The COVID-19 pandemic created a scramble mentality for businesses trying to give customers what they asked for in the ways they wanted it. The focus was “get it done” at the expense (pun intended) of cost.

However, as we emerge from the pandemic, factors like the state of the economy and a decline in revenue have forced companies to realize they don’t have the budget to sustain how they were delivering on their customer experience (CX) goals.

Let’s take a look at effective CX strategies. 

It became apparent that to succeed, companies needed to rethink their CX strategies for the long-term — considering solutions that meet rising customer expectations while also being cost-efficient — and position them for future growth and success. It’s critical to remember that large-scale transformation can happen gradually as opposed to all at once — but the latter is especially daunting to brands with limited resources and a tidal wave of need.

Today’s consumers expect brands to respond and resolve their problems instantaneously, or before they happen. If businesses don’t do this, this could mean 1) lost revenue, 2) lost customers for the company, or worse, a damaged brand reputation.

By implementing a measured and phased approach that addresses the most impactful problems first, companies can tie in their larger strategy to encourage steady growth and reduce the risk of inefficient practices. According to Forrester, smart brands will collaborate with their customer service teams to preserve their value, resisting the misguided urge to slash costs at the expense of good CX and sacrificing profits.

Here’s some ways that businesses can focus on meeting customer demands at a large scale to ensure the best possible experiences for customers:

For Effective CX Strategies, Prioritize Your CX Problems

Contact centers have long operated in serial and reactive models. Inbound requests are loosely identified, then placed in queues based on manual customer inputs, and eventually managed by agents who match the skillset needed. New contact center channels have sought to optimize this model to deliver differentiated experiences; however, the greatest challenge companies face is reaching the perfect balance of operational efficiency and customer experience during each step of the customer journey.

Companies should intentionally build a phased contact center innovation plan that starts by addressing their most pressing unmet needs. In a recent conversation, I looked at a brand’s extremely complex implementation plan and architecture and then asked a simple question: “What is your top unmet need?” Their biggest problem was that up to 70% of their incoming phone calls were hitting a busy signal or ”please hold” message. In their push to modernize and digitize, they had overlooked the fact that an individual calling from a landline, like the majority of their aging customer population, would not be a good candidate for an SMS- or email-based self-service paradigm.

On the other hand, a focus on email and SMS-based deflection strategies helped them to prioritize for the future, since they expected to see an increase in their below-50 population.