How organisations 'service' or treat customers during this challenging period will be remembered.....

Introduction

It was interesting reading and reflecting on an article that I posted back in April of 2020. I thought I would re-share on the basis that now, in August 2021 customer service / experience has become even more important, if not the key factor for customers when they are considering making purchase decisions.

Here we are, in August 2021 and now Customers {us} want, nay demand, very good service. Tolerance for anything less has pretty much gone. We are less patient, we want swift, seamless experiences, mostly done online by ourselves. When we need help, we want it pretty much instantaneously and it had better be good {resolved first time}. Those that do this well are winning. Those who can't or won't are losing and they will not survive for long.

I fear that this winter will be a tough one for many businesses on many levels. Across multiple industries, there is an ever growing shortage of key products. Add to that, the lack of experienced service people to manage the difficult messages and we may have a perfect service storm brewing. Watch this space.

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Looking back at April 2020;

I’ve had a mixed bag of service experiences since being in lockdown with my family. I’ll come back to this in a minute.

In these challenging times, It’s very interesting to see which organisations have ‘upped’ their service game. Who has thought differently or even reinvented how they 'service' any new and just as importantly, any existing customers.?

What is clear, is that when we come out of this crisis, any organisation who thinks that they can continue to deliver a sub standard or an ordinary experience / level of service for that matter will simply lose. In short, they will rapidly lose custom, they will rapidly lose money and then it will be too late.

Yesterday, my wife said she was somewhat surprised and delighted that her car insurer had refunded ￡25 to her bank account. They had written to her and acknowledged that the traffic situation during lockdown was understandably much lighter and there were less chances of accidents and incidents etc.?

Fantastic! A company thinking; how do we look after our customers in this financially difficult period, how can we demonstrate understanding and empathy. The knock on effect will be large. My wife immediately said ‘well that’s next years insurance sorted then’. This quality customer experience stuff stays in the memory bank, this is where reputations are enhanced and new and existing customers are won. A big 'Well Done' to Bell Insurance.

On the flip side, I was one of many, who at the start of the lockdown period, received the well-referenced 'your price' is going up message from Vodafone. Perhaps this was just poor timing, but I haven't seen any statement to say otherwise or an acknowledgement of the position that this leaves many customers in. I will be leaving them when my contract is up in October. Regardless of their size, it all just lacks empathy and consideration - end of.

The other example that I want to share with you came when I was recently shopping with a company for some wine. I had built up some credit and was looking forward to ordering a few bottles {ok quite a few :)}. I noticed that the ￡40 I had previously built up from last year was not included in the balance that I had now built up. I looked to make contact with them and decided on the live-chat service to enquire as to where my money had gone. 6 messages later and 4 hours past and still no response. I continued to try and make contact with the provider to see where my ￡40 went, but with no joy. I even tried, maybe foolishly, to spend this years ￡100 balance only to be told that I can't have any wine delivered because they are over-subscribed. Aaaagh!

I get it that a sudden event or surge in product demand can decimate operational service levels and the ability for customers to make swift contact with businesses. However, what I and other customers won't tolerate is the lack of communication from companies to inform them of what the situation is and what they are doing about it to make it better.

So, in summary, it's been hugely interesting to see which companies and organisations have taken this period as an opportunity to stand out and apart from others using a variety of inspired customer service / experience methods and practices. It's also been worrying to watch some organisations fail to respond to the impact of Covid 19. We've all seen examples of organisations panicking and not communicating with their employees or their customers, others have continued to do the same things in the same way with a degree of success and some have simply not done anything at all. Not many companies will survive 2020 or 2021 if they have adopted these strategies and tactics.

The short to middle to long term winners will be the organisations who can demonstrate genuine empathy, innovation and consideration for their customers. These companies are the ones who will come out of this pandemic stronger and with their service reputations enhanced.