemic and group the concerns into actionable categories. You can also use your text analytics engine to trigger alerts based on associated key words (i.e. – safe, sick, coronavirus, etc.).
5. Automate closed loop strategies
With tensions running high, your survey will likely generate more alerts. Adding more staff to manage this increased volume may pose challenges. Consider an automated message that is sent to frustrated customers after the survey, simply to let them know you’re listening and taking actions to make their experience better.
6. Encourage frequent use of feedback
In dynamic environments with rapidly changing conditions, it’s important to increase the frequency at which feedback is reviewed and analyzed. This is the time for daily feedback analysis, rather than weekly or monthly, to keep a pulse on what customers are saying they want and need from the organization.
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