As part of business continuity planning, organizations develop business continuity strategy that incorporates the preventive (mitigation), crisis response, and recovery strategies that the organization will carry out to restore normal operations after a disruption.
Given the stakes, that business continuity strategy is critical – that’s why it’s equally important to invest in the best business continuity software to deploy that BC strategy when disruption hits. And so, every significant data point should be leveraged when developing the business continuity strategy.
In our research, though, one salient data point often gets ignored, even in best-practice standards. And that data point is customer feedback.
So, what are the ways customer feedback can improve business continuity strategy? In the following, we lay out the five key ways customer feedback can improve your business continuity strategy.
Key ways customer feedback can improve business continuity strategy
Indeed, customers are external stakeholders – perhaps the most important stakeholders as companies rely on them for revenue.
What’s more, key customers might be reliant on your products and services. Those customers are likely to have specific expectations and needs during a disruption.
How then does their feedback improve BC strategy? We’ve isolated the following five ways:
1. Help pinpoint vulnerabilities
Business continuity planning is all about discovering vulnerabilities to the organization that can disrupt operations in the event of a disruption. Here, customers can provide unique insights. Customer concerns, for instance, can bring attention to areas needing improvement.
In turn, proactively addressing the vulnerabilities your customers highlight enables businesses to solidify their operations, which will leave them in a better place to handle disruptions.
2. Preview crisis communication
Crisis communication is a facet of business continuity. One way to test your crisis communications to external audiences is to look closely at how you currently talk to customers.
Indeed, customers are likely already providing commentary on how you are communicating with them; are they being informed or ignored?
It’s highly recommended, then, to run surveys and look back at reviews to understand how you are communicating and to refine your messaging from there.
There’s an additional benefit. Improving how you communicate with customers, even before disruption, helps to foster brand loyalty which might pay dividends during a crisis.
3. Meet evolving demands
Customers, even key customers, don’t just have static preferences. Their expectations often shift, particularly during disruptions. You should, therefore, be aware of those changes to adapt your offering.
But to be aware of those changes – and even have a hand in forming customer preferences – it’s necessary to solicit customer feedback.
What’s more, meeting customers’ evolving needs can also strengthen your resilience against future disruptions.
4. Better align resources with customer priorities
Although companies shouldn’t necessarily chase customer preferences, they should certainly be aware of them. From there, companies should make resource allocation decisions accordingly.
Those decisions might include additional investments in customer support or further digitizing customer interactions for greater efficiency.
5. Keep learning and improving
One final way in which customer feedback improves business continuity strategy is that it keeps you learning, responding, and improving. This commitment to hearing what customers are saying can then foster a culture of continuous improvement, which is central to a successful business continuity program.
As noted, customers who feel like they are listened to and valued then become strong advocates for your brand, which can pay off during challenging times.
In sum, a culture of continuous improvement not only prepares a business for potential disruptions but also positions it as a responsive and responsible organization in the eyes of its customers.
How to get customer feedback into your business continuity plans
Now, that we’ve addressed the five ways customer feedback can improve your BC strategy, it’s worth asking, how exactly can you get customer feedback into your BCP?
It’s not enough to dial up a customer out of the blue. Organizations must establish repeatable processes for leveraging customer feedback for business continuity strategy.
How can they do it?
Step one: Understand customer needs and expectations in case of a disruption
To understand what customers will expect during a crisis, it’s important to first know who your key customers are, what value they get from your products or services, how they use them, and how they would be affected by a disruption.
How to get that information? We recommend surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Before you even get started, though, you should consider segmenting your customers based on their importance, sensitivity, and preferences, and prioritize your communication and recovery efforts accordingly.
Step two: Let customers know how your BCP affects them
Customers don’t often think about your business continuity strategies; they just expect your products and services to be available when they want them.
As a result, educating customers about how your BCP affects them will go a long way in extracting valuable customer feedback.
How to go about it? We recommend sharing your BCP objectives, scope, and assumptions, as well as your risk assessment, business impact analysis, and recovery strategies.
Isn’t this overkill for customer communications? Not necessarily. Avoid spamming customers but make creative use of emails, newsletters, websites, social media, and/or webinars to communicate the BCP objectives to customers.
You will derive the additional benefit of reassuring your customers that you have a plan to deal with disruption and also value customer input.
Step three: Involve customers in testing and exercises
Of course, once developed, BC strategies must be tested. What better way to get customer feedback about your BCP than involving key customers in BCP testing.
Have customers sit in on your simulations, drills, and tabletop scenarios, and ask what they think about your BCP performance, gaps, and improvements.
Customers often have their own best-practice BCPs, as well, from which you can learn to improve your BC strategy.
But if you involve customers in testing and exercises, it’s important to keep them apprised of subsequent BCP improvement and learnings based on their feedback.
Here, you can make use of surveys, interviews, workshops, and/or brainstorming sessions to gather their feedback, suggestions, and ideas on how to improve and optimize your BCP. Customers might also be looking to you to share best practices, insights, and resources, so they can learn from your experiences and perspectives.
Finally, as risk increases, organizations can no longer afford to sit on untapped resources for BC strategy. And one staggeringly under-utilized resource is customer feedback.
That’s why in the above we’ve laid out the five ways customer feedback can improve your business continuity strategy. We also listed the three repeatable steps to take to get that customer feedback into your BCP.
Of course, the rubber hits the road on customer feedback when disruption finally happens. And so, you should also invest in business continuity software that helps you deploy your BC strategy in seconds to ensure the best response.
Where to turn for such software? We suggest Noggin.
Streamlined, integrated, and automated business continuity management, Noggin facilitates engagement and collaboration across all stakeholders, including customers, and ensures a unified approach to resilience.
But don’t just take our word for it. Request a demonstration to see Noggin in action for yourself.
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