The crisis has instigated a global reckoning. We now know that we’re not living in an isolated, temporary state. Things will never completely return to our pre-pandemic “normal,” and business preparedness has become essential for navigating our new reality.
Last week’s blog about achieving the impossible illustrated how TP has been able to accomplish incredible things throughout our company’s history, including during COVID-19. But we didn’t do it alone. Our valued business partners — our clients — helped us learn and adjust along the way.
So, this week, I’d like to focus on how other companies can benefit from our collective learnings for adapting processes, policies, and protocols to address business disruption, while remaining true to their core brand values.
Over the past four months, I’ve identified four, core guiding principles for succeeding in the new normal:
1. An Inclusive “People Culture”
2. Industry-Leading Experience and Competence
3. Robust Partnerships
4. Constant Business Agility, Resilience, and Innovation
At TP, these are all fueled by an underlying passion for what we do. These same learnings can help propel your company in this unprecedented customer environment.
1. People Culture
Develop a culture based on the desire to connect with people on a human level, prioritizing empathy and care. Customers understand that this is a challenging time for companies, too. So, they are far more forgiving if they sense authenticity, even if the issue can’t be fully resolved. The same is true for employees and clients. At the end of the day, we’re all just people trying to navigate this strange new world. So, a genuine and inclusive respect for people — all people — should be at the core of your CX strategy.
At TP, we’ve always been passionate about people — our TP family, our clients, and the customers we interact with every day. During this crisis, this passion has motivated our teams to accomplish what they thought was impossible, including moving over 220,000 TP employees to their homes. Creating a safe environment for those at home and those that remained at the offices was our top priority, and our employees felt that genuine concern for their well-being. They then chose to pay it forward, accomplishing far more than we ever could have asked to make our clients and their customers feel equally cared for. People truly are the heart and soul of TP.
2. Industry-Leading Competence
Do what you say and say what you do. Always. Again, this is where authenticity couldn’t be more critical. Always strive to be the best and do the best for your customers. Overpromising (and then under delivering) is the surest way to destroy customer trust and loyalty.
At TP, regardless of the type of service or solution they choose, our clients know that we hold their satisfaction and peace of mind in the highest regard. And it’s that constant desire to deliver for them that drives us to evolve, refine, advance, and grow — and prove our competence and expertise each and every day. In fact, we are honored to be recognized not only as a leader, but also as a star performer in the Customer Experience Management (CXM) – Service Provider Landscape with Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2020 by the Everest Group.
3. Robust Partnerships
Strong alliances with clients and business partners are more critical than ever before. Viewing relationships within your business ecosystem as partnerships is, of course, not a new concept. However, the current crisis has certainly exposed both areas of strength and areas of opportunity. Take this opportunity to evaluate areas of weakness and identify steps to address those, with an eye toward mutual success and growth.
I wholeheartedly believe that Teleperformance is an extension of each company we serve — ambassadors for their brand and unique culture. Our clients’ goals are our goals, and we’re never successful until they are. So, shared goals and deep partnerships have always been fundamental, and that has never been more profound than it is today. And together, we were able to provide that lifeline to the outside world when empathy was so desperately needed.
4. Business Agility, Resilience, and Innovation
In a perfect world, we’d all be ready to adjust on a moment’s notice — to quickly pivot or course-correct when we see change coming. The challenge with that? We can’t always see it coming. Who would have ever predicted the market disruptions and industry upheaval COVID-19 has brought?
Instead, companies need to remain open to change, constantly looking for ways to advance, improve and streamline. It’s in these efforts to innovate and evolve that resilience and agility can be found. Never become too complacent because complacency breeds obsolescence when others leave you behind.
At TP, we are always innovating, constantly seeking new ways to improve and refine our solutions and services. We also believe in sharing global best practices by propagating new advances throughout our vast Teleperformance network so others can continue building upon these successes and make them even better. We are never satisfied with the status-quo. And this is why, even before the COVID-19 work-at-home explosion, we had already envisioned a more effective and efficient way to hire and manage remote teams. For us, traditional work-at-home was the status-quo, and we wanted to make it better. So, we’ve completely revolutionized remote CX environments with our new Cloud Campus model. We didn’t do it because we suspected the pandemic was coming, of course. We just knew that we had to continue to grow, advance, and innovate across our business, driving new efficiencies into the solutions we offer.
Helping our clients reimagine — and achieve — the impossible.
As we continue to challenge the status-quo, and put people first, we will fortify our client partnerships so that we can deliver the best customer outcomes. Meaningful interactions and operational resilience are the hallmarks of TP, and we will never stop challenging the impossible in our pursuit of CX excellence.
Learn more about The Impossible Reimagined, and use #ImpossibleReimagined to post your own stories about achieving the impossible during COVID-19.
I’d love to hear how you’ve overcome obstacles to achieve amazing things during the crisis!
#ImpossibleReimagined
