A New Era

in Customer
Engagement
Transforming your continuity plan
into your continuous plan
Navigating the human and business impact of COVID-19

May 2020

COVID-19: What to do Now, What to do Next NOW NEXT

 We’re all in this together

COVID-19 has turned into a global crisis,

evolving at unprecedented speed and
scale in recent history. It is creating a
universal priority for governments and
organizations to take immediate action to
protect their people.
It is now one of the biggest global events—
and challenges—of our lifetimes. As such,
it is changing human attitudes and
behaviors and forcing organizations to
respond.
However, the need to respond won’t end
when the virus’s immediate threat
eventually recedes.

2
 Leading organizations see the opportunity and
are already questioning the future of their sales
“Whatever it is, [COVID-19] has made the and service organization, customers and
mighty kneel and brought the world to a workforce. Company leaders want to know:
halt like nothing else could. Our minds are
still racing back and forth, longing for a • What will the post-crisis business landscape look like?
return to ‘normality’, trying to stitch our • How do I create adaptability and resilience in my business?
future and our past … offering us a chance
to rethink the doomsday machine we have • Where should I be focused to come out of the crisis stronger?
built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse
• Which customer expectations and behaviors are here to stay?
than a return to normality.
• Which temporary solutions should I be retaining longer-term?
Historically, pandemics have forced
humans to break with the past and imagine • What rapidly deployed customer channel experiences
were well-received?
their world anew. This one is no different.
It is a portal, a gateway between one • Did shifts of my front-line employees impact my customers?
world and the next.”
• What employee experiences should be retained or remedied?

Arundhati Roy, Financial Times1 • Are our workspaces optimized for the new normal?

• Which capabilities would have helped during the crisis?

• What do I need to do to create profitable growth in the new world?

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 Adaptive Customer Engagement 01 EMBRACE THE UNPREDICTABLE
It’s happening now Accelerated shifts in customer interactions have
upended the “rules of engagement.”

COVID-19 is creating massive shifts in human behavior

and catalyzing end-to-end business reorientation.
We believe impacts to customer engagement might be
significant and permanent.

In this perspective, we explore how COVID-19

02 FLEX YOUR CUSTOMER
WORKFORCE
Flexible engagement models can deliver the
has accelerated organizations to a new customer seamless experience customers demand.
engagement standard. Predictable patterns have
proven unpredictable. Tried and true models have
been upended. The old rule book is gone.

The opportunity to transform is NOW. We see three

priorities businesses should address to activate and
support purposeful experiences.
03 EMPOWER RESILIENT
OPERATIONS
“Future-proof” operations to improve customer
engagement for years to come.

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 EMBRACING THE UNPREDICTABLE

New and accelerated

customer interactions
have upended the “rules
of engagement.”

5
 “ We’ve witnessed stunning
(Digital) Engagement shifts in customer
is everything interaction volume, types
and transactions. The
Digital channel usage is spiking throughout the pandemic.
Corporate investment in digital experiences will need to mirror
timeline for developing
new ways of living and working. relationships with
How long such customer behavior will continue is unclear, customers is now
but we do know there will be no return to the old ways of significantly compressed.
operating. Customer expectations for what constitutes “basic”
digital capabilities have shifted permanently. As customers navigate
As customers continue to “go” and “stay” digital, post-crisis
these uncertain times,
expectations for digital experience will continue to rise. demonstrating empathy
Convenience, ease and accuracy will be table stakes.
Intelligence, empathy and reciprocity will become the
through digital channels
differentiators. Trust will be more critical than ever. has become the new
Organizations need to prepare for the future of digital standard of engagement.”
engagement versus digital transactions. The speed at which
companies build and deploy these capabilities will become a
source of competitive advantage and the degree to which Dawn Anderson
they can sustain them will become a source of cost advantage. Senior Managing Director, Global Lead,
Customer, Sales & Service, Accenture

