A recent Forrester’s survey found that in the first half of 2022, nearly 20% Of Brands have reported a Drop In Customer Experience Quality.
This, unfortunately, is not terribly surprising as in addition to COVID, in 2022 businesses have been contending with a host of issues ranging from global wars, supply chain problems, political divisions, and looming economic uncertainties. However, perhaps out of all these crises inflation has had the biggest impact on everyday Americans.
It is no wonder with price hikes, and the host of other issues aforementioned, customers are angrier than ever before and increasingly irritated. While the economy and justified price increases are often out of a business’s control, one thing that companies can still control is how to respond to customer demands and frustrations.
A few industries in 2022 (and even previously) have been dealing with customers in notoriously irresponsible ways with airline companies and fast food chains being on top of the list. In fact, just this month, one Scottish airport canceled their customer support line because so many people were upset about missing luggage.
One of the worst ways a company can handle increasing customer frustrations is to simply walk away from customer complaints and pretend as if they don’t exist. As simple as it sounds, customers appreciate transparency.
That being said, balancing customer dissatisfaction and CX agents being unfairly treated by said customers has always been a delicate balance. In these unprecedented times, amid global crises, an increased need for CX training is not only a good idea, but required if companies want to stay competitive.
A fine example of how this advanced CX training can be useful for companies comes from Shirli Kopelman, a clinical professor of management and organizations at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. In a 2019 article, Kopelman suggested criteria for CX training that can reduce customer anger, and thereby mistreatment towards CX agents.
These include the following:
- Companies should implement internal emotion management training which can foster a climate of support and reduce perception of threats among employees.
- It is important to level with customers about the negative impact of inappropriate behavior. One way of doing this is companies having clear service recovery policies in place which can then help employees manage customer anger.
While global crises will continue to linger on, the bottom line is companies need to make CX top of mind and provide increasingly-advanced customer experience training. Only then will businesses be able to adequately keep up with the advanced problems our world is currently facing.
