The coronavirus involves more than just health measures. Every company in every sector is affected, with all the consequences that come with it.
The majority of people are working from home, events are cancelled, freelancers have to halt a large part of their work, whilst (online) supermarkets are overwhelmed with work. This situation raises many questions, both for customer service employees and for customers. Therefore, it’s no surprise that one of the hardest-hit departments in an organisation is often the customer service department. How do you ensure your customer contact doesn’t suffer under these circumstances?
The coronavirus crisis is a nightmare for customer service departments
To better understand the impact of the crisis on customer service departments, a team from Harvard conducted research to examine the effects on customer experience. Between 11 March to 26 March, over a million customer service interactions were analysed at more than 20 companies. It was investigated how 'difficult' it was for customers to achieve their goals during interactions with the company. The analysis paints a worrying picture of the customer experience during the current crisis.
The research revealed that there has been a doubling in the number of interactions perceived as 'difficult': from 10% to more than 20%. Not only did the wait times for most of these organisations increase by 34%, but the nature of conversations also changed. The number of discussions about financial problems increased, and many conversations dealt with emotional issues such as inability to meet payments and cancelling trips. The level of negative customer emotions rose dramatically according to the research.
What can your company do for optimal customer contact in this situation?
Strategies will vary, but they should all include two actions: ask your customers and customer service employees what they need and make it easy for your organisation to listen to what they say.
Questions
Understanding the customer is crucial. With the changes of recent times and the uncertainty of the current situation, customer needs are also evolving. In our blog '10 tips: Customer Service in times of Corona', we already provided practical tips for quick adaptation. Probably, your organisation has, for example, already placed a message on the homepage that refers to how the organisation is responding to the corona situation. This helps to reassure your customers and assure them that your organisation is ready to respond to their changing needs. Haven’t you got something similar on your website yet? Then we recommend that you get started on that straight away.
How do you know if you’ve chosen the right approach that actually benefits your customers? How do you know if you’ve placed the right questions in the FAQ or if the new opening hours of your customer service reduce pressure? The best way to find out is by asking them.
A simple call-to-action like “What do you think of our response to COVID-19?” can be added to the website or at the bottom of an email. This link could direct the customer to a short survey with questions like the following:
Was our COVID-19 information page helpful?
Do you have any comments?
It is important that it is easy for customers to fill out the survey. You will then receive a mix of responses, but these provide valuable insights about your approach. Share the suggestions and complaints that arise from this with the relevant teams and use them to take action. Additionally, it’s beneficial to share compliments and expressions of gratitude from customers with the organisation. This shows employees that the hard work they do in this stressful time is appreciated.
A similar strategy should be followed for contacting your employees. They now have to work from home, are under a lot of stress, and may be dealing with situations and emotions from customers that are new to them. Are they sufficiently informed about the different adjustments in the company? Do they have access to all the tools they need at home? Are there concerns? What are recurring issues? Ask them! They are, after all, in direct contact with the customer and can provide valuable suggestions.
Listening
Besides you taking the initiative to ask customers questions, it is possible that your customers have already come to you with new questions and requests, or will in the future. Have they left comments with existing feedback tools and surveys? And what happens to the comments and questions that come in via email and phone? They contain a wealth of information! Analyse the data by searching or filtering for the following words: coronavirus, corona, virus, covid, and covid-19. Forward recurring questions and comments to the appropriate internal teams for action and again, do not forget to share positive words with the appropriate parties.
You can also focus on the customer service employees again. They will regularly come up with questions and comments. By listening carefully, recurring difficulties or uncertainties will naturally surface. Perhaps the guidelines for dealing with certain situations are still insufficient, and you need to purchase new manuals or tools for that. This way, they can continue to do their work well.
In summary, ask questions and listen carefully! Both to your customers and to your customer service employees. In this way, you continue to amaze your customers with optimal customer contact, even in this situation.
