By: Serena Riley
How can organizations continue to provide brand satisfaction and loyalty during hard times?
In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, organizations are having to evaluate components of their employee and customer experiences, whether realized or not, in order to maintain trust and safety. However, there is also an opportunity to increase brand satisfaction and loyalty by leveraging experience management concepts.
Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. And then communicate some more. Nothing creates more anxiety during uncertain times than being silent. Employees and customers need to be reassured your organization anticipates, stays informed, and plans for world events that may affect business results AND their livelihoods. Keeping information flowing during difficult times instills confidence that your organization is doing its best to rapidly respond and alter its strategy to enable the best outcomes for all stakeholders you serve.
Actively listen – more than usual. Creating or amplifying existing listening channels across your organization, for capturing both internal and external feedback, will be key to understanding the perceptions of your employee and customer base. The more you listen, the more insights are gained and the more quickly you identify opportunities to positively improve experiences.
Share actions being taken. What are the actionable steps you’re taking to react and respond to current global challenges and your employee and customer insights? Don’t just execute, execute AND educate. Closing the feedback loop will build trust with your stakeholders and demonstrate you listen and care; building trust will increase loyalty.
Exponentially extend empathy. The best organizations will proactively find ways to demonstrate empathy within their employee and customer experiences. Whether it be through extending a valuable product or solution for free to customers and non-customers alike, temporarily relaxing policies and procedures to accommodate hardships and extenuating circumstances, or reinforcing servant leadership and doing what’s right philosophies – truly understanding the needs of employees and customers will create salient memories and increase satisfaction.
Evaluating your organization’s employee and customer experiences should be a boundless practice but adjusting your lens’ during volatility can prove to strengthen your organization even more than usual.
About the author:
Serena Riley, CCXP
Director of Customer Experience, LLamasoft.
Serena is a customer experience expert who specializes in cultivating customer-centricity and employee-elevation. Featured in Amplified Customer Experience: "Getting immersive to create alignment, and empathy" and on Walker Info's "The CX Leader Podcast" on Best Practices in CX, she enables organizations to drive solution and experience improvements, increasing engagement and delivering happiness to customers and employees for over 15-years.