‘Patience boost caused by pandemic only temporary’

Customer engagement

This year has seen CX Industry experts, some of which feature on the CX Network Advisory board, maintain that the disruption caused by Covid-19 initially triggered heightened sympathy from customers toward brands.

As organizations scrambled to negotiate the unprecedented worldwide complications caused by the pandemic at the start of 2020, CX experts noticed customers were more empathetic and understanding toward the service interruptions and glitches caused.

The added tolerance from customers, however, seems to have been temporary. Almost 80 per cent of the 148 CX experts surveyed in CX Network’s Digital Customer Experience Report 2020 said that they did not think the pandemic had made customers more patient in the long run.

Lucas Robinson, CMO of personal finance website Crediful, says that price and quality have traditionally been considered the most important factors for customers. He says that recently, however, “it seems we have a new leader and that is convenience”.

“People don't have the time anymore to spend hours browsing as they would much rather grab and go,” Robinson notes.

In order to avoid testing customer patience levels, brands should make it as easy as possible for users to achieve their goals. Brands that ignorantly or intentionally test customer tolerance levels could force customers to switch to competitors.

Digital customer engagement

More than 60 per cent of the CX experts who participated in the survey agreed that more customers are now using digital channels in response to the pandemic.

Research carried out for The Global State of Customer Experience 2020 uncovered similar findings, with more than half of the CX practitioners surveyed identifying digital CX and digital transformation as their leading investment priorities, with self-service being one of the more prevalent manifestations of this trend. Live chat pop-ups have been added to certain high-traffic webpages to allow chatbots and virtual assistants to shoulder additional customer care burdens.

Olivier Berthier, CEO of fintech firm Moneythor, said that as brands push forward with digital experiences they should augment them with core human needs such as empathy and personalization.

Berthier maintained: “More and more customers are going digital as brick-and-mortar businesses have been in lockdown during the pandemic. While the channel may be digital, customer expectations of good service and support remain the same. Businesses that have traditionally used digital as a secondary channel now need to focus on providing the same personalized service as they would in-person, online.”

As brands adapt to provide value in a post Covid-19 world, virtual and augmented reality experiences have been pegged for more prevalence in customer engagement, as they could provide prospects and consumers with a level of immersion at a distance. Retail brands, such as IKEA, have been providing augmented reality experiences, enabling users to use their mobile devices to experiment with staging new potential purchases in their homes.

For further insight on digital customer engagement behaviors and trends, download the Digital Customer Experience Report 2020 report using the buttons above.