We’ve been living in an unsteady economy for a while, and each month brings a fresh variation on the theme. Whether it’s inflation, the job market, back-and-forth on tariffs, natural disasters, supply chain disruptions – well, it’s not surprising that companies are adopting a wait-and-see attitude towards investing and growth. In this economy, who can blame them?

For CX teams, there’s one thing that doesn’t always get factored into this decision: Customer expectations aren’t standing still. They demand continual improvement, even if it’s done incrementally. CX teams rarely have the luxury of coasting; they need to keep up with changes in customer sentiment.

How exactly can you do that when there’s very little room in the budget for anything other than survival?

Resource-friendly ways to improve CX

We’ve said it again and again: good CX is a worthwhile investment, but it doesn’t have to break the bank. However, we know how hard it can be to understand where and how to make small changes to your existing ecosystem. With that in mind, we’ve rounded up a smorgasbord of resources on ways you can improve your CX using little more than time and a willingness to learn. Here are a few ways you can increase your CX and EX skills during times of uncertainty:

• Brush up on your active listening. Train yourself, your team, or any customer-facing employees. We’ve covered this in Active Listening & Customer Research: A Practical Introduction; we also like the Sprinklr article listed below.

• Take the customer journey. Use your company’s external website, shop in its store, order online – essentially, do whatever a customer would do and take notes. Are there areas you can improve? As you’re doing this, you may want to build or review your customer journey maps. Our Guide to Customer Journey Mapping and the webinar The Customer Journey: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Map It can help.

• Fine-tune your feedback loops. A small adjustment in what, how, and when you measure feedback can make a big difference. Our article How CX by Design does feedback loops and the newsletter 3 Reasons why feedback loops don't work provide best practices and troubleshooting tips.

• Examine your social presence. Think of this as taking the customer journey, part 2 – the social media realm. The Qualtrics article listed below explains how CX and social media work together.

• Refine interdepartmental communication. Good communication between departments won’t just win goodwill for the CX team; it can also streamline business processes. Read the Forbes article listed below for expert tips.

• Check on the employee experience. Good CX relies on the employee experience. The Medallia article listed below offers some great suggestions on this, including tips on a Voice of the Employee program.

• Pay attention to prioritization. When budgets are tight, it’s especially crucial to prioritize needs and projects correctly. Our article Using a Now-Next-Later Framework to Prioritize CX Goals will walk you through a simple prioritization method.

In conclusion, there’s no need to be stagnant just because we’re living in uncertain times. We might have to prioritize growth areas and adopt a slower pace, but we can still move forward!