Anxiety levels are high right now due to coronavirus, but let’s not forget something – plenty of people were stressed out before this started. Many will be after, too. Organizations need to think about emotional context – how someone feels when they start a journey with your company – at all times. It doesn’t matter if your business caused the angst or not. Even when it’s not your fault it’s your problem. Because I study the impact of emotions on physical and psychological experience I put together a list of four principles to help you design in the face of strong emotion.
#1: Be brief – don’t make a customer’s brain work harder than necessary.
Anxious people often suffer from tunnel vision. Their mental bandwidth is consumed by the threat they face, real or imagined, so if your message isn’t concise it won’t get through. Say only what needs to be said, as simply as possible. Tools like Grammarly (free basic plan) help you double-check that your idea of simple wording is also clear for your audience. If you must send longer messages, use format to make the key points stand out. Scanability is always good; in high-stress situations it’s critical.
#2. Be useful – help customers take back their sense of control.
You’ve emailed customers to explain the adjustments you’re making to deal with COVID-19. That’s great, but what they want even more than insight is agency – a sense of control over their own future. Next to your action plan explain how they might do similar things in their business. Include tips from other customers and tools your employees use that could help them, too. Ideas don’t have to be earth-shattering. I shared an email from Ally Bank on Instagram where nothing they said was new news. Still, the reminder shook me out of a fog. It’s like telling a friend who is freaking out “just breathe.”
#3: Be consistent – give customers something to count on.
Humans have always feared the unknown, and now we’ve got more, bigger unknowns than usual. Rituals and routines help calm customers’ nerves. If you don’t know when a product will ship due to supply chain issues, commit to sending an update the same time each day until it arrives. That’s one less thing the customer has to check up on. If you were planning to launch a product or site redesign, think about waiting or scaling back. New features with critical value (like Zoom’s security updates) are good, but don’t make people re-learn things they already know how to do. A familiar workaround can be less stressful than a sleek but unfamiliar app.
#4: Be human – let customers see the people inside the brand.
I’ve worked from home for years but wear makeup more now than pre-pandemic. That’s because video calls used to be rare; people went from preferring phone to expecting Zoom in less than 60 days. Despite the extra time in the morning I’m happy about this change. It’s easier to meet clients’ social and emotional needs (which have always existed) if we can see each other’s faces. Lean into video for internal meetings, too. Companies often need help to spur collaboration across silos. Employees are more willing to work with people they know than strangers, and even a virtual meeting turns “that HR person” into a human being. As Simon Sinek said in Leaders Eat Last: “we can’t feel a sense of accountability to numbers; we can only feel accountable to people.”
These principles are universal and evergreen, so I hope they earn a place in your CX conversation. No matter when, where, or how you interact with customers, emotional intelligence will always be key to a great customer experience.
