COVID-19 has made it hard to survive for many businesses. Of course, what custom you do have can’t go to waste. In short, it’s never been as essential to boost your customer experience than now. Consumers have questions that need answers, and being open and transparent may be the difference between them pledging their loyalty to you and bouncing.

With so many plates to spin and balls to juggle, the idea of responding to emails and taking angry phone calls will fill you with dread. At times, it can seem that life is unfair, especially if you’re an SME with limited resources.

However, there is always a silver lining, even when the going gets tough. After all, this is the most technologically advanced era in history, and it’s a fantastic leveller.

With that in mind, below you’ll find adaptive and innovative ways to transform your processes to ensure customers are eternally happy. Yes, it is doable, even during a health crisis.

Speculate To Accumulate

Cutting back and restricting the company’s spending is inevitable when the economy is predicted to fall by as much as 50% and unemployment could hit 30%. Currently, the only option, it seems, is to strip back your processes and practices and attempt to see out the pandemic. However, in these circumstances, you must be brave if you want to keep shoppers coming back for more.

Yes, that means investing even when funds are tight. The reason is simple – your employees need the correct equipment to perform their jobs from home. Firstly, without headsets for your home office and phones, you won’t be able to funnel callers to advisors. Secondly, if you can, the reps will struggle to solve issues and complaints. After all, the customer services team is a unit that relies on one other to craft tailor-made solutions. 

Therefore, communication between customers and colleagues has to be seamless. Otherwise, the glitches will result in shoppers switching allegiances, making surviving COVID-19 much harder.

Lean On AI

Artificial intelligence is no longer an indulgence that the biggest businesses use to add another layer to their customer experience.

Today, it’s a crucial tool that allows companies to reduce the pressure on the customer service team. How? By answering frequently asked questions that are simple to solve.

Opening hours are something that is confusing at the moment, and of course, you need your base to understand the changes. Still, it’s a roadblock that’s straightforward to swerve if you redirect queries to the business website.

There, the new opening times will clearly and concisely inform people without the need to send an email or pick up the phone. And AI has more scope when used in conjunction with a site.

Chatbots that pop-up as soon as a user lands on a page, for instance, are able to deal with more complicated problems.

By connecting to the server, a virtual assistant can do everything from checking online stock to prices and user bandwidth. Of course, the last resort is for a rep to pick up the conversation. Still, A) the odds are high that your chatbot will fix the problem, and B) your employee has additional info.

As a result, they can use it to solve the query as quickly and effectively as possible.

Secure The Interaction

The same fail-safes you have in the office aren’t guaranteed at the moment. When workers perform their roles from home, there is no way to tell how many security weak spots there are at a given time. Aside from making you a target, it makes your customers a target, too. A single data leak, at such an unpredictable time, could tarnish the brand’s reputation forever. Therefore, you must take extra steps to ensure customer info is safe.

Disseminating basic security protocols should be the first move. Without making your employees aware of their responsibilities and how to carry them out, they won’t act responsibly. Then, you should move onto strengthening the server so that hackers can’t access it remotely.

A simple-yet-useful option is to invest in a VPN and give the whole team the password. Also, a password audit is a wise move because employee email accounts are notoriously weak due to bad password choices. 

However, the best tool at your disposal is to enable end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp uses this technology to such a powerful effect that the US government has to ask them for access. You can just use WhatsApp, but it may not appear professional, which is why Ricochet is popular with businesses.

Keep Stores Open

Of course, this comes with a massive caveat – as long as it is safe to do so and doesn’t flout lockdown rules. But, it is worth noting that companies have found ways to continue trading without putting the health of customers at risk. And, it’s an incredibly effective way to enhance and improve the consumer experience.

For one thing, it gives them more options when everyone in the country is relying on online shopping. Due to the increase in demand, some shoppers have to wait days before an order is delivered, which means that your store (if you have one) can provide a valuable alternative. Also, it will take the pressure off your internet systems that may struggle to cope with the sheer numbers of orders.

The question is, how do you know it’s safe?

The best answer is to figure out whether you’re an essential service. If, for example, you offer a takeaway food service, you can let customers into the store one at a time and carry on trading.

Action Feedback

Finally, you must make feedback actionable. Running a business from several homes is out of everybody’s comfort zone, so there is bound to be a handful of mistakes. Customers aren’t unreasonable and will cut you some slack, yet they won’t wrap you cotton wool forever.

Should you not learn from your errors and fix them, they’ll shop somewhere else. Simple. Therefore, when you receive feedback, you have to tell your employees and create training workshops that tackle the issues.

Are you willing to go the extra mile for your customers and battle COVID-19 simultaneously?

© New To HR