Service Organizations: 5 Smart Moves to Manage Covid-19 Impact

When a crisis hits, top decision makers of service organizations cannot afford to spend months planning a transformation and then plotting to implement those changes over a period of several years. With Covid-19 social distance measures and shelter-in-place active, service organizations are finding it hard to run businesses that require a face-to-face interaction. These organizations will need to explore new digital channels and technologies and unlock the potential to grow sales, keeping the safety of customers and employees in mind.

Here are 5 smart moves any service organization can adopt to stay on top of disruptions.

1. Whatever you decide to do, do it quickly

Disruptive times call for strong leadership to head a course of action that will steer the company forward. Good leaders will look for ways to make gains exploring new avenues and markets hitherto uncharted. This could be a set of measured initiatives that not only help reduce costs, but also promote growth, improve communication and engagement between employees and customers. Along with cost cuts, consider proactive decisions investing in technologies to improve capital efficiency and provide quick revenue boosts. For instance, studies show that using digital technologies and web analytics tools to improve sales functions can increase revenue by up to 6%.

2. Keep transforming as a company

The next disruption may not be too far ahead. With globalization, civil unrest, unstable markets, supply chain instability, and natural calamities that can strike unexpectedly, your service teams will need to remain agile (there’s that word again), ready for the next emergency. To remain competitive in such an environment, leaders need to consider alternate market scenarios leveraging evolving technologies and existing capabilities to address immediate market opportunities. In your quest to keep transforming, make good use of digital business analytics that enable companies to make data-driven decisions.

3. Innovating Customer Service

Tough times call for innovative thinking. You may want rethink the way you do things looking for better ways to help your business move forward. For instance, consider investing in a business process software that will allow you to automate the entire sales process and gain customer insights. Not only with this help you drive decisions based on data, but it will also streamline your customer service by automating scheduled maintenance, scheduling and assigning specific jobs to a technician with the right skills to perform the job, automating routine tasks, auto-billing and provide analytical reports to assess performance. According to McKinsey, a management consulting firm headquartered in New York City, organizations can build on existing strengths through …

“Care, creative thinking, and new tools can address customers’ acute needs today and forge stronger ties in the post-COVID-19 era.”

Forging stronger ties may involve helping your customer service agents understand that compassionate, live interaction with customers over an audio or video call during these uncertain times can go a long way in generating a positive brand image and building customer loyalty.

4. Empower your remote workforce

Put management systems and processes into place that empower a remote workforce to maintain business continuity. To minimize human contact between customer and employee, employ a remote visual support software. The Blitzz software provides a complete suite of special features enabling on-site technicians, inspectors, and customer service agents to have visual access to on-site areas and conduct repairs, maintenance, inspection remotely, often with the cooperation of the customer. With Blitzz, field agents can zoom, annotate, markup and capture videos and images for documentation purposes, and more making collaboration with the remote party comfortable.

During this pandemic, the demand for our remote visual support software, Blitzz, has risen dramatically. Being extremely user-friendly, Blitzz requires minimal training and our customers have given us an outstanding response.

5. Look after your people

According to the McKinsey report, 60% of the people they surveyed said they were very or extremely concerned about their own safety and that of their families; while over 40% expressed experiencing job or income insecurity. Employees can be the greatest assets, and in times of crisis, companies that help build employee morale are likely to perform better.  Provide safety training for your employees and make sure they know that their safety is a high priority for the company. In terms of income security, many companies have continued to show support by paying hourly wages even when employees are not working; others have introduced new tools, training, and have prepared employees to continue working in the “new normal”.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of change. “Agile” has become the new mantra for businesses. Companies who are not yet caught up, may want to act now to drive transformation, mitigate loss, and drive the future forward with long-term innovation.