Understanding the new role Customer Experience plays

Traditionally Customer Experience (CX) was viewed as a way to differentiate your brand amongst a world of uniformity through superior interactions, experiences and service.

The COVID-19 crisis has shifted the role of CX to focus on how brands can support their customers. Transitioning from a focus on customer journey planning and monitoring customer satisfaction levels to urgently addressing customers needs; introducing sanitisation and social distancing measures and replacing physical services with digital ones.

Now is the time for CX professionals to position themselves at the forefront of the longer-term shifts in consumer behaviour which have resulted from this crisis. Keeping a real-time pulse on changing customer preferences and rapidly innovating to redesign journeys that matter to a very different context will be paramount.

Navigating the new normal

As the restrictions ease, customers are struggling to navigate the many friction points of the ‘new normal’. Some customers will be trying digital services for the first time whilst others are embracing lifestyle changes.

As we emerge out of COVID-19 and the isolation around the world, there is a change window, an opportunity to maintain or make other transformative changes in your CX to help engage customers, adapt to changing customer needs or to deliver better, more cost-efficient services.

As such you will likely need to develop a new CX strategy for the post-COVID-19 world.

Adapting to changing customers and their needs

The COVID-19 crisis and subsequent recession have changed consumer behaviour and sentiment around the world. Some consumers made deep spending cuts whilst others carried on as normal. Research from EY’s Future Consumer Index examined how consumers expect their spending to change after the recession and mapped the new segments that could emerge:

In addition to spending, customers may have different comfort levels visiting your organisations physical locations. Whilst some customers may be happy to rush back, others maybe more weary. The key is to be empathetic to each groups needs and consider how you can service their fears and concerns, provide reassurance and offer alternative options to keep their custom.

The implications apply to all organisations; you are likely to lose some customers and gain new ones. This change in the customer mix means new customer needs will arise and pain points will be encountered.

For CX professionals, this means:

• Tracking the change on your customer segments

• Understanding the needs of new customers and the evolving needs of existing customers

• Reviewing and updating customer personas

• Re-defining your CX strategy in response to these

Building support and connection

Now more than ever, customers need extra information, advice, and support to navigate a new set of challenges in a rapidly changing environment. Customers want a brand they can trust, that makes them feel safe when everything seems uncertain, and that offers support when so much seems to be overwhelming.

The first step in caring is reaching out, offering genuine support and helping customers with their immediate concerns and needs. This means going beyond statements of ‘being there’, but listening and understanding what customers needs are and rapidly developing solutions to meet these.

For financial services institutions, this could entail waiving interest on a credit card balances for a month, offering mortgage or loan holidays for personal and business customers or advice on managing cashflows. Some car insurers have already provided policy reliefs as customers battle their budgets and use their cars less.

To help build support and connection:

• Reach out, but with support not marketing

• Keep customer updated with changes

• Provide information on where customers can turn for help

• Focus on serving the needs of staff and the community too

• Stay true to your brand purpose and values

• Act with authenticity 

Meet customers where they are at

The crisis necessitated companies to rapidly implement digital-led approaches when physical experiences were not possible.

As restrictions begin to ease, not all customers are ready to or will wish to return to the old ways of living. Many customers who have converted to digital services will likely remain with them as we enter the post-COVID-19 world.

However, some customer may still be struggling with digital-led experiences and it is important to invest the time in supporting these customers, refining digital experiences to be more intuitive, smoother and pain-free for all customers.

As digital experiences are accelerated, it is important not to lose the human touch, the attributes which made physical experiences unique and aid loyalty. Understanding the human side of experiences and creating digital solutions with people and for people will help expedite their take up.

As you plan your CX strategy:

• Consider how you can introduce digital models to bring your business to the customer (and not vice versa)

• Expanding home delivery options 

• Moving to digital payments

• How you can offer contactless operations

• Look to humanise the digital experience 

Explore the virtual opportunities

Reachability in the context of Customer Experience used to entail how accessible your business was to consumers. Whilst this still holds true, the rise of virtual experiences means that for many businesses, customers no longer need to visit them to use their services. For some businesses, this has opened up their services to a much wider remote audience.

For service-based organisations, consider whether a hybrid offering is right for your brand and customers; combining best-in-class physical experiences alongside virtual experiences engaging customers unable or unwilling to visit in person.

As virtual experiences mature, new standards and expectations will be kept. For organisations thinking about starting or developing virtual experiences:

• Explore the possibilities and don’t be afraid to innovate in delivering virtual experiences

• Develop a set of standards with your team for virtual consultations and sessions to enable you to deliver consistently high-quality customer experiences

• Treat every session as a learning opportunity and ask for feedback afterwards

Pay attention to purchase convenience

Purchase convenience concerns itself with removing the barriers involved with the end-to-end purchase experience.

COVID-19 and the economic downturn presents new purchasing barriers as customers re-evaluate their relationship with money and re-prioritise their spending.

You can get on the front foot of the downturn by thinking about how to pre-empt customers financial needs for the next 6-12 months and developing offerings that help make a purchase more convenient in uncertain times.

For example:

• Offering lower cost or value-driven alternatives

• Implementing pay-as-you-go pricing

• Providing buy now, pay later financing services

• Introducing leasing or subscription models to overcome the outright purchase cost

• Offering free trials, so customers can try before they buy

Aim to add value as budgets tighten

In a downturn cutting costs is unavoidable for many organisations, but this doesn’t have to come at the expense of delivering good CX which can create substantial value.

Moving customers to digital channels is often a successful way to increase savings and satisfaction. However, for this to be effective, you will need to address the concerns customer may have, support them through the transition (and beyond) and highlight the benefits to act as an incentive to motivate customers to change behaviour.

Adopting a customer-centric mindset in any cost-cutting exercise, including migrating customers to self-serve channels, simplifying a product portfolio or removing under-utilised benefits will help achieve a balance between cost reduction and positive customer experiences.

Developing agile capabilities for fluid times

Maintaining a strong CX in a period of change and uncertainty requires rapid research to understand changing attitudes and behaviours and new pain points as well as agile innovation to address them. CX leaders who master that approach will create value for consumers in high-priority areas in a time of heightened competition.

In a period where consumers lives are changing week-by-week, traditional methods of qualitative research are too slow to deliver valuable insights. Organisations should look to quick methods to keep a real-time pulse on changing consumer preferences develop agile capabilities to be able to monitor, respond and solve for rapidly shifting customer needs and expectations.

Actions to help build agile CX capabilities:

• Use social media monitoring for a quicker gauge on customer sentiment and needs

• Ask employees for their ears on the ground insights and ideas

• Focus on agile practices, short sprints and continuous reevaluation

• Prototype solutions and pilot new initiatives with key customers

• Expedite delivery through test and scale practices

• Pay attention to failures as these indicate where you have missed or misunderstood customer signals - fail fast, but learn through the process