How to recession-proof customer experience

Customers no longer compare you to a direct competitor—they’re comparing you to the best experiences they’ve had from anybody. A customer is comparing you to Amazon, to the great restaurant down the street, and to the tiny little shoe repairer where the owner knows you and your shoes are always ready before they were supposed to be. These are the experiences that consumers love, and they are starting to expect the same level of service no matter where they go. They know that any company is capable of doing it. It’s up to the companies to choose whether or not they will.

Communicating the right way, proactively, especially if there’s a problem, gives customers a sense of control. That’s an experience that they like to have. I see this go wrong at airports quite a bit. Passengers on a delayed flight ask the gate agent for updates, and I hear the gate agent say the same thing over and over again to each one. Wouldn’t it be easier for that agent to pick up the microphone and make a single announcement? Even though the flight’s delayed, people now feel like they have control because they have this knowledge and don’t have to go up and ask.

I’m a big fan of companies that use AI the right way, and the right way means that it’s not a substitute for human-to-human interaction. Seventy-one percent of the customers that we surveyed said that they would use digital self-service options, like a chatbot, for something as simple as a knowledge base on a website with frequently asked questions and answers. It could be digital tutorials, videos on YouTube. However, when you do need to talk to a human, it needs to be a seamless transition, especially if you’re dealing with a chatbot.

Social channels like Twitter and Facebook are not typically the first choice that customers use. Many of them are making comments because they couldn’t get their questions answered or their complaints resolved using the phone, email, or through chat, so they’ve sought out a backup, and that backup is also a way for them to get revenge on the company that didn’t answer it the first way, because by now they’re angry and upset. And it’s important for that brand to come in and take a look at what’s going on, control the narrative, move this person to a direct-message format, and deal with the problem there.

When you sit down to define the experience that you want your customers to have, you’ll realize that employee experience actually comes before customer experience. You’ve got to train your people properly and empower them the right way to be able to deliver the experience that you want your customers to receive. And it’s not just in customer support, it’s in every role.