Your Customer Experience will define you

The customer experience you deliver in a crisis defines you. Customers remember businesses who stood by them and supported them in their moment of need.

Adapting your customer experience in a crisis can bring measurable benefits including increased loyalty, customer advocacy and positive PR. Likewise, getting this wrong or simply not acting at all can lead to a serious commercial impact.

So how can you shape a positive customer experience when everything around you is in disarray?

Focus on the pain points

Normally CX strategy seeks to deliver exceptional experiences through a two-pronged approach; uncovering and minimising pain points and identifying gain points (the customer’s ideal future state) and maximising these to provide additional value.

In a crisis, it critical to prioritise the immediate customer pain points. Developing new opportunities and superior customer experiences can wait.

This is the time to show customers you care by miming the pain they are experiencing in their lives and/or in their interactions with your business.

Listen carefully, act fast

To make a tangible difference to the customer experience, you need to quickly identify where the customer pain points lie as these may be different from previously known issues.

Listen carefully as pain points may not be obvious at first. According to Esteban Kelsey, only 1 in 26 customers complain. The rest simply leave.

So the issues voiced by a few customers may only be the tip of the iceberg.

Monitor all channels

Monitor inbound customer service communications and social media channels to hear where the pain points are.

Search for your brand or sector on Twitter, Reddit and customer review sites such as Trust Pilot to gain an understanding of the customer sentiment and issues customers are facing not just with your business but with competitors and the sector as a whole.

Listening to what customers are saying has another benefit; they may highlight opportunities to leverage or solutions to pain points.

Look for quick, not perfect solutions

Now you have uncovered the pain points, rank them in terms of their impact on the customer experience. You want to prioritise solving those which are causing the most pain.

There is unlikely to be an abundance of time or resources in a crisis to develop an ideal solution. So the focus needs to be on finding flexible solutions that can be implemented quickly and address the core pain point, even if they are not the prettiest.

Engage your team

Finding solutions quickly is a team effort. In a crisis, it is more important than ever to think laterally and be flexible. Engage the Finance department, Customer Service, Product etc. They may have ideas you would never think of alone. Your job is to identify the right solutions.

Having stakeholders involved from across the business will go a long way in terms of expediting solutions and minimising the impact on customers.

Keep communicating

One of the worst things a brand can do in a crisis is to go dark. Keeping customers regularly informed helps manage expectations, builds trust and shows that your care.

Within your communications empathy and clarity are key. Acknowledge the situation and its impact on customers. Show how you are trying to alleviate their pain. Give clear instructions on changes to business operations or actions customers need to take.

Let customers know which channels to listen to and reach you on. With so many contact points, it might be best to focus those that are quickest to update and respond to customer enquiries on.

Continue monitoring your CX

The nature of a crisis is dynamic. As events unfold, new pain points may emerge and previous solutions may no longer be adequate or new measures may be required.

Continue to monitor what customers are saying and where the pain points lie. As you evolve to address these, keep informing customers of the measures you are implementing and how you are managing the situation.

Support your community

Beyond customer experience, where possible, look at how your brand can make a positive difference by supporting your community too.

I have seeing brilliant examples from Pret a Manger (UK) offering National Health Service workers free hot drinks and 50% off food, Amazon prioritising the distribution of essential items like health and scientific products in their fulfilment centres to numerous manufacturers retooling to produce hand sanitisers and medical equipment.

Think to the future

While thankfully crisis are not too common, they are disruptive and can lead to fundamental shifts in consumer mindsets, values and spending.

Think about what will happen after the crisis. Will there be a surge in demand, or will consumers be cautious? How will the landscape change? What services will customers need the most and what messaging, proof points and features will be best received?

Thinking ahead to the future allows you to adapt and offer a more relevant customer experience going forwards.

After the crisis is over

As life returns to normal, thank your customers for the patience. Likewise, let your team know you appreciate their help and flexibility.

Take the time to review your CX response to the crisis. Consider what worked and what didn’t. These are all learnings you can take forwards to help manage your customer experience

in future disruptions.