A short trip home to Northern Ireland is never dull. Back in Derry / Londonderry, besides the fun, a jaunt across the invisible border means the deliberations on the future of the UK/EU relationship are hard to ignore. But what does it mean to the CX management industry? As locals would say, do brands need to catch themselves on?
The UK’s planned exit from EU membership is complicated with little certainty about the eventual impact on the economy or society overall. There has been little or no discourse on LinkedIn making it one of the few public platforms where normal (business) life prevails which is refreshing – professional etiquette and corporate guidelines ensuring dissension of one form or another is avoided. However, what impacts business impacts customers and what impacts customers will impact CX management. Perhaps not much is required to prepare customer contact environments for the different potential outcomes being considered in Parliament but forewarned is forearmed and it is good to surmise what impacts there might be and how to prepare for them. Here are a few that come to mind:
People:
As the UK gears up for some form of alternative relationship with the EU, organisations would do well to remind themselves of the national diversity of their employee population. They will want to move to reassure staff of the company’s ongoing support for their valued EU nationals at a time when mixed messages in the public domain may cause alarm.
Employees are the lifeblood of the customer contact environment, and recruitment, selection, training and development require expenditure that all businesses like to manage effectively:
- By confirming and communicating the ways in which the company expects to underpin the status of their staff from the EU, it may help influence the numbers of employees considering leaving as an option, whether to work for another UK business that has a very clear framework around support, or to move to the continent.
- For global brands there might be an opportunity to relocate staff that could benefit the individual and the business – knowledge and talent retention are valuable assets and costly to replace.
- While the fee for settled status has now been waived, it is still important for businesses to reach out to their EU staff with positive, emotional engagement and workshops or informal town-halls may be a good approach
People:
As the UK gears up for some form of alternative relationship with the EU, organisations would do well to remind themselves of the national diversity of their employee population. They will want to move to reassure staff of the company’s ongoing support for their valued EU nationals at a time when mixed messages in the public domain may cause alarm.
Employees are the lifeblood of the customer contact environment, and recruitment, selection, training and development require expenditure that all businesses like to manage effectively:
- By confirming and communicating the ways in which the company expects to underpin the status of their staff from the EU, it may help influence the numbers of employees considering leaving as an option, whether to work for another UK business that has a very clear framework around support, or to move to the continent.
- For global brands there might be an opportunity to relocate staff that could benefit the individual and the business – knowledge and talent retention are valuable assets and costly to replace.
- While the fee for settled status has now been waived, it is still important for businesses to reach out to their EU staff with positive, emotional engagement and workshops or informal town-halls may be a good approach.
Process:
Legal teams will no doubt have been considering the impact of leaving the EU, if any, on client contracts, supplier agreements, and the rights of staff for some time. If Sarbanes-Oxley, GDPR, and other regulations over the years have taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected in legislation – and to prepare for it.
However, in the day to day operation, the impact on customers that may increase inbound volume pertaining to the new relationship with Europe may be less obvious. This will depend on the sector, travel and tourism springs to mind but ecommerce too may be impacted. If for example there were shortages in retail outlet supplies including food, clothing, raw materials, or delays to ‘just in time’ manufacturing, this may increase the volume of contacts across all channels that need to be considered and planned for as a contingency. To ensure CX excellence is maintained:
- IVR messaging may require a review, and new Q&As and FAQs will need to be created or updated
- Decisions on extended opening hours, availability of channels and the accessibility to additional online services will need to be made.
- Social media teams will need to be briefed. Most major brands will know that Twitter will alert them to expect increases in contact volume through concerns reported there even before calls have hit the switch. How these teams are instructed and empowered to respond to and escalate customer contact will need to be addressed and processes agreed.
Technology:
The challenge with technology platforms and infrastructure that support customer contact environments will comprise a mix of personnel, cost and data protection:
- Adherence with data protection regulation has already been simplified with GDPR which has been widely adopted and is seen as a benchmark even by non-EU entities. However, if the EU Withdrawal Agreement is not ratified in the UK, the transfer of data between the EEA and the UK will be affected. In addition SaaS hosted in Europe and not in the UK may also impact operations.
- Cost may come into play where suppliers are based overseas and are billing for user licences in non-sterling currencies. Volatile forex conditions may need to be addressed if simply to ensure budgets are aligned and variances are properly recorded for governance.
- Where technology in its broadest sense may require focus is resources. There is plenty of expertise in the UK to support most systems and implementations, but it may be worthwhile to review all system critical business components and how these are usually supported by internal or third-party resources.
The challenge with technology platforms and infrastructure that support customer contact environments will comprise a mix of personnel, cost and data protection:
Location:
If a business provides significant services to customers in Europe, the leadership team may find it valuable to review the languages provided with a view to longer term sustainability of their multilingual workforce in the UK:
- While the outcome of leaving the EU is still unknown, there is little evidence that many EU nationals in the customer contact space are considering or preparing to relocate within Europe. Internal and informal discussion will help bear this out.
- Growth planning that includes new markets and territories which require languages not currently supported inhouse may benefit from use of a partner already established in those regions that can support these plans.
- Use of automation may provide new opportunities for handling multilingual customer engagement. At a minimum it is worth considering to keep ahead of expected volume increases that will accompany normal, planned for growth but to also ensure unexpected contact volumes, as a result of leaving the EU, can be accommodated.
Summary:
Whether departure from the EU will reduce the availability of resource or frustrate the balancing of budgets in the light of forex fluctuations, or simply result in an increased AHT in questions from customers, it is prudent to have a plan in place to meet any exceptional circumstances that may arise.
Most companies have business continuity (BCP) plans in place for all manner of unforeseen circumstances, from extreme weather events to health pandemics and power failure. These teams are already in place, with the necessary document templates, testing procedures and governance models that can easily be adapted to underpin contingency planning in the event of the UK’s departure from EU membership. Finally, there is of course the option to consider wider strategic sourcing partnerships. These could help meet many of the challenges presented by providing alternative solutions either as part of risk mitigation or as a defined programme of CX management services supporting long term growth and new market penetration.
