All of a sudden, the whole world is focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, and that includes your customers. Should you review and change your customer experience (CX) efforts in response? Yes. Many of the specifics vary by industry, but here are the three essential things that every company needs to focus on.

1. Start With Empathy — Understand Your Customers In This Moment

Surveys alone are not enough and will not give you the right information — especially not in this situation. To build the customer understanding required, you should:

  • Invest in having live conversations with customers now.
  • Get your research professionals onto customer service calls.
  • Proactively reach out to customers.
  • Respond with concrete steps.

2. Adapt Your CX Accordingly

Some parts of the experiences you’ve been delivering may have been perfect a few weeks ago but could be all wrong now:

  • Critically review the current experiences you are delivering.
  • Do the same with planned experiences.
  • Hit the pause button where needed.
  • Prioritise simplicity and clarity more than ever.

3. Help Your Employees Deliver Great CX Despite The Crisis

They might be frontline staff taking calls from anxious customers. They might be IT staff working around the clock to help the entire workforce be productive from home as companies ask staff to stay away from offices and work remotely. Whatever their role in your company, this is a unique moment for them as the human embodiment of your brand:

  • Employees face uncertainty and anxiety, too.
  • Customers in crisis drive up the stress level for employees
  • Invest in improving employees’ well-being — it will improve CX.

This article was originally posted on Forrester and written by David Troug.

If you’d like to read more about these three essentials and you’re a Forrester client, see Improve Customer Experience In Response To The Coronavirus Pandemic.

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