These days, if you're not leveraging customer experience (CX) to connect with your hard-fought customers, you’re missing out on opportunities to keep them informed through a crisis and answer essential questions.
In times of crisis, companies must evaluate what matters most. Businesses that lead with strong values, culture, and attention to caring for their stakeholders and customers tend to stand out. During a crisis is when it’s of the utmost importance to look closely at prioritizing excellent CX practices, as companies who do so will come out ahead. Why? The stakes are high, and an exceptional customer experience simply can’t be faked, particularly in this unprecedented time.
These days, if businesses aren’t leveraging customer experience (CX) to connect with their hard-fought customers, they’re missing out on opportunities to keep them informed through a crisis and answer essential questions. Now more than ever, businesses must examine how their CX programs can meet customers where they are—via whatever channel that may be.
Here are three tips to consider for delivering exceptional CX in a crisis:
Proactively communicate with your audiences. Whether managing a short- or long-term crisis, your brand should be sharing updates regularly in the way your customers want to receive them. This should include all the channels on which you engage with customers, like your website, email, and social media. These updates should be straightforward, brief, and transparent but should share details on how you can be reached and how customers can continue to secure your products or services. When faced with a crisis, it’s good to have already mapped out the customer journey, so you understand how customers engage with your brand and where the interaction model needs to be adjusted. And remember — in times of crisis, veer toward over-communicating.
Go back to the basics. During a crisis, it’s best not to over-complicate your CX. Focus on your business’s best and simplest communication techniques and leverage omnichannel means of connecting with your customers. During the COVID-19 crisis, for example, consumers have been forced to gravitate online and leverage digital touchpoints to connect with businesses in ways they may not have before. For instance, as the crisis was starting, Delta set up a hub on its website to share easy-to-understand, concise updates related to the virus. Any customers looking for details on the ways aircraft are being cleaned or how flight schedules are impacted could check out this one-stop-shop resource. The airline also issued numerous similar updates via email and other channels.
Communicate with authenticity and transparency. In many instances, a businesses’ CX team is the first touchpoint a customer may have with your company. Entrust these people to put themselves in the position of not only the customer but the other stakeholders within a business. During times of crisis, transparency in your messages and empathy for customers’ needs must come across in your communications and your policy changes. Customer experiences that include a human connection make people feel heard and help to boost company confidence. At Ubiquity, providing the best, most authentic customer service is a priority in times of crisis and year-round.
Don’t become one of the 60% of businesses that don’t survive a crisis (according to FEMA). A strong CX strategy can be a first line of defense in providing positive experiences for your stakeholders and customers, even in times like these. If you’re ready to start mapping out your customer journey or preparing for a disaster, we’re here to help.
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