10 learnings from CX used to conquer a world pandemic

At times like these, when businesses are confronted with make or break challenges, we are well armed to share some of our learnings for the benefit of both the society and organisations still attempting to get accustomed to the ‘new normal’. With our battle scars as proof, below are 10 learnings the world can adopt from CX practitioners in conquering the world pandemic:

Leadership Matters

True leaders corral their troops, unite their folks and provide hope to their followers. Leaders are liable for empowering and cultivating a learning culture within the organisation where employees are not afraid of change, willing to fail and learn through their failures. The focus is on improving the overall outcome for the customer NOT on placing blame.

It is in situations like these that the true characteristics of a leader are revealed. Playing politics in a time of need derails from the end objective.

Strong-minded Leadership

Top-down leadership is important to drive CX as more often than not, you have to coordinate efforts across different functions of the organisation. When the efforts are not led from the top, the overall experience is disjointed and out of alignment.

Time is not your friend when there is a critical situation at hand. The more you procrastinate, problems will multiply and get out of hand. Lack of strong-minded leadership leaves the teams guessing for the next steps.

No Silver Bullet

There is no one-size-fits-all for CX. Instead, it is the combined efforts of all individuals that help tip the bucket in your favour. There is no silver bullet, no fool-proof CX strategy, and no miracle cure to low NPS figures. It is a summation of all the evolutions and optimisations in the CX process coupled with an organization-wide buy-in that delivers positive outcomes.

Similarly, while there is no miracle cure for COVID-19 yet, it is the combined efforts of all communities and their respective leaders which will define the course of the virus.

Setting Benchmarks and Crushing Them

CX goal setting is often a management-driven approach. Each stakeholder is responsible for the metric directly under their control and also of the metrics owned by others that impact the key results. Set goals that you feel are achievable with a 50% certainty. Realistically stretching the goals help in the all-round development of both the employees and the organization.

Setting unrealistic expectations with the citizens to curb the coronavirus and then having to push back these dates doesn’t look good. Rather such should be aligned with more clearer outcomes such as reducing the number of instances.

Listen To Your Front-Line

Your front-line warriors are a gold-mine of important information about your customers and the challenges that lie ahead. As long as you keep creating your CX strategies from behind the 17th-floor glass window, your initiatives are bound to fail. Get a ground reality before making a move. In any organisation, your frontline agents are the front-runners of the initiative and can provide more unheard stories about the ground-reality. Failing to engage them can lead to larger debacles in your customer experience efforts.

Align Brand Messaging and Action

Customer experience is a child of customer-centricity and it takes the entire organization to raise this child. The key is to take ownership and not share the blame. Take ownership in whatever capacity you can. A concerted response can help in bridging critical process gaps and resolving customer queries much faster.

We need an aligned messaging, action and response from all layers of government, healthcare workers, essential service providers and individuals to fight the virus.

Let Experts Run The Show

On frequent instances, we have seen organisations engage vendors and consultants but fail during the transfer of knowledge. Not only is this heavy on the pockets, but it delivers sub-par results for the organisation. In difficult times, it is wise for the inexperienced individuals to take a back-seat and let the experts take the wheel. This reduces the wastage of time and results in faster responsiveness.

What can get Measured Can Be Improved

Programs that evangelise the voice of the customer throughout the organisation allow us to understand what matters to customers, how frequent and wide-spread the problems are and where efforts need to be prominent. Measuring the customers’ experience across every touchpoint and interaction can help you identify critical pain-areas of the customer across the customer journey. Only once you have measured it, can you improve the experience.

Deploying full-scale testing for infections due to coronavirus and swift action upon detection have enabled countries to flatten the curve faster than the countries that didn’t. Not testing is like driving a car with blindfolds, leading to more damage to a nation’s citizens and in-turn the economy.

Root-Cause Analysis

Once issues are uncovered, conducting root cause analysis helps identify the underlying reasons for the gaps in experience deliveries and can be solved eventually for good. It is important to solve for the root-cause than focus on damage-control.

Identification of ground zero, patient zero and the cause of the virus has given medical scientists around the world a direction to begin their problem-solving journey in.

Act Fast On Sufficient Data; Don’t Boil The Ocean

Collecting, analysing and regressing big-data to substantiate your decisions may seem comforting, but often more than not, these results are delivered too late or may provide solutions to yesterday’s problems. This is one of the many reasons why surveys and market research projects are often redundant. Collect maximum information you can in real-time and jump to the next step. Reminds me of something my boss always quoted, “Don’t sit and wait for the ocean to boil. You will never see the end of it!”

Identifying the hotspots in the outbreak, help set up proper quarantine rules to protect the rest of the masses from being infected.

 

We at LitmusWorld hope the best for your business and the people driving it. Feel free to reach out to us at www.litmusworld.com/contact-us for any support.

Stay safe.

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