Council Post: How The Pandemic Has Impacted Customer Expectations

CEO and Co-Founder of Hiver – a Gmail-centric customer service solution for teams.

Customer experience has become one of the most critical differentiators in the marketplace today. From acquiring customers to engaging with and retaining them over time, more and more companies are focusing their efforts on experience-led interactions and journeys. Taking a customer-first approach has almost become mandatory if you’re looking to sustain and build a successful brand. But it’s not as simple as it looks.

Let’s not forget that modern-day customers are spoiled for choice and that every brand is vying for that constantly diminishing human attention span. This challenge has been further complicated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has brought about an unprecedented shift in customer behavior. 

The pandemic and continuing uncertainty about the future have changed how customers interact with businesses as well as customer expectations overall. In 2020, my company conducted extensive research into changing customer expectations due to the pandemic. Here’s what I’ve learned and how your business can stay ahead. 

Customer expectations have increased during Covid-19.

Customer expectations are soaring during Covid-19, and this indicates the need for companies to make customer interactions more human and relatable. But it might be an uphill task for support teams if you consider the fact that they have to deal with not only a higher volume of customer queries during Covid-19, but also many unique queries around subscription cancellations, delaying payments, faster delivery requests and so on.

That said, it’s absolutely critical in the current climate that your front-line support staff truly understand customer pain points before coming up with solutions. If possible, get rid of scripts and encourage support staff to converse with customers more naturally. Empower your support team to resolve requests the way they best deem fit — the more freedom they have, the easier it is for them to go the extra mile for the customer. 

Customers want simpler and faster service.

Timeliness of service can make all the difference between a mediocre and a delightful customer experience. Quick, straightforward answers are what your customers want today.

What’s clear is that if companies can deliver faster support, they have a good chance of keeping their customers happy. At the same time, not all queries can be resolved swiftly. In such cases, it’s best to communicate with the customer and set clear expectations on when they can expect to hear back from you.

It also helps if you can take a critical look at your existing support processes from a “customer experience” standpoint. What is the average customer wait time? How many times do they have to follow up? 

If your customers have to repeat their issue multiple times, it’s probably because of a lack of context. This happens when queries are passed from one team member to another, usually between different shifts. In this case, you might have to invest in a customer support solution that makes it easy for everyone on your team to access customer information — past interactions, internal discussions around the query and so on.

Customers want to share more and have a lower tolerance.

Customers are more likely to trust recommendations from their family and friends than pay heed to marketing messages. This is especially true during a pandemic when things like well-being and safety have become the utmost priority. Think about it: You’d feel a lot more confident purchasing from a brand that your friends have tried out and only have good things to share. 

As much as positive reviews help exponentially grow, negative reviews can tarnish your brand image. The pervasion of technology and social media means that customers don’t hold back in sharing their experiences, especially negative ones.

That’s why companies have to identify moments along the customer journey when they can regularly ask for feedback. For instance, it could be after a sale, after a support interaction or just before someone is about to leave your website. This helps them always stay on top of the customer’s perception of the brand. More importantly, you need to stay on top of negative reviews, alert the relevant team immediately and fix the experience as soon as possible. 

Customer needs and expectations are always on the rise, and during a pandemic, the bar has only gone up. My experience shows just how important customer support is in winning over the trust and loyalty of your customers. It’s not enough if you have a great product or offer discounts. The way you interact with your customers and fix their issues will determine whether they stay with your brand or jump ship.

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