The importance of maintaining customer trust through the Covid-19 crisis.

I do not think there has ever been a more important time than now to ensure your customers keep confidence in you as a company, your brand and your industry.

Right now, for many of us, each day will seem like a week, it is like we are stuck in Groundhog day. So the thought of this going on in some form or another for 3, 6 even 12 months, seems too long to imagine.

But the thing is, and this is important, it is still a relatively short period of time. It doesn’t feel like it now, not for my company, or I am sure yours. But they are. I remember clearly, making plans to set up Exa over 17 years ago, that’s over 204 months ago, and that seems like yesterday too.

This will pass, and it is how we are perceived on the other side which will decide ultimately which businesses and industries thrive, and which don’t.

Right now there are some businesses and industries going above and beyond. As a very simple one, the telecommunications sector, which Exa sit in. In particular the Internet Service Providers. Which are, in some cases, often rightly slated. And it is important to add, the telecommunications industry is HEAVILY regulated.

But those BIG residential companies, who normally impose data or usage caps (Exa doesn’t because we are B2B and Public Sector), have agreed with no change to regulation, to scrap all usage caps until this has passed. To ensure those of us (and I guess that is how most of us) that are working from home and may have children and other family there 24 hours a day too, are not struggling with juggling work use such as Video Conferencing and domestic internet usages such as Netflix and gaming. They have not charged customers anymore or put further restrictions in place. They have simply given the customers what they needed.

Further to that, those big residential suppliers, have also agreed to not turn anyone off, suspend them or limit they internet connectivity, if they found themselves in a position to not be able to pay for the service during this crisis.

That is outstanding. The internet has become an essential critical infrastructure and to deny people access to it, when we are in the surreal situation we are, would be wrong.

BUT and this is a big but, they could have. The regulations that are in place to protect the end-user, and the terms and conditions of each contract, would have allowed them to turn them off, or reduce their internet throughput, because of “excessive use” or their fair usage policy.

The government didn’t need to change or even threaten regulatory change, they all agreed to do it because they all knew it was the right thing to do.

And yet, other industries right now are going the other way. Protecting their business or sector at all costs, even if it means breaking the law.

And I get it, cash flow is key. Protecting your business is vital, but there are right ways, and there are wrong ways to do it.

As an example, without naming a specific sector, but it is seriously easy to find right now on twitter for instance.

This sector, which is regulated by the UK Government, and the EU, to ensure customers receive a refund if the service/product they offer is cancelled within 14 days, no, if this, no, but that. If it is cancelled you MUST refund the customer 100% of the amount they paid back to them, in cash, within 14 days.

This is regulated in Law!

Yet that industry right now is not doing that, they are holding the customers' money to ensure they have the cash flow to stay alive. Which I do understand, really I do. But you cannot make up your own new terms and conditions, or ignore legal requirements to do so. A contract is just that, a contract, protected under law. If you are then regulated on top of that, then even more so. You cannot do this.

And customers are going nuts about it. And rightly so. One, because many have been furloughed or made redundant and having that cashback in their accounts is more important to them. Two, it is something to which they are legally entitled to.

Now, if the companies want to offer credit notes, and maybe incentivise them to do so, by offering more than they paid for example, and ensuring the customer comes back to them in the future, then they can legally do so IF the customer agrees to it, but if they don’t, then you must do the right thing, however painful. If you are honest with customers and give them a choice, you might be surprised how many will support you, if you lie to them, then why would expect support from them, the government or anyone else?

To make it even worse right now, some of this industry advertise on TV and also have their own dedicated channels on Sky, after reiterating about how their customers are protected through this, and that they should carry on spending even more money with them. Also though they are telling customers that are wanting a refund, that they are not going to obey their legal regulatory obligations and they will have to wait.

If we don’t do the right thing now, then what use are consumer rights and protections. None they are worthless. And in the future customers will remember this. It won’t be short in their memories, however long this lasts; they will simply go with a different option a different way of buying these services and products. And that is the last thing any company wants.

We cannot offer customer guarantees, under law, to give them peace of mind, and then choose to say “well they were never designed for something like the Covid-19 crisis”, which is something I have genuinely heard a spokesperson for this industry say live on TV this week.

In fact, that spokesperson went one step worse, if you would believe that possible, by saying that they were lobbying the government to change the regulations and not have to refund the customer so that their members were protected. This is a spokesperson for the Association that gives the guarantees to the end customer.

IF regulations need to change at the other side of this, then we all, in our industries and with the regulatory bodies, have those sensible conversations and amend them going forward. That is the right way to do it. A more painful one maybe, but still the right way.

Now I have picked examples here of one industry doing things better, and one doing things worse, but in truth, it applies to all of our businesses no matter what sector you are in.

The UK government, and it is very rare I would praise them, have, as far as I am concerned, done as good a job protecting its citizens, employers and employees as it could be expected to have done. The financial support to businesses, the government-backed loans, assistance to self-employed, the furlough scheme (I am sure my wife would have lost her job if not for this) have been essential. Are they perfect, no, could I have done a better job? No. Is everything in place right now to get access to everything, no it isn’t, but this is a situation like we have never seen before and things are having to be made up as it progresses.

Nobody, company or sector, is going to come out of this unscathed (except maybe Video Conferencing companies I guess), but it is how we come out of them that is going to determine how quickly this can be put behind them.

We must ensure that our customers can believe in us, have faith in us, and want to carry on using us straight after this crisis, or it won’t be something that has ripple effects for months or years, it will have ripple effects for decades to come, and may even completely decimate some sectors.