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 Digital is now the default In a global consumer pulse survey4…
At home, online and ready to engage. During their prolonged time at home,
New users expect to increase
consumers have become more willing and able to use digital methods of
engagement. Already digital-savvy consumers are increasing their use, 71% the proportion of the
purchases made online by
while individuals who once resisted digital interactions such as e-commerce, report spending more time
mobile finance and video calls are emerging as digitally engaged customers. online during the crisis
10%
Such changes are evident in industries ranging from beauty to groceries:
The emergence of new digital customer profiles is likely to continue and
will require ongoing analysis to maintain the right customer sales and service
channel mix. New customer preferences will also have significant implications
on the percent of total revenue businesses should expect to drive
45% 32%
are completing online of purchases are
through e-commerce. education during the crisis being made online

Virtual access to everything. Our digital lives are our “real” lives. We are
entering the Virtual Century. Social isolation has brought technology even
closer to the heart of the human experience. Take Facebook Live, for example.
76% 37%
expect this behaviour to Online purchases
The service once faced limited adoption, but has experienced a resurgence, continue post-crisis expected post-crisis
with 50 percent more people watching live videos monthly in the U.S.2 So
what did they watch? Mass held by Pope Francis, virtual tours of the
Cincinnati Zoo, and countless weddings by couples socially distanced from
their friends.3 The most impactful events have combined physical and digital
dimensions to create global reach for previously localized experiences. 1 in 5 44%
who ordered their last are accessing healthcare
Arguably more surprising than the abundance of virtual social engagements grocery purchase online online during crisis
did so for the first time
are the shifts for advisory services once thought to require in-person
interactions. Medical visits have found their way online, online learning and
education is spiking and customers are getting more comfortable with remote For those aged 56+, this was 77%
advisory services, such as in banking and insurance. Digital is gaining traction
and trust as it is used during the crisis across critical business contexts, 1 in 3 expect this behaviour
to continue post-crisis
creating access, safety and continuity.

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 The shift from transactions
to relationship-based
“ Exceptional customer
interactions engagement means
changing how we
Reinforcing value through (and after) the crisis. Trust has
long been a critical component of digital customer
understand and respond
engagement, but COVID-19 has brought the true purpose of to customer behavior,
brands to the fore. It has also put the notion of safety front and
center in customer values. Post-crisis, customers will be
needs, and attitudes.
reflecting back to think about how brands performed under Forward-thinking
pressure. During the pandemic, did customer sales and service
organizations deliver on their brand promise? Did they put
engagement models
safety of their customers and their workforce ahead of their will make digital
financial priorities? How did they demonstrate they deserve
customer trust?
experiences more
Both during and post-crisis, companies should focus customer
human at a global scale.”
engagement on reassurance and confidence-building to
continuously reinforce the value of products, services and the
organization itself. For example, a luxury automobile company Matteo Maga
may not be inherently well placed for success during global Managing Director, Growth Markets Lead,
isolation measures. However, one brand recently created a Customer, Sales & Service, Accenture
virtual showroom that promotes personal safety and ease of
vehicle use without mention of COVID-19. The innovation
demonstrates that digital capabilities created during the
pandemic can become a permanent engagement strategy.

8
 FLEXING YOUR CUSTOMER WORKFORCE

Flexible engagement
models can deliver the
seamless experiences
customers demand.

9
 “ Operating model changes will
Unstoppable adaptation benefit both companies and
their workforce. They’ll find
Many companies have been forced to create agility in their opportunities for more
workforce to support the changing needs of their business
during the crisis. The lines between different human customer
flexible and fulfilling
support channels have blurred, with retail store employment and
representatives, field service technicians and even airline gate unprecedented workforce
agents temporarily shifting their focus to the call center, using
chat and voice platforms to continue servicing customers.
results. Companies can
achieve such results through
Traditional barriers have disintegrated. Customer operating
model lines have been distorted. In the face of change, sales restructuring operations
and service organizations held their breaths and threw out the support models,
rule book in the name of creating continuity for their
standardizing platforms
customers. And in most cases, it worked. Better than expected.
across their organizations
As a result, the foundation has been set for organizations to
think more holistically about the flexibility of their workforce
and investing in analytics
across customer engagement touchpoints. This will drive to guide decision-making.”
significant changes in customer sales and support operating
models as well as the workforce skills required to succeed.
Bruce M. Holley,
Senior Managing Director,
North America Lead,
Customer, Sales & Service

