Is global mobility ready to meet the new expectations for customer service?

I am always excited to share posts written by other members within our organization. Today's post comes from our Senior Vice President, Global Services and Supply Chain, Tracey Gatlin. In an organization that puts the highest levels of customer service as its primary mission ("Deliver Delight"), it makes sense that we are always working hard to keep aware of how we can attain such a lofty goal. Tracey has tapped into some great insights that can help global mobility meet the "new" expectations for customer service.

Take it away, Tracey! 

The pandemic has brought with it a changed way of living. Our expectation is that we can order almost anything online and have it delivered within a day or that we are only a “Zoom” away from colleagues, family or friends. According to the latest COPC CX trends report, new data shows that due to COVID-19, more than half of those surveyed (58%) said their customer service expectations are higher today than they were a year ago.

During this time, technology — specifically social media and virtual shopping — has played a significant and impactful part in resetting our expectations as consumers. As a consumer, we expect responses to be faster and information to be readily available. If we can, we will try to self-serve to answer a question or find a solution (how many YouTube how-to videos have you watched?) versus needing to reach out to have someone help us (who wants to talk on the phone?). In all this, we still expect it to be “all about my experience” and have it feel personal regardless if a real person is behind it or not.

For those of us in a service industry like global mobility, the expectations are changing at a rapid pace. Do we need to acknowledge that relocating employees have the same expectations as a typical consumer today? Absolutely.

Given all this, here are some keys to success that we should follow to meet the ever-growing expectations of the relocating employee:

• Listen to the voice of the customer – really listen. There are countless articles, research studies and surveys just like this that point out that if you are willing to listen, the customer is saying what they expect from their service experience. They alone know what they need — speed, convenience, consistency and a technology-forward interaction. Nowhere in those expectations is the belief that they'll need only one person to speak with throughout their relocation and that they are willing to wait for that one person to get back to them (within 4 hours?) when something is needed or they have a question.

• Be open to re-imagining the “status quo.” Can you imagine not having Uber to catch a ride from the airport? You’d still be standing in that long taxi line waiting for the next rude driver in a smelly backseat with no idea how much your ride is going to cost. Uber’s alternative to the “status quo” wouldn’t be our reality today if someone hadn’t said, “We need to look at things differently.” If we only look at delivering service to relocating employees one way, we are not considering the possibility that there may be other, potentially better ways to do it. What if there is a way to bring information faster and more accurately through technology or offer alternative ways to the typical model of how we get relocating employees and their stuff from A to B? Does the relocating employee want a different way to interact with the consulting resources that are there to support them through their move or do they want to interact with those resources at all? If we don’t stop and ask these questions, we can never re-imagine what the experience could be. We’d still be in that stinky cab.

• Act swiftly then iterate to continuously improve. If you wait to act to improve the experience to meet today’s expectations, the expectations will have changed by the time you get there. We all moved to remote working in a short period of time and adapted our work lives in short order. So go ahead and update processes, enhance technologies and be bold to take a risk and step onto the leading edge as a changemaker. You can track the changes for your desired outcome (i.e. improved customer satisfaction, improved efficiency) and make changes as needed.

This article from Vonage that Tracey has tapped into shares the 10 trends that are changing customer expectations. These insights can help global mobility programs to truly understand what delights customers, especially as things have evolved throughout the pandemic.