There is an ancient curse in Chinese that more or less says: “May you live in interesting times”. And how it rings true now. The world will never be the same again. Not after going through a terrible experience as this pandemic at hand. It doesn’t matter who you are: employer, employee, or customer. We all are affected (some more than others) but our collective experience remains the same.
For organizations and brands, this has become an era where customers’ attitudes are changing- and fast. It has become crucial for organizations to take their stand during the pandemic because ultimately this is going to change how your customer base will view you in the future.
Here are the adjustments that you need to make in order to deliver a benefitting customer experience:
1. Re-evaluate Your Current Strategy
Your current customer experience strategy might have worked perfectly, but now it might be not as effective as before. That’s why it’s integral that you rethink every key aspect of it. It’s time that you have an extensive discussion with the team about possible changes and how can your customers benefit from it.
However, it’s important that you take a logical approach by comparing your previous CX strategy to the new one that you are proposing. How has your customer behavior changed and does it require you to update your current remote tools and communication measures? Do your employees have the necessary means to deliver the same level of efficient customer experience as before the pandemic?
Next, highlight the possible implications of your updated CX strategy. As I stated before, it’s important that you drive the right message home. You don’t want your customer base to misinterpret or doubt your intentions while handling this situation.
Finally, when you collectively as a team has decided upon the possibility of necessary changes, determine the impact of those changes on your business and which ones are to be prioritized over others.
2. Keep Taking The Feedback
You might think that now a pandemic is going on and there is no customer, so feedback is not a necessity. Right? Wrong.
Now, more than ever is the correct time for you to keep connected to your customers because the last thing you want to do is for your customers to think that you are only present during the rosy times.
However, this can prove to be a double-ended sword for you if not done right.
When it comes to surveying your customer base during a pandemic, it’s important that you don’t follow your previous survey model, or else you will come off as majorly insensitive. The idea is to trim down the survey until only a few critical questions remain.
Also, review whether the selected questions will actually be beneficial to the customer otherwise it will most likely remain unanswered. I would personally go for a pulse-based model mainly because it keeps the survey direct, to the point, and engaging.
3. Keep The COVID Information To A Minimum
I get that it is a new thing that everyone else seems to be doing. But the fact is they already know. If not, they might have been spammed with more information than they possibly want.
My advice is that volunteer only the minimum level of information. Just enough to show that you care without overwhelming the customer. Try to sneak in some important links to websites like WHO on your main website or on the “thank you” page at the end of a survey.
4. Changes in Reports and Metrics
The way you measured and monitored your previous metrics is going to be severely throw off the balance if you decide it implement it now. Now that we have a pandemic on hand, the sentiment and emotional response from the customers’ end will exhibit data that will be not of any relevance. It’s imperative that you focus only on the most critical of the metrics now. That might require introducing some new metric that is relative to the current scenario.
5. Delivering Good Support
The current disruptions in business have resulted in a considerable spike of customers requiring assistance or assurance. However given the irregularities of employee timings as well as the sheer volume of requests, catering to your customer base as you previously would have is going to be extremely hard. Wait times for getting a customer support executive on the phone are skyrocketing. Your employees might be working 24/7 for all they could (which I don’t recommend) but still, your customer care might not to as good as you would have wanted.
I think having an extensive FAQ section or product documentation would solve half of your problems for customers getting stuck on the common problems. If you haven’t got such a
section online, do it at the latest. Also, be sure to keep this section updated at all times. If your company has the required technology or AI, a chatbot is an incredible alternative to manage the growing customer requests.
6. Get Access To More Talents
The unsatisfactory lack of customer support indicates that companies might need to get more agents on hand to deliver the best customer experience in these difficult times. The economic slowdown has left a lot of people without jobs, particularly in the service-based industry, giving you the perfect access to a large pool of available talents. This gig-economy based model will suit your organization’s need to hire more agents to give your customer base the perfect CX as well as giving the employees a chance to ride over this wave of uncertainty.
