The Story So Far
COVID-19 sent everyone scuttling back home as fast as an incoming tsunami causes mass evacuation. Organizations, customers and employees found themselves displaced from any familiar lifestyle. Customer service was lost in the calamity.
Now forced to cope with the logistical, cognitive and emotive impact of lockdown.
However, the resilience of the human spirit is such that opportunity knocks whenever the status quo is disrupted. Especially when shared as a common experience and amplified over social and conferencing platforms. We learn fast when we need to.
Adaptation quickly follows.
New mindsets germinate and become active overnight. Strategic agendas are torn down and reprioritized. Purposeful energy is released to get things done without backseat interference.
There is little time for politicking. I’ve personally found it heartening to see how a common adversary can still evoke a combined response and collaborative spirit.
As a result, in terms of readiness to operate as digital-first organizations, more has been achieved in these last few months than any comparable pre-COVID period.
The momentum this continues to generate is propelling customer service into an accelerated period of change.
Where this eventually takes the industry is still being influenced by the knock-on effects of the pandemic.
- Latest official figures show Eurozone economies contracted 12% in the second quarter of 2020. Sectors most affected by social distancing remain under the greatest threat. In these instances, recession-triggered budget cuts imply an urgent search for lower ‘cost to serve’ strategies. How this translates into headcount changes as furlough is withdrawn will be known before the year is out.
- Consumer habits formed during lockdown have translated into a more complex contact mix. Significant growth in text channels is being reported as well as new use cases for video engagement. Self-service and proactive messaging are also being rapidly scaled to remove the pressure on live assistance and pave the way for lower cost-to-serve journeys. One consequence is that omnichannel orchestration becomes essential to keep things simple.
- Meanwhile, the positive benefits of working from home are being actively voiced by customer service teams as something they want to see become part of a permanent capability. The ongoing uncertainty of how to tame COVID means homeworking remains core to business continuity.
Added together…
