When unexpected disaster hits, how should enterprises handle the impact on customer experience? Read on for expert suggestions on best practice for CX crisis mitigation, or get in touch if you’d like to speak with our analysts on this topic.
It was a business-as-usual day on July 18th, until several users started seeing the “blue screen of death” issue on their systems. Soon, it became clear that the problem was more widespread than initially thought. Airline, hospital, banking operation, auto company systems and more were crippled across the globe.
While it was soon identified that the issue was caused by an update pushed by CrowdStrike that took down worldwide Microsoft systems, there was no ready fix to undo the damage immediately. This resulted in many cancelled flights, the 911 emergency line going down across several US states, and major stock exchanges suffering outages across the globe. While the technical issue has now been resolved, it might take several days in some situations to go back to normal.
As customers bore the brunt of the havoc, there are lessons for enterprises on how they can best manage customer experience (CX) in times of such crisis. It’s highly unlikely that this is going to be the last outage impacting the globe. Enterprises are increasingly coming under threat from such disruptions, often driven by nefarious elements.
Some measures that enterprises can consider for minimizing the inconvenience for customers during such outcomes include:
Proactive communication – in real-time and with transparency
Given the potentially massive scale of disruption, it becomes crucial for enterprises to set up a communication channel with their customers and proactively inform them of issues undergoing resolution. This can be done through use of technology where information can be pushed out across multiple channels, such as text, messaging, and emails. Informing customers of the issue as early as possible allows them to plan more effectively.
It is also vital to be transparent. Often, it is not clear when the issue will be resolved, but communicating what has happened and what is being done to fix it can help alleviate customer concerns.
For example, during the 2021 Facebook outage, the company used Twitter to keep users informed about the issue and posted updates on restoration efforts, ensuring continuous communication despite their primary platform being down.
Managing volume surge – support team readiness
Any major disruption is going to create a significant surge in the volume of enquiries coming in. Equipping support teams with the right information and setting up self-serve channels can help manage some of that influx. Using agent assist solutions can help them be more readily equipped to provide real-time updates.
Business continuity plan (BCP) measures – redundancy, flexibility, and crisis management
Having BCP measures in place can be crucial, as outages such as these can often result in entire teams in a particular region being cut off. Having redundancies built into the system through use of cloud-based flexible solutions, as well as using edge computing to ensure reduced loads on central servers, can help reduce any potential technology challenges.
Similarly, having diversified teams across regions, if possible, as well as providing crisis management training to agents, can help them to better manage customer complaints during a crisis. Additionally, having global and regional crisis management teams that can take independent actions in dire situations can often result in saving precious time when deploying countermeasures.
For instance, after the 2018 Marriott data breach, the company implemented extensive crisis management training for their customer support teams to better handle the increased volume of calls and concerns from affected customers.
Vendor management – disaster recovery plans and effective communication channels
Ensuring service partners have disaster recovery plans can be differentiator between good CX and chaos. Additionally, it is important to have clear communication channels with vendors for rapid and effective response to outages.
Planning – risk assessment
Conducting regular risk assessments to identify potential outage scenarios and their impact on customer experience is crucial for effectively managing difficult situations.
Prevention – regulatory compliance
There is a good reason that the proverb “Prevention is better than cure” exists, and it applies to this scenario as well. While it might not be possible to plan for every outage, by ensuring compliance with regulations, enterprises can protect themselves and be in compliance with local laws. For example, legislation such as the recent Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) in the European Union has been designed to comprehensively address information and communication technology (ICT) risk management in the financial services sector.
Continuous improvement – post incident evaluation
It is possible that enterprises may not get all the things right despite preparations. It becomes important to evaluate performance after such incidents and learn from failures. Collecting feedback from customers and understanding where the biggest challenges were can help enterprises prepare more effectively in the future.
While enterprises can’t control every aspect of an outage and its fallout, they can plan for unexpected outcomes. Ensuring that customers feel supported and informed throughout the disruption can often be the differentiator between good and bad experiences. It is important to plan for disruptions holistically and leverage all readily available measures to minimize inconvenience for the customers in such times.
For questions about the CX crisis best practices, contact [email protected]. For more on customer experience management, read our State of the Market report, Strategic Keys: Unlocking the Potential of Customer Experience Management.
