Winston Churchill famously remarked that we should never waste a crisis, and a recent study from the Institute of Customer Service argues that this is certainly true of the Covid pandemic.  The report says that consumers have grown tired of hearing that customer service is poor because of the pandemic and that the crisis should be used to trigger new ways of doing things.

“Customers who have experienced a positive change in service during Covid-19 are slightly more satisfied than those who have seen no change,” the authors say. “But customers who have experienced a negative change in service are much less satisfied than other customers.”

The authors suggest that we can react to crises in a couple of main ways: we can struggle through in the hope that normality returns as soon as possible, or we can take advantage of the disruption to rethink how we do things.  Suffice to say, the latter is what they advocate, not least in terms of improving the way customer service is delivered.

Nimble responses

There are various examples of companies that have managed to use the pandemic to pivot their services and continue to delight customers.  For instance, the likes of John Lewis, Amazon, First Direct, and Suzuki are among the companies that dominate the league table of customer service champions during the pandemic.

“The main positive changes in customer experience during the pandemic are better scheduling of appointments, support to improve well-being, and proactive communication by organizations,” the authors explain.  “Making it easier to contact the right person to help, website navigation, more helpful, knowledgeable staff are the top issues customers want organizations to improve.”

The league table measures customer experience across five distinct metrics: customer ethos, complaint handling, experience, ethics, and emotional connection.  While there has been a groundswell in support for customer experience in recent years, there remains a sense that much of this has been lip service, with few organizations being truly customer-centric in their approach.

The most effective organizations have been able to use the Covid crises to fundamentally rethink how they deliver benefits to their customers and have managed to innovate their products, services, and marketing in ways that truly delight.

“Customers who prefer to pay more for excellent service are the most likely to spend more with companies they trust and with local, independent or ethical companies,” the report concludes. “The Covid-19 crisis was an unexpected shock but the possibility of a pandemic was not entirely unforeseen in government and organizations’ risk planning. Future shocks are bound to occur, even if their specific timing and character cannot be reliably predicted. Organizations therefore need to ensure that they have learned from the experiences of the Covid-19 crisis and will be better prepared to adapt to future shocks and disruption.”