Growing the customer experience in the face of disruption

As economic activity comes to a standstill for many due to the present pandemic situation, companies are now fast-tracking their digital transformation to survive.

While this may seem like a dismal time to be in, not all hope is lost. The American Customer Satisfaction Index foresees growth in high-quality customer experience as a way for companies to differentiate themselves in a time of social distancing.

Research by PwC found that customers are willing to pay a premium of up to 16% on products and services from brands that provide superior customer experiences, and even try other products and services from these brands.

Companies are already recognizing the importance of brand experiences. According to KPMG’s 2019 customer experience excellence survey, customer experience performance scores in the US have been on an upward trend from 2015 to 2019. The report also notes that as more companies progress towards an average score, performing well is no longer good enough – consumers see it as the minimum standard.

 A customized experience

Ensuring positive customer experiences, however, is easier said than done. 68% of customers in the US have stopped doing business with a brand because of poor customer experience, according to Microsoft.

Taking a look back at the 2007-2009 recession, companies that led in customer experience provided shareholder returns that were three times higher than laggards, says a McKinsey report. With a long-term vision in mind, companies that invest in quality customer experience can emerge stronger than ever after the present crisis.

 The benefits of strategic outsourcing

While focusing on customer experience is crucial, companies can make this task easier for themselves using a trusted business process outsourcing (BPO) operator. Such operators specialize in keeping customers’ experience of a particular brand consistently delightful.

Certain digitally-driven companies, such as telehealth and web conferencing software providers, are also seeing growth during the current pandemic, and can benefit from outsourcing their customer experience to cope with the surge in demand for their services.

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.

Everise, ever ready

Everise is a tech-enabled, next generation BPO headquartered in Singapore with offices across the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia. All of our solutions, including omnichannel customer service, tech support, fraud detection, community moderation, chatbots, and natural language interactive voice response systems, can be delivered securely from home.

In just 2 weeks, we mobilized 85 percent of our 12,000 employees globally to work from home with our W@H solutions. Due to this effort, we were able to pivot quickly and have not been disrupted by the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. Our employees now work at home on secure Virtual Desktop infrastructure and telephony, which are scalable and sustainable processes, ready for a post-pandemic future. While 50% of BPOs are still not convinced that a home-based model is a long-term solution, at Everise we believe that about half of our workforce will be home-based in the long run.

A partner in growth

In disruptive times like these, BPOs that have long championed flexible work arrangements will also translate their uninterrupted operations into business continuity for companies. My company, Everise, empowers our partners in maximizing their growth by helping them create personalized brand experiences at scale.

When businesses reimagine BPOs as growth partners that have deep insights into users’ needs, they will understand how they can deliver better customer experiences, at a time where quality interactions matter most.

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