Putting Experiences where the Heart is…

45 Days, 55 webinars, 220 product demos, and 50 interviews later– the lockdown hasn’t been kind to my Content Marketing goals. Yet, it has given us a chance to huddle together and come an inch closer ‘virtually’ in our remote workplaces to practice, enjoy and promote the new norm of lifestyle- social distancing. Today, Zendesk’s Showcase APAC virtual event was broadcasted to hundreds of registered attendees who heard what it means to do business during the pandemic.

Speakers included CEO and founder, Mikkel Svane, COO Tom Keiser, Chief Customer Officer Elisabeth Zornes and Riccardo Pasto, ANZ Head of CX Research at Forrester. Sarah Reed, director of Events, was the host.

Speakers shared their recent experiences during the pandemic, dealing with customers, government agencies, and frontline workers — all championing the absolutely new level of “citizen service” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you missed the 90-minute virtual event, here’s a quick recap of the show, chronicling the inspiring lessons we can learn from each other.

Lesson 1: How to Navigate Turbulence

Riccardo Pasto from Forrester discussed a 4-step plan on how to responding to, and to lead through a crisis. The emphasis for anyone working through the pandemic to grow their CX efforts should switch from acquisition to servicing. Servicing could be in any way that is helpful to the person, and who may not necessarily be a customer. We might find valuable information while gathering qualitative feedback from existing customers, as they share personal and professional experiences while navigating through this pandemic turbulence.

“Gather as much data in the form of qualitative feedback that they share through online surveys. Build value for your customers during a pandemic by going the extra mile to get them their basic needs.”

Lesson 2: Build a Value for your Customer

Today, in every customer-brand communication, the context is “pandemic.”

An agent today, knowing he/she is equally affected by the pandemic, staves personal fear to soothe a customer at a personal level. Never would we know if this granular level of unhindered CX through conversations were ever achieved before the lockdown.

Some companies stand up at the time of such massive upheaval.

For example, Tokio Marine Singapore is offering Peace of Mind Term Life Insurance with cashback and wealth enhancement plans during the pandemic.

Think of everyone as affected, isolated and coping with unprecedented hardship. Each of those could be your customer, provided you have the heart to care for their needs and provide genuine empathy at times they want the most.

What does my customer really care for?

What’re they ready to give up during pandemic?

Are they really safe and healthy while I talk to them?

Will the conversation really help the customers understand how my product and services make pandemic-isolation bearable?

Lesson 3: An Enabled Business Believes in the CX Value System

Pricing has taken a back seat for most businesses. It’s time to enable those who can deliver empathy, with truest sense to maintain a simple, clear tone of commitment and hand-holding through this pandemic.

Ask yourself:

Does my messaging highlight the company’s value systems and efforts in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic?

Does my CX value system tie in with the social distancing norms?

Will my services break quarantine measures?

A company like Zendesk has a very strong CX value system, and during the Q&A chat sessions, we could see the team responding to various CX inquiries related to value systems.

Lesson 4: Self-service Customer Experience Management

Let’s talk numbers: self-service businesses, during the pandemic, have grown by an astronomical 490% since the start of lockdown in various countries. In APAC alone, we are seeing a 179% rise in the self-service grocery sector that is providing essential goods and supplies. Customers raise unique demands with regard to Order Management, including the status of their order, cancellation of delivery, time management, and emergency goods.

In B2B alone, we are seeing unprecedented growth in the number of subscribers for video conferencing and remote workplace apps such as Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. Clearly, we all understand that the future of customer support would be a VERY (un)usual business. Tom Keiser shared his insights on how to make self-service apps and platforms center of CX value system, even as Zendesk continues with “helping employees, customers, and the business navigate from crisis through rehabilitation to planning for a ‘new normal’.”

It’s time to embrace self-service customer service. Enable customers to choose their own set of automation tools for self-service.

A powerful one-stop, get-all Zendesk App marketplace is a chaos-free destination to build your own Self-service CX Value system.

Lesson 5: Empowering support teams 

If you could name one Chief Customer Officer on the planet who was prepared to deal with the pandemic and its aftermath, we will brand them as “neo-Nostradamus”. Not joking, but some CEOs and CMOs always work with a sense of urgency, pushing the boundaries of adopting their business teams to embrace digital-native operations. Zendesk’s CEO Mikkel Svane, right from the time we last heard him in Relater in March, to now — the focus has always been to empower team members and customers with powerful tools. Zendesk Chief Customer Officer Elisabeth Zornes shared her thoughts on how to empower remote teams to manage greater support volumes with empathetic responses.

We could draw inspiration in empowering our service teams from the Empathy Lab.

Next week, I will be attending Zendesk’s next webinar with Zendesk’s CIO, Colleen Berube on 20 May.

Join the webinar to learn how to build a strong business continuity plan, recruit-hire-manage remote workforce and fortify security standards for an optimal customer service strategy during the pandemic.

(To share your insights on martech, sales tech and customer service applications, please write to us at sghosh@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com)