8 CX Lessons from the Microsoft/CrowdStrike Outage
The CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage in July significantly affected several businesses. Discover how it affected customer experience and tips on how CX leaders can prepare for such incidents.
- The CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage in July significantly affected several businesses.
- While CX leaders cannot prevent such incidents, following a few tips, such as clear communication, empathizing with customers, prioritizing data, and ensuring proper usage of technology tools such as AI, can help deliver a better customer experience during crises.
On July 19, 2024, the world witnessed an unprecedented Microsoft outage thanks to a faulty update by CrowdStrike. About 8.5 million Microsoft-based devices saw a crash, the blue screen of death (BSOD), or bootloop. Businesses across industries and sectors were impacted. The outage translated to direct sales losses for many businesses and organizations.
The outage also severely impacted customer experience. Customers across industries faced long delays and cancellations in their services as companies struggled to maintain their operations. For example, passengers had to wait for long hours or face flight cancellations, patients faced delays in their medical procedures, and many people saw essential services disrupted.
The Impact on Customer Experience
The outage revealed significant vulnerabilities and highlighted profound reliance on IT infrastructure. It also emphasized the urgent need for robust system resilience and comprehensive contingency planning. But how exactly did the CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage affect customer experience (CX) across various industries?
According to Quantum Metric, in the retail sector, where the impact was the least, the average cart rates increased by 125% the next day, indicating brand loyalty and consumer resilience. However, frustrations mounted in the travel sector, one of the most severely affected industries. While frustration rates increased by 2% on the day of the impact, they increased by 28% the next day. Rage clicks (users repeatedly clicking or tapping on an element in an app or website due to frustration) also increased by 21% the following day. Airlines, specifically, saw a surge in frustration rates and an 18% uptick in rage clicks.
This indicates that while customers are understanding in the face of uncontrollable challenges, their patience is short. Brands need to rebound fast to meet customer expectations and maintain their loyalty.
See more: CrowdStrike Outage to Cost Billions, Insurance Estimates Reveal
Lessons for Marketing, CX & Operations Leaders
The CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage reminds us that even robust systems can sometimes be vulnerable. The question will then not be if something will go wrong but how marketing, CX, and operations leaders can best prepare for an unprecedented event like this.
Here are a few tips for leaders:
1. Communicate
During such incidents, it is necessary to clearly communicate the issue’s scope and impact in simple terms. Ensure the information on your application/website is updated early and often. This also applies to internal channels; ensure your teams can easily identify and report problems quickly.
According to Omer Minkara, VP and principal analyst at Aberdeen Strategy & Research, it is critical to educate employees about what’s happening to improve their ability to get the job done and help customers through the crisis. Employees should be educated on the nature of the issue, how it affects their work, if any resolution is available, and a possible expected resolution time.
2. Empathize with your customers
When such problems arise, it is essential to acknowledge them and empathize with those impacted. Encourage your employees, too, to empathize with customers and be flexible. When you cannot assist your customers due to organizational policies and processes, try to get assistance from superiors and be willing to make exceptions if necessary. Crises like these are times when you show customers that you care.
3. Consider how you use automation and AI
An important tip by Minkara is to see how you use artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in CX and elsewhere in the business. According to Aberdeen Strategy & Research studies, automation and AI are helping elevate customer experiences, reduce costs, and improve revenues. That said, AI should not replace humans but rather complement them. This is evident in the CrowdStrike faulty update and similar issues. Hence, humans should be present to step in when the situation calls for it.
4. Have a backup plan
In the business world, crises can occur at any time. Hence, ensure your data and systems are secured and backed up. Comply with security policies to minimize the risks of breaches during outages and communicate effectively with customers if breaches occur during such crises.
5. Have a business continuity plan
Besides having a backup plan, have a business continuity plan, as outages can cut off entire regions. Having redundancies built into the system using cloud solutions and edge computing to ensure reduced loads on central servers can reduce potential tech challenges. It is also necessary to have crisis management teams and training, as they can save precious time when deploying countermeasures. For example, after a 2018 Marriott data breach, the company implemented crisis management training for their CX teams to handle increased call volumes by affected customers.
See more: CrowdStrike Blames Windows Outage on Testing Software
6. Empower customers
If customers have abandoned their cart or dropped out of the booking flow, remind them to return once the issue is resolved. This can be done using retargeting or other marketing tactics, such as discounts or offers. You can also consider offering other ways for customers to complete their transactions. For example, in the case of retail, in-store or curbside pickup.
7. Provide enough support
Your help and FAQ pages are some of the most important assets during times of crisis, as they are a treasure trove of information on what customers can expect and what they can do in times of crisis. Hence, optimize your help pages and consider implementing banners to keep your customers updated. Simultaneously, providing enough support in your contact centers is critical.
8. Prioritize data
Talking about the right support in contact centers, it is necessary to empower your customer service agents, who can, in turn, empower customers. This implies you should invest in data and the right tools so your agents have the correct information at their fingertips. Further, a crisis like the Microsoft/CrowdStrike outage creates a massive influx of information. Hence, you need to focus on data that provides clear context, determines the root cause, and quantifies business impact. Ensure this data is understandable and accessible throughout the organization.
While incidents like the Microsoft/CrowdStrike outage may occur unannounced, companies can plan for them in advance. Making sure customers feel informed and supported during such incidents is a key differentiator between good and bad experiences. CX teams and companies minimize customer inconvenience by following the tips mentioned above.
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