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 Home is where the work is Change in work-from-home
frequency from pre- to post-outbreak5
Virtual workplaces, real results. Most organizations needed to do the
unthinkable during the COVID-19 crisis: Make an entire workforce
operate from their homes. Banks, communication providers and
Less
governments shifted thousands of agents to remote work, overcoming
infrastructure, security and speed-to-competency barriers along the way. 13%
As an example, a US communications provider successfully moved more
than 10,000 agents to work-from-home environments in a period of 3
weeks.
Same More
Since work-from-home models have been effective in creating safety
for the workforce without compromising customer quality, we expect 57% 30%
companies to shift work locations from physical to virtual, retaining
larger percentages (if not 100%) of work-from-home positions. This
will give them more flexibility to respond to customer needs with an
optimized cost structure – consolidating roles and physical spaces in
new ways. New standards, certifications and “starter kits” will be
redefined to create consistency of at-home-workplace standards at
scale.
Further, 46 percent of people who
Teams may consist of individuals with skills to address customer needs never worked from home previously
now plan to work from home more
across the customer lifecycle or to take full issue ownership at certain
often in the future.
lifecycle stages. This will help simplify customer engagement as well as
workforce operations. The disruption of the agent “journey” will mean
that the management approach will shift from line management to
relationship management as cross-functional teams operate across
multiple locations.

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 More flexible than ever

The crisis is also putting a spotlight on traditional agent-sourcing

Blurring boundaries between strategies and business continuity plans. We now expect many
front office and back office organizations to revisit their sourcing mix, looking at opportunities
to expand partnerships with third-party agent providers to share
operational risk, create capacity for volume fluctuations and
Rapid digital channel adoption is creating new increase resiliency.
dynamics for the human workforce. Customer
With these shifts, evolving operational support capabilities will be
engagement will rely heavily on digital, social and crucial. Operations functions will need to support a broader scope
virtual assistant technology. With the growth of of work and take advantage of data to inform insights and actions.
these channels, the human workforce’s role must Workforce demand planning must be extended across the
customer support needs, across customer lifecycles and across
expand. Traditional boundaries between the front new customer contact shift patterns, which will require enhanced
office and the back office will cease to exist. Sales analytics. Sourcing criteria must also evolve significantly.
and service agents must now support customers Selection criteria must prioritize business resilience and work-
from-home capability maturity in addition to cost and vendor
and become back office “knowledge engineers” – a partners who will have to prove they can effectively hire, recruit,
new area of focus tasked with providing inputs to manage and retain new types of talent. Success will require more
maximize the quality and effectiveness of digital ongoing collaboration and partnership, redefining partnership
experiences, such as training AI solutions. contracting models and incentive structures.

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 More dynamic than ever

To meet these needs, workforce profiles will need to be reimagined

Fluid talent models for while analytics are leveraged to optimize hiring. Success
exceptional service measurement for these roles will also need to be redefined:
Businesses will need to focus on the metrics that matter. The focus
of performance metrics must move away from transactional
Virtual work environments and blended workforce measurement to evaluating success in creating value through
expectations represent a shift from traditional customer interactions. More than ever, an agent must truly own
customer interactions end-to-end. Imagine retail sales reps
customer engagement strategies. The workforce evaluated on creating an enduring relationship versus immediate
will require new competencies and greater agility conversions, encouraged to share their “digital business card” to
to serve customers. There will be a heightened support a customer throughout their buying and onboarding
journey. New analytics correlations will be necessary to establish
expectation that workers can seamlessly move high-performer profiles and redefine performance outliers.
across channels, from retail to the field to the call
center to the back office. Finally, empowering people to meet heightened flexibility
expectations will be critical. Technology solutions must be advanced
to help free agents to focus more on developing relationships and
delivering outcomes to their customers. Organizations must simplify
traditionally complex agent desktop, point-of-sale and field solutions
and build scale by integrating AI into their operations. Less focus on
the process enables greater focus on the customer, positioning
agents for success.

