Businesses, as well as all of us, are now forced to adapt to the “new normal” that the Covid-19 pandemic created. This pandemic is enormously affecting all of the businesses’ needs to survive, especially their customer service (CS). It is not surprising how much the customer service is already essential, but, recently, it should be cared for as it is one of the top businesses’ priorities.
According to a study conducted by the Harvard Business Review team, it is concluded that many troubles are making the customer experience harder and the CS more challenging for its leaders. 
So, we need to look closer and know why CS is more needed and important now than before.  

The need to preserve and improve your business’s performance in its marketplace:  

Nowadays, CS is becoming the key differentiator that keeps businesses in the competition. Covid-19 brought financial difficulties for them and losing customers will not be a good scenario. So, here comes the importance of CS which is about the relationship between consumers and services/products providers. However,  building that relationship recently became the real challenge; now it is harder for CS leaders to build, rebuild, or preserve the relationship status with their clients. 
PWC undertook a study before this pandemic has started and showed that “75 percent of the customers surveyed preferred to interact with a human versus an automated machine”. So, how about now where customers are enduring challenges adopting to the “new normal” and online services and seeking human interactions even more?  

The costumers’ needs and behavior have been changed: 

 Living with the “new normal” is hard for customers and even harder for business owners to adapt to. Now, costumers need to be understood, cared for, and served better than before with the online environment they are forced to deal with. Similarly, CS leaders need to keep up with that and the challenges brought with it when it comes to fulfill their customers’ demands. 
In addition, this pandemic has fostered people’s desire to cocoon at home more than before. This new behavior is making the CS mission harder where they need to provide their customers with the best service to satisfy their new desire.  

The businesses’ need to preserve the customers’ trust and confidence:  

When businesses consider the CS one of the most important success keys to maintain, they will be seizing the opportunity to build a closer and stronger relationship with their customers. Their customer’s trust will increase when they provide them with good services and additional support and care. Also, the decline of the customer’s optimism towards their financial situation will make the customers’ trust factor more important to be carefully considered.  

The need to make the customers feel safe:  

Away from the services that require the online communication, other businesses such as restaurants, shops, gyms, etc.…  should pay attention to their customer service as well. With the widespread of Covid-19, customers will return stressed and anxious about the place’s safety and services’ quality. So, it is clearly important to create the environment of protection, safety and comfort for the customers throughout their experience. 

The pandemic created a new reality with many challenges we need to face. Businesses worldwide have been striving to survive and stay able to compete. Recently, customer service has become more important to care for than ever as it is a vital success factor. When a business succeeds in preserving a great customer service, it gains a valuable relationship with its customers who will keep in mind how great their experience was when dealing with it during this challenging time.  

 

 

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References: 

https://hbr.org/2007/02/understanding-customer-experience 

https://www.pwc.com/ng/en/assets/pdf/redefining-customer-experinece.pdf