3 Keys to Connecting Well with Customers in a Recession

We all need customers, but most of us don’t consciously invest in building a relationship with our customers, or an experience for our customers. Yet it is evident that when it comes to customer experience, positive experiences strengthen brands and turn customers into fans of those brands.

During the 2007-2009 recession, McKinsey found that companies that led in customer experience provided shareholder returns that were three times higher than laggards. If history is any indication, companies that invest in quality customer experience emerge stronger after a crisis.

But currently, only 7% of businesses in the Asia Pacific region consider themselves mature in the advancement of their customer experience, compared to 11% globally.

To create positive customer experiences, business leaders need to address three factors: scalability, personalization and empathy.

Scalability

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the manner in which and the type of products that people consume has rapidly evolved. With social distancing measures in place and restrictions on entering physical stores, to survive, companies had to digitize, setting up shop online[1] and to cultivate trust.

In March this year, in an effort to impose social distancing and shut down transmission of the virus, governments across the region had to rapidly shut down socialization and businesses. For most industries, that action brought on a sudden onslaught of customer inquiries, which overwhelmed many support teams and negatively impacted customer experience.

Yet with the right outsourcing partner (a BPO), flexible adjustment of the size of the teams dedicated to your brand can provide a consistent experience. Choosing the right partner to support your business makes or breaks your customer experience when you need to scale rapidly.

Now there are tools that help address customer calls. For example, chatbots, powered by artificial intelligence and robotic process automation, address basic questions and free up experienced service agents to handle critical issues with empathy.

A perennial woe is a time spent waiting on a call. Using technology to answer questions instantly and accurately, creates a win-win situation for the customer and the brand. 

Personalization

Customer experiences today are omnichannel and demand personalisation. The nature of a customer’s concern has changed too, and companies now have to rapidly address new questions[2].

Say a customer reaches out to a brand for one product, and again for another product, they not only expect the brand to deliver the same experience across both products, but also to retain their personal information.

They do not want to provide the same information time and again for specific product lines, or even, according to the channel they chose to communicate with the brand. They expect the brand to know their details and know them regarding any product they buy, and any channel they choose to reach out to the brand.

That means that your company should provide omnichannel integration to help customers to enjoy a seamless experience with your brand while providing your company with data analytics for improvement.

For most companies, especially rapidly scaling start-ups, that’s a huge ask. But a BPO can do that for you. We believe that personalisation should begin at the product development stage.

We help companies test for service issues at the pre-release stage and map out consumers’ product experience, from unboxing through to interactions with support documentation. As subject matter specialists, familiar with each local market, we help diagnose and pre-empt potential service issues, helping determine the likely reasons a customer would seek customer support, long before they have a chance to become trouble.

Empathy

A customer’s interaction with a company affects their trust and loyalty. McKinsey has found that “a primary barometer of their customer experience will be how the businesses they frequent and depend upon delivering experiences and service that meets their new needs with empathy, care and concern.”

While prior to the pandemic, there was a trend to stop doing business with a brand due to poor customer experience, now that the consumers’ spending power is reduced, customer experience is a way of differentiating from competitors.

To deliver positive customer experiences, the service agent must have empathy. Experienced customer service teams should be freed up to take the calls that require empathy. Sincerity wins loyalty. Loyalty begets loyalty.

It pays to research your partner. If your BPO has high employee satisfaction and has retained their service agents over a long period, those employees have likely grown their experience and enthusiasm with the brands and customers they work with.

Those employees have deep insights into customers’ needs and will innately understand how they can deliver better experiences, especially when it matters the most.

Today, enterprising BPOs differentiate with varied channels of communication, as well as with work at home (W@H) solutions. A company can ensure that its customers can easily interact with its brand in their preferred manner while adhering to strict government regulations in the current pandemic.

A new breed of BPOs, the disruptors, help keep track of customers’ information and, armed with analytics and appropriate data, connect the dots behind the scenes to furnish customers with a seamless and personalized experience at key touchpoints.

Companies also benefit from integrated analytics that generates relevant business intelligence and accurate summaries of customers’ sentiments.

Why outsource?

A recent study by Adobe has shown that businesses lag in their advancement of customer experience. Only 7% of APAC organisations consider themselves to be mature in the area. So, how can you position yourself at the forefront of the longer-term shifts in consumer behaviour that will result from this crisis?

Work with a BPO. Not only can an enterprising BPO help you differentiate your brand with varied channels of communication, we offer work at home (W@H) solutions.

A BPO helps to keep track of your customers’ information and, armed with analytics and appropriate data, we help connect the dots behind the scenes to furnish your customers with a seamless and personalized experience at key touchpoints. Analytics generate relevant business intelligence and accurate summaries of customers’ sentiments.

In summary, when you lead with superior customer experience, you are more likely to survive this recession.

For more insights visit https://insights.weareeverise.com/ 

[1] McKinsey

[2] McKinsey