Feature
The Gist
- Transparency is your superpower. Proactive communication builds trust during unpredictable economic shifts.
- Contact centers are the calm in the storm. Agent readiness and real-time insights can turn panicked calls into loyalty-building moments.
- Customer journey stress test. Tariffs may disrupt supply chains and pricing—CX leaders must reassess touchpoints and messaging now.
Today is Tax Day in the United States. It's been Tariff Day for four straight months.
That seems like the case since The Trump Administration promised in the President’s inaugural address in January to “tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
It hasn’t been that simple. While trade tariffs are nothing new, statements by President Trump and the administration’s rollout, rollback and general tariffs approach has caused global business and consumer panic echoed in historic stock market swings.
Panic = not great for customer experience. However, panic can mean opportunity.
Customer experience leaders can — and must — take a proactive stance during these volatile times. CX experts say CX leaders must double down on transparency, prepare contact center agents, be calm communicators, unite internal teams to anticipate disruptions, mitigate customer anxiety and tell a data-backed story that builds both trust and business resilience.
“CX teams need to double down on transparency right now,” said Jeannie Walters, founder of Experience Investigators. “Customers are aware that things are unpredictable, so it's important for brands to share what they're doing, even if that is currently watching the market.”
Table of Contents
- Timeline of Trump’s Tariffs Plan in 2025
- How CX Leaders Can Stay Calm in the Tariff Storm
- Why Consistent Messaging and Agent Readiness Matter More Than Ever
- Contact Centers: The First Line of Empathy in a Volatile Market
- Reassess the Customer Journey
- 5 Action Steps for CX Leaders to Address Tariff Uncertainty
Timeline of Trump’s Tariffs Plan in 2025
Before we get into more actionable advice for customer experience leaders in times of economic volatility due to tariffs, here’s a breakdown of key dates and events and global reaction regarding the Trump Administation’s tariff rollout:
- Jan. 20: In his inaugural address, President Trump pledged to impose tariffs on foreign countries, stating, “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.” He also announced the creation of the External Revenue Service to collect tariffs and duties.
- Feb. 1: President Trump signed executive orders imposing a 25% tariff on all goods from Mexico and Canada and a 10% tariff on Chinese imports. A lower 10% tariff was set for Canadian energy exports.
- Feb. 3: The administration paused the tariffs on Mexico and Canada for one month after both countries agreed to enhance efforts to prevent drug trafficking into the U.S.
- March 4: China responded with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, including a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas and a 10% tariff on crude oil and agricultural machinery.
- March 24: President Trump signed Executive Order 14245, imposing a 25% tariff on all goods imported into the U.S. from any country that imports Venezuelan oil, effective April 2.
- April 2: Dubbed "Liberation Day," President Trump announced a 10% universal tariff on all imports, effective April 5, and higher tariffs ranging from 11% to 50% on 57 countries, effective April 9. China faced an additional 34% tariff, bringing the total to 54% on Chinese goods.
- April 2: Following President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcement, the U.S. stock market experienced a significant downturn.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted over 1,600 points, marking one of its steepest single-day declines since 2020.
- Simultaneously, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq suffered substantial losses, with the S&P 500 dropping 6.65% and the Nasdaq Composite falling 5.8%.
- This sharp decline resulted in the largest two-day loss in market history, erasing over $6.6 trillion in value.
- The volatility index (VIX) spiked to 45.31, indicating heightened market fear and uncertainty.
- April 4: China retaliated by announcing a 34% tariff on all U.S. goods, effective April 10.
- April 7: President Trump threatened to increase tariffs on Chinese goods by an additional 50% if China did not withdraw its retaliatory tariffs.
- April 9: China imposed 84% tariffs on U.S. goods. In response, the U.S. increased tariffs on Chinese imports to 125%, later clarifying the rate had risen to 145%.
- April 9: President Trump announced a 90-day pause on most newly imposed tariffs for all countries except China. This decision led to a historic stock market rally:
- The S&P 500 surged 9.5%, marking its largest single-day gain since 2008.
- The Nasdaq Composite jumped 12.2%, its second-biggest one-day increase ever.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared nearly 3,000 points, its largest point gain on record.
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April 11: The U.S. announced that consumer electronics from most countries would be exempt from tariffs, except for a 20% tariff on electronics from China.
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April 14: The Trump administration initiated investigations into the national security implications of importing computer chips, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and pharmaceutical products, as a precursor to imposing tariffs on these items.
April 15: The administration announced a 21% antidumping duty on most tomatoes imported from Mexico, effective July 14, coinciding with the termination of a 2019 trade agreement.
Related Article: Tariff Turmoil: This Is the Moment to Double Down on Customer Experience
How CX Leaders Can Stay Calm in the Tariff Storm
In other words, tariffs and the first four months of 2025 has been like kids selling lemonade in a tsunami.
What’s a CX leader to do?
“If CX departments are just responding they’re already in reactive mode,” said Marbue Brown, author of the book “Blueprint for Customer Obsession” and founder of The Customer Obsession Advantage. “Companies that got it right took steps to delay the impact of tariffs to customers, with the possibility of enabling them to avoid that impact altogether.”
“Don’t panic, be patient”: that's the posture that CX leaders should help their businesses to adopt, Brown added.
“This situation is temporary," he said, "and will run its course one way or the other within 90 days but probably shorter. If any US trading partners blink, and some already are, others will be under pressure to blink also. That will spell a more favorable economic environment for the US with more markets open to US products and more investment on US soil. Markets will bounce back like a rubber band.”
If no one "blinks," Brown added, the Trump administration will walk back the tariffs because the policy will not be sustainable, and the President will not destroy his legacy on the basis of this one policy.
Why Consistent Messaging and Agent Readiness Matter More Than Ever
Trish Wethman comes at this CX conundrum with some relevant experience. A former chief customer officer at a financial services company and advisory board member of The Mid-Atlantic CX Forum, Wethman acknowledged financial services customers and their current increased anxiety and uncertainty.
“This,” Wethman said, “can cause an increase in call volumes and inquiries. It is important to have a message that is consistent with what's critical for your customers to know and arm your agents with this information. It's also important to keep your internal stakeholders informed about what you're hearing and seeing from customers.”
Related Article: Handling CX in an Economic Downturn
Contact Centers: The First Line of Empathy in a Volatile Market
That means call-volume increases in contact centers and customer service and support departments. And if contact center agent enablement is ever so critical in times of stress and anxiety for customers, it’s now, according to Wethman.
“Blasting information in the midst of busy days when call volumes will already be increased is not enough.” Wethman said. “Get your teams into daily huddles, ask them what they are hearing and use that information to craft meaningful responses. Be consistent with this and create a mechanism that allows agents to communicate quickly when escalations are required.”
Many companies have prepared ahead of time to give themselves a bit of runway before tariffs would begin to impact prices for customers, Brown added. For companies where