In the months since the health crisis shuttered the country and the world, business leaders faced unimaginable service challenges to keep their operations open when physical doors were forced closed. This called for clear thinking and operational creativity, especially for those businesses providing ‘essential’ services.

With service continuity well established, the hard work has only just begun. 

The customer mood is shifting. Customer confidence is low. Impatience and frustration are high. Customers are feeling the angst over service limitations and compromises, which they feel forced to accept. Will their patience expire? Is their loyalty at risk?

Meanwhile, your competitors are busy planning ways to meet their needs. Absolutely nothing could be more important right now than renewing your commitment to service quality and customer experience.

We offer business leaders the following three service-centric tactics to begin the process of reprioritizing commitments to customer experience:

• The first is called Care Queries. Employees on the front lines of call centers, drive-up services and even limited in-branch locations should be trained to ask at least one service query, and to relay customer comments to management; i.e., ‘I hope you know we care about you! We’re asking customers if there is one thing, one need, one suggestion that would ensure we keep your trust in us through this time?’
• The second is Electronic Scorecards. It goes without saying, service quality is going to need new definition, new priorities and new delivery mechanisms in 2021. Scorecards are a type of survey solution that uncovers whether you’re getting it right, getting it wrong or getting into trouble. Scoring your digital experience, uniquely from your branch experience, delivers channel-based insights.
• The third is Virtual Focus Groups. If your customer survey efforts, to date, have never used focus groups, now is certainly the most video-conference friendly time to attract customer participation. Best of all, development of focus group research can be highly customized to your business needs and priorities. Virtual focus groups present endless possibilities for collecting customer insights.

PUBLISHED cf-pm.com 09.2020