COVID-19 has accelerated digital adoption. In the early days of the pandemic, enterprises scrambled to enable work-from-home for their employees. Next, they sought to engage with customers digitally, and open up digital shop fronts.

Setting up the digital infrastructure is the easy part though. The hard part is sustaining the digital ecosystem, to meet customer expectations on digital engagement. The fickle nature of customers, with expectations changing regularly, adds to the challenge.

Many enterprises, even when aware of the importance of delivering digital customer experience, cannot do so. Almost three out of four enterprises now consider transforming the customer experience as more important than before. But only one in three enterprises consider their digital transformation efforts as complete or well advanced. Only 17% of enterprises support a digital environment fully. A whopping 62% of enterprises are in the early stages of supporting a digital culture, or worse, haven’t even started yet. Such firms deliver a fragmented customer experience. They risk misconstruing and underestimating customer expectations and face customer attrition.

Here are the ways to meet customer’s digital engagement expectations.

1. Understand the Customer

Every customer is unique and has different expectations. Their expectations have always been volatile as well. As people change behaviours, marketers and customer support reps will have to change accordingly.

Consider the changes in customer expectations brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many customers now place more importance on the basics of digital experience. They appreciate seamless connectivity, easy login, online ordering, and reliable delivery options. Customers took these basics for granted in the pre-COVID age.

Likewise, expectations of integrity have been increasing steadily. Customers place a premium on transparent pricing and safe delivery. When the focus is on product safety, environmental consciousness, such as reducing plastic bags has taken a backseat.

Many environment-induced changes contradict innate trends. For instance, many millennials prefer proactive brands. They expect brands to know their purchase history and have a personalised engagement with them. Yet, during the COVID-19 times, many customers prefer reliability over personalisation.

The first step to meet the customer’s digital experience expectations is to understand the customer at the current time. Leverage data for the purpose.

• Integrate social media channels as a data source in the CRM. Social media resonates with the voice of the customer. Brands may listen to such voices to address pain points.
• Break down data silos, identify live, relevant data, and analyse it. Deploy robust data platforms and data management capabilities for the same. Identify each customer, accrue information on them, and understand expectations.
• Tackle the gap in expectations proactively. Strengthen the digital ecosystem to reduce the gap. Or else, communicate with the customer to clear the misunderstanding.

2. Build Resilient Systems that can Withstand Shocks

The strength of any digital system depends on the extent to which it meets customer expectations at the most stressful point. Resilient businesses upscale and downscale digital capability effortlessly, to meet customer demands.

Consider the airline industry. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a spike of cancelled flights, and huge refund requests. The high volume of enquiries strained and overwhelmed customer support teams. The wait time for reaching out to a customer support agent extended to hours.

The crisis highlights the need for digital efficiency in resolving issues. Resilient enterprises meet customer expectations by:

• Ensuring scalable infrastructure, to increase the capacity of call centres. The choice of the cloud partner is critical to ensure the availability of reliable infrastructure to scale up when needed. Partner with enterprises capable of withstanding shocks and stress.

• Offering alternative resolution channels, such as reliable and comprehensive self-service options.

3. Adopt Platform Thinking

Conventional pipeline thinking tries to meet customer expectations by improving processes. Platform thinking empowers customers to realise their expectations. Consumers do not merely receive value from the business. Rather, they engage and collaborate with other platform entities to create value. The best example is Uber and Airbnb, which gives customers unlimited options and convenience.

A digital platform strategy removes friction in engaging with stakeholders. It enables the creation of much-needed capabilities in a lean, incremental manner. Enterprises soon curate an ecosystem that serves customers well. A platform-based ecosystem also takes flexibility to the next level. The modular setup allows each customer to pick from the options.

4. Do not go Overboard with Self-Service

Self-service has been increasing in popularity over the years. Many customers prefer to make a service request, raise a complaint, and do other basic support tasks on their own. They desist waiting and explaining things to a customer support agent repeatedly. Self-service is a win-win, as it saves the customers’ time and the business’s money.

The temptation to go overboard with self-service, and close all other more expensive channels is alluring. But such a move will create a downward spiral in meeting customer expectations.

Smart businesses use technology to augment human interactions, not replace them. Many consumers still prefer speaking to a human customer service agent. Even digitally savvy customers who prefer self-service options might want a human agent, at times. Also, a structured list of eventualities never suffices, especially in today’s fluid environment. Human agents keep customer support functioning even at the most uncertain of times.

5. Deliver Consistent Omni Channel Experience

Most customers expect companies to deliver a seamless omnichannel experience. But this is a pain point for businesses, cutting across sectors.

An omnichannel approach requires more focus on the customer and less on the channel. View customer activities as a whole rather than as a series of isolated remarks. Integrate data from various sources into a single pane. Consider the customer activity in the entire context, rather than as a series of independent transactions.

• Pursue a holistic approach that enables customers to use the preferred touchpoint. Leverage the cloud to deliver seamless customer service across web, chat, and other interfaces.
• Offer a one-point service. The Starbucks rewards app represents a textbook application of omnichannel engagement. Customers may check and reload the card through phone, website, in-store, or the app, with the same consistent experience. Changes update across channels, in real-time.
• Create a consistent digital footprint for end-to-end activities. Consider the My Disney Experience tool. The tool enables the visitor to plan the entire trip, down to the last minute detail. The app integrates everything, including a map of attractions, fast pass, wait time for each ride, and more. The Magic Band program app co-opts the hotel room key, photo storage, and ordering food.

6. Ensure Transparency and Integrity

Most customers value transparency. They trust brands that show integrity and are transparent. Building trust and transparency require focusing on the basics and small things that can have a big impact. This translates to instances such as:

• Providing the expected product or service, without applying bait and switch tactics.

• Transparent breakdown of prices, without hidden shipping charges that pop up at the checkout.

• Offering the best option for the customer as the default option.

Build the back-end technology to support the front-end experience. This includes scalable cloud infrastructure and Robust security for digital assets, to keep customer data and other assets safe.

Fix issues that flare up, with urgency. The issue may be minor and not a priority for the business, but will invariably rank as the top priority for the customer.

A robust backend ensures a consistent and unified experience and makes it easier for the enterprise to deliver promises. A banking service going down because of heavy traffic is a sure short disaster.

7. Speed Up the Delivery of Services

Speed is the mantra for success in today’s fast-paced business environment. Most customers are impatient and demand instant results. The spread of digital technology has shortened attention spans.

Position the digital infrastructure to deliver instant results. This takes the form of:

• Automation, to pre-empt wait times and improve accuracy. Train algorithms well. Artificial Intelligence-powered bots speed up processes and increase conversions. But bots are only as good as their algorithms.

• Improving the CX, to cut down complexity. Make websites leaner and simpler to increase load times. Redesign the interface for simplicity.

Even before the pandemic, eight out of 10 consumers are willing to switch companies due to poor customer service. Post COVID-19, enterprises that do not or cannot sustain the customer’s digital expectations face extinction.