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 EMPOWERING RESILIENT OPERATIONS

“Future-proof”
operations for
improving
customer
engagement for
years to come.

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 It’s time: transform to thrive
Are organizations prepared for the scale of the new digital consumer?
While COVID-19 has accelerated innovation in many ways, it has also
exposed the fragility of our economy and the insufficiency of
traditional continuity plans. Digital and human resilience is critical.
Governments and enterprises that have made investments to create
an agile human and digital workforce have laid the groundwork to
navigate the crisis and fare better than their counterparts.

Customer organizations that shifted to cloud technology, advanced

data solutions and mobile employee technology pre-crisis were able
to navigate the impact of the pandemic quickly and more confidently.

In the face of sustained customer behavior acceleration, there will be

greater demand for flexibility of physical spaces, platforms and data.
To succeed, companies should continuously recalibrate requirements
and investments against outcomes. Space investments must be
re-justified. Platform investments must yield results faster. Data must
be comprehensive and accessible to power dynamic decisions. Those
who have not planned for an unpredictable future must get there
quickly.

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 Redefining workspaces What we predicted stores and branches would
look like in 20256

A new kind of spatial awareness. With workforces relocated, physical retailers

closed and offices sitting vacant, businesses are being forced to rethink their
definition of and investments in customer-centric workspaces. Hygiene in
30% Fewer traditional
stores/branches

physical spaces – once assumed – has been elevated to become a new driver of
experience. As the crisis evolves and businesses prepare to reopen, physical
space investments (retail and corporate) are being reevaluated. 20% New experience
stores/branches

In the call center environment, a prolonged period where the majority of agents
worked virtually has set the stage for a net new approach to physical call centers.
Companies are already starting to look for cost synergies by reconsidering their
physical call center space investments and configurations.
70% Fewer tellers/transactional
employee roles

In store and branch environments, extended closures of physical spaces are

putting pressure on companies to reevaluate retail for value and viability. Trends 50% Employees in new
relationship roles
expected to come to fruition by 2025 are being accelerated as brands redefine
the role of physical space in the overall customer engagement strategy.

Economic conditions, the rise of digital engagement and pressure on health and 30% Less
floor space
safety will create the impetus to reconfigure the retail footprint, redefine retail
purpose and reinvent retail experiences.

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 “ COVID-19 has hit the
Resilience at scale fast-forward button for
Intensifying platforms pressures. Resilient technologies must underpin more nimble us. Customers are
business. Platform adopters that have invested in “future-proofing” their technology
landscape are best prepared for disruption. New product usage and monetization demonstrating behaviors
demands, increased emphasis on previously underserved aspects of the customer we didn’t expect to
lifecycle, and dramatic shifts in digital channel engagement will require unprecedented
agility in the enabling platforms to meet and exceed customers’ needs. For example, see until 2025. Now,
companies serving small businesses must be prepared for an influx of customers businesses must catch up.
beginning their “back to business” journey – separate and distinct from common
acquisition, retention, and service experiences. Using digital to create
Companies that demonstrate that they know their customers and have leveraged platform business continuity is no
capabilities to address their needs in this time of uncertainty will be rewarded. Companies longer a nice-to-have. It’s
who have effectively decoupled their digital platforms from back office systems and
processes will be well prepared to launch new experiences, apps, and even new market the new normal.”
propositions and products with agility.

Edwin VanderOuderaa,
A dynamic approach to data. The COVID crisis has shown that internal data is no longer Senior Managing Director,
sufficient to inform and predict customer and employee needs. A combination of internal Europe Lead, Customer, Sales & Service,
and external data will be required in the future to fully inform business decisions. Accenture
Customer preferences in contact channels must inform new staffing models, identifying
opportunities to integrate AI tools to handle low-complexity intents. Shifting sales channel
preferences will require a data-driven approach to product supply and allocation and
service to maximize revenue and customer satisfaction. Investing in advanced, real-time
analytics models to inform customer sales and service decision-making will be critical to
maintain adaptability and competitiveness in the new environment.
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 We’ll leave
you with this
message
Today’s trying times are setting the stage for
unprecedented opportunities.
Amid uncertainty, there is innovation.
Amid disruption, there is reinvention.
And through it all, we are here to help.

