As Australian businesses grapple with the task of finding the ‘new normal’ following the COVID 19 crisis, it’s time to reassess our approach to customer experience.
CSBA regularly releases results from our SenseCX Quality Assurance Benchmarking program. While the landscape we’re operating in is very different post COVID, we have looked at how customer experience has changed in the four months since the crisis has eased, compared to the period just prior to the commencement of nation wide lockdowns in March 2020.
Making customer interactions easy is a priority… for some sectors
Businesses in the Utilities sector have focused on making interactions easier for their customers. This is likely influenced by the sector prioritising training programs for staff to help them support vulnerable customers, and they put into practice an array of measures to assist customers most in need. A similar increase in Ease scores was evident in both the Education and Local Government sectors.
Conversely, over same period, Ease of dealing with Health Insurers and Banks fell considerably. Given the nature of the COVID 19 crisis, where health and finances were top of mind for many of us, more could have been done to lessen the blow to Australia consumers. Interestingly, however, with emergency legislation allowing people to withdraw from their superannuation, and a vast backlog of enquiries in that industry leading to longer wait times, super funds managed to maintain quality of service once connected to an agent.
COVID-19 has helped us focus on people
Across all sectors, we have seen consistent or increased Sentiment scores. From this we can infer that service specialists have maintained a focus on making sure that their customers’ emotional needs remained front of mind. While many organisations have actively worked to overcome the potential for ‘empathy burnout’, considering the strain that COVID 19 has placed on agents working in all sectors, they should be commended for staying in tune with the unique needs of each customer.
Cross sector performance
Click here to learn more about how the assessment program operates.
