A Ugandan musician, Eddie Kenzo said in one of his songs that \u2018if the world gives you a lemon, do not complain about it\u2019. Instead, \u2018turn it into lemonade\u2019, and move on. The song, released at the time the singer was going through a stressful marriage break up, is an encouragement on how to benefit from life\u2019s trials.<\/p>\n
The COVID-19 global humanitarian and economic crisis, is one such trials of life. It has challenged and forced individuals and businesses to rapidly change how they live and work. Customer care and touchpoints have taken on a new meaning in this milieu requiring companies to rethink their approaches to customer experience.<\/p>\n
Businesses are rapidly re-evaluating their customer-experience efforts from examinations of customer journeys, satisfaction metrics to implementing new processes, and investing in new analytic tools to inform what the new customers\u2019 needs are; from safety, security, urgency, and convenience.<\/p>\n
Although this pandemic has overwhelmed lives and livelihoods around the globe, the reality is that, like Eddie Kenzo said, it has also created massive opportunities for companies that will shift from mere customer service to rapid innovations and redesign exceptional customer centric solutions to be set apart from the competitions.<\/p>\n
The critical questions, however, that businesses leaders and individual entrepreneurs should be asking are: can we rapidly adapt to overcome a range of apparent significant barriers confronting us and make the transition for the proactive customer experience transformations urgently needed? And how can we turn COVID-19 into lemonade and increase customer engagement, experience and eventual growth?<\/p>\n
This is what we, at Human Capital international<\/a>, seek to address in this article. We believe that no matter what the world has \u2018thrown\u2019 at you in the form of COVID-19 effects, with the right strategy, mentality, will power and the right team, businesses can come out of this lockdown bruised, but better prepared to take on the future challenges and emerge stronger. To fit in the new normal, every business must, at least do the following.<\/p>\n In the shifting customer-care landscape, which has become a characteristic of the new normal,\u00a0people and businesses are forced into a digital-only way of life, in which every interaction has the potential to strengthen or destroy customer-business relationship. At its core, this digital-only way of life involves identifying customers\u2019 needs and rethinking alternative solutions to provide better customer experiences by offering tailored made options, that lead to enhanced customer lifetime value and increased consumption of existing and new services or products.<\/p>\n As companies increasingly offer customers online shopping and deliveries especially during the lockdown, businesses which are able to adopt this approach aggressively and in effect, move away from being reactive to a proactive, solution-oriented approach to genuine humane customer engagements, will cause their competitors to cede grounds to them<\/p>\n In China, for example, during this COVID- 19 pandemic, most customers were longing for their usual comforts, and traditional communal experience in restaurants. In response, a restaurant chain decided to recalibrate their strategy for customer engagement and began delivering the ingredients for the cherished meal to customers who ordered them online, enabling them to enjoy their cherished food at home leading to enhanced customers experiences and fostering a better relationship with the company.<\/p>\n Read this article:<\/strong> Six lessons to learn from COVID-19 pandemic<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n There is no doubt that the rapid development of digital channels is key to ensuring continuity of services in the new normal. However, in the world of intensive competition, the survival of businesses now depends on the goodwill and perceptions of the customer, built from the customers\u2019 experience with your solutions and interactions with your brand.<\/p>\n Remember, gone are the days where a particular company had the monopoly of producing a given service or product, and that should motivate you to zero in on refined digital options but which come with humane customer experience solutions in this new normal.<\/p>\n The lockdown should have given you enough time to reflect and strategize how you will get personal with your customers and avoid the business as usual approaches of selling products and services as standalone and instead innovate your digital options to enhance your customer experience transformations.<\/p>\n Next-generation digital thinking and humanitarian customer experience practices have not only changed customers\u2019 behaviours, but have also raised their expectations about their interactions with businesses.<\/p>\n In essence, the rising customer expectations which is pressing businesses to come up with more tailor-made and functional improvements, have pushed customer experience to the fore as a key factor in the success or failure of businesses in this new normal. The stakes have simply become so high.<\/p>\n As the coronavirus wreaks havoc on lives and economies around the world, new estimates in a report released by the UNCTAD, the UN agency responsible for trade and development, shows that e-commerce has risen to $25.6 trillion. This estimate includes business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) sales, which represents equivalent to 30 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP). Businesses, understandably, have transitioned from human interactions to digital or automated ones. The irony in that shift though, is that it\u2019s no longer good enough to just make those online selling interactions the major business prepositions. Businesses must be more customer experience driven in their interactions across those virtual channels, and think of how they can surprise customers.<\/p>\n For example, can you innovate and think about ways to respond to the health and safety challenges of your customers by taking extra precautions, such as extending opening hours for healthcare workers as well as free home-delivery services?<\/p>\n Digital-led interactions will continue to grow in popularity even after the coronavirus is subdued, however, it will take companies\u2019 initiatives to deliver exceptional customer experiences using these digital platforms. Companies which make this shift and deliver superior customer experiences, have an opportunity to increase adoption and maintain these customer relationships after the crisis.<\/p>\n Related article: <\/strong>Post COVID-19: Rethinking the Opportunities in The Next Normal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n This pandemic has obviously exposed how vulnerable we all are, the C-suit executive, the staff, customer, rich and the poor. Now more than ever, we all need extra information, guidance, and support to navigate the novel set of challenges thrown at us by this pandemic.<\/p>\n For businesses, this offers a unique opportunity to live your corporate values by staying relevant, connected and reaching out to your staff and customers, not in manipulative ways to gain competitive edge, but in ways that show that you genuinely care and want to offer support. Already, we have witnessed many businesses shown the way up to care for their customers. For example, when tens of thousands of college students needed to vacate their dormitories unexpectedly in the USA, a storage rental company offered 30 days of free self-storage. A credit-card company quickly recognized the pandemic\u2019s financial burden and waived one month of interest on credit cards. Some Financial institutions are, as well, not penalizing customers who cannot meet payment obligations for March and April. Some travel companies, including most major airlines, are also waiving cancellation fees.\u00a0 The benefits and impact of such gestures to customers during such times are priceless and, in the end, it enhances positive relationships with customers that are bound to last long after the crisis has ended.<\/p>\n But remember that caring for customers starts with thinking first about employees. When employees are not properly and adequately taken care, it becomes impossible for them to deliver similar or same experiences to customers. In crisis times, the safety and wellbeing of your staff must be paramount to you. They must be the first recipients of your true business values and customer experience practices. That way the same service and courtesies will be extended to your customers.<\/p>\n Remember your customer facing employees are the eyes and ears who collect vital customer feedback from their daily interactions with customers for strategic inputs.<\/p>\n Many entrepreneurs start and grow business but with time, fail to adjust to novel customer and employees\u2019 needs. In the end, such businesses end up in the archive section of business directory. In a competitive world, do everything possible to stay relevant and connected with your staff and customers by caring and constantly innovating your customer experiences to result in a shift from focusing on products and service features as your major selling edge.<\/p>\n Conclusion <\/strong><\/p>\n Customer experience practices have taken on a new definition and dimension in the overwhelming challenge of COVID-19. In the end, it is only businesses leaders who will significantly deploy measures to care, and innovate during this crisis that will build strong relations with customers beyond the pandemic\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Ugandan musician, Eddie Kenzo said in one of his songs that \u2018if the world gives you a lemon, do not complain about it\u2019. Instead, \u2018turn it into lemonade\u2019, and move on. 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