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 How Accenture can help build your future NOW

Assess and Plan Accelerate to Adapt Rotate and Reinvent

Where are you today? Design your NOW strategy. Create the future at scale.
How quickly can you get Prioritize, mobilize, get going. Run, reflect and refine.
to tomorrow?
• Continue to execute prioritized
• Create an accelerated end-to-end
We can work with you on a rapid roadmap focused on holistic
experience and touchpoint strategy
diagnostic covering: experience transformation
• Conduct design sprints to reimagine spanning people, technology,
• Customer touchpoint mix the role physical spaces play in the operations and physical spaces
organization
• Workforce flexibility • Measure success and outcomes:
• ”Zero-base” your customer function business value, customer value and
• Space readiness support model and financials employee value

• Platforms • Optimize and prioritize your • Continue to reflect, using analytics

execution roadmap investments to adaptively refine strategy and
• Data and analytics execution to improve flexibility and
• Kick off agile execution of top outpace change
• Overall function support model priority initiatives
and associated spend
• Continuously recalibrate
strategy effectiveness through test-
and-learn

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 References
1. Arundhati Roy (2020) ‘The pandemic is a portal’ Financial Times, 3rd April [Page 3]

2. SocialMediaToday. Facebook Adds New Tools for Facebook Live Amid Rising Demand and Usage [Page 7]

3. Forbes. What To Know About The Vatican’s Unprecedented Virtual Easter Week This Year [Page 7]

3. CNN. 20 amazing virtual field trips to aquariums, museums and Mars [Page 7]

4. Accenture Covid-19 Consumer Survey. Accenture Research conducted the research to understand how global consumer priorities,
purchasing decisions, and behavioral patterns are shifting in the wake of coronavirus. The survey was conducted between 19 th – 25th
March 2020, and comprised of 3,313 consumers and between 2nd - 6th April 2020, and comprised of 3,074 consumers. Both surveys
were conducted in 15 countries at differing stages of the outbreak: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy,
Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, United Arab Emirates, UK, and USA. [Page 7]

5. Accenture Experience [Page 1]

6. Accenture COVID-19 Consumer Pulse. conducted 2nd–6th, April 2020, N = 1,118 respondents working from home [Page 12]

7. Allen International. Retail design & customer experience from Accenture. [Page 15]

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Contacts

Dawn Anderson Edwin VanderOuderaa Matteo Maga Bruce M. Holley

Senior Managing Director Senior Managing Director Managing Director Senior Managing Director
Global Lead Europe Lead Growth Markets Lead North America Lead
Customer, Sales & Service Customer, Sales & Service Customer, Sales & Service Customer, Sales & Service

Erika Simpson Michelle McGlynn Andrew Galanopoulos Lan Guan

Managing Director Managing Director Managing Director Managing Director,
North America Strategy Lead Global Innovation Lead Global Technology Lead Accenture Applied
Customer, Sales & Service Customer, Sales & Service Customer, Sales & Service Intelligence

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 To help our clients navigate both the
human and business impact of COVID-19,
we’ve created a hub of all of our latest
thinking on a variety of topics.

Each topic highlights specific actions which

can be taken now, and what to consider next
as industries move towards a new normal.

From leadership essentials to ensuring

productivity for your employees and
customer service groups to building supply
chain resilience and much more, our hub
will be constantly updated. Check
back regularly for more insights.

VISIT OUR HUB HERE

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About Accenture
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a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital,
technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and
specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business
functions—underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network—
Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help
clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their
stakeholders. With 509,000 people serving clients in more than 120
countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world
works and lives.

Visit us at www.accenture.com

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