The power of foresight: CX during turbulent times

Delivering a great customer experience is about both reacting to and anticipating your customers’ demands and requirements. In a survey by Salesforce, of over 15,600 consumers and business buyers globally, it was found that 66% of them expect companies they interact with to understand their needs and expectations. Furthermore, 80% now consider the experience a company provides to be as important as its products and services.

Right now, this could not be more critical as many businesses find themselves in the most unpredictable and turbulent times they have ever faced, navigating recovering from a global pandemic with a cost-of-living crisis, soaring energy prices and economic slowdown. While the pandemic has meant that businesses have honed and refined their ability to react to change, what comes next will put the focus squarely on having the foresight to anticipate customer needs, ensuring they have one less thing to worry about.

Always Staying One Step Ahead

When no two customers are the same, the customer service they receive shouldn’t be either. With every business adapting in its own way to overcome the challenges it faces, the service they expect from their suppliers should be bespoke to them as well.

Just as technology is developed to fit around a merchant’s specific needs, so too should customer service. This begins at the very start of any engagement, by aiming to understand each customers’ specific businesses’ needs and designing the products and services to match.

With the easing of travel restrictions following the COVID-19 pandemic, one of our customers, The Travel Corporation (TTC) – a large European travel operator - needed a customer service and payments solution that could quickly scale with the business and support its on-the-move workforce of Travel Directors as bookings boomed and the company welcomed back customers.

Anticipating the need to scale-up operations with speed and supply growing numbers of Travel Directors with terminals to accept payments from customers, we devised a bespoke solution that included the set-up of a rapid logistics system. This system can supply Travel Directors with new and replacement terminals at short notice anywhere in Europe. In addition, by developing a bespoke portable guide, Travel Directors could quickly and independently troubleshoot any issues they encountered. If they still have questions, then they can reach us directly via a dedicated support team hotline.

Although the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the travel and leisure industries continues to be a concern across the market, having a reliable, trusted, bespoke service and solution in place means TTC now has one less thing to worry about. We see this as a customer service success, curating a bespoke solution that anticipates varying levels of demand and helps facilitate the business’ growth during a continuing time of uncertainty and regrowth.

Building Better Experiences with Technology

However, the travel industry is just one example of where technology can be deployed more effectively from a customer service perspective to anticipate changing demands and requirements. Providing an unrivalled customer service should be at the top of every organisation’s priority list no matter their sector or market, whether they are B2B-focused or directly consumer facing.

At MultiPay, our agile mindset and technological capabilities ensure we have the flexibility to anticipate our customers’ needs and design bespoke customer service solutions to suit them. With many organisations still recovering from the hit of the pandemic and looking to regrow whilst facing a very likely recession, it’s more important than ever to demonstrate the willingness to go above and beyond in ensuring any changes to their needs are met.