Elevating Customer Experience in the Next New Normal
Elevating Customer Experience in the Next New Normal
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the way businesses operates and customer experience. Purchases has transitioned into more digital channels, and public safety has become a top priority for companies and customers as well. Companies that make the correct investments could now build an enduring advantage in serving their customers. Companies should focus on 3 important key points:
1. Preparing for a Digital Recovery
Shifting to digital channels will fulfill the changing customer needs and expectations for the future industry disruption. The expectations for an excellent digital experience were already high before the pandemic.
Companies that accelerate their digital offerings can see increased engagement with their customers now, where digitization has forced them to make processes much more simplified which customers love and be prepared for lower-cost operations in the coming years. These companies should focus on creating virtual and digital experience that is way better than the in-person experience that customers usually get.
To expand their virtual presence, companies need to analyze their capabilities and determine the best and most effective ways to augment them. If they are not capable of shifting completely towards a digital operation, there is always an option of partnering with online marketplaces or delivery services.
2. Accept Safe and Contactless Customer Journeys as Your Default
With the public safety and regulations nowadays, serving customers and delivering products and services to the customers under safe standards and procedures will be crucial and could affect the brand image. Making simple adjustments such as applying physical distancing in stores could be critical to how the customers perceive the company.
Companies should always seek to emphasize safety by designing a contactless end-to-end journey if possible, but with thoughtful human touches. By doubling down on the ease of access and use across digital and physical channels, companies can improve customer satisfaction, safety and also the customer experience.
3. Anticipate, don’t Just Ask for Customer Feedback
Obtaining customer feedback is critical, as it can show how well the business is performing in terms of customer satisfaction and effectiveness, especially after the transition towards digitization.
Customer Feedbacks could be direct data that can be analyzed to identify in which particular areas companies should focus on and put their investments in that particular area. This could mean that companies will have to be more proactive and respond in real-time, which could require companies to make use of data and analytic tools that can extract immediate customer-experience insights and overcome short-sighted and reactive nature of surveys.
Companies that obtains and keeps good records of customer feedbacks will gain a more accurate view of the customer needs and expectations, therefore allowing them to make the necessary changes to fulfill the customer needs and expectations.
Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/elevating-customer-experience-excellence-in-the-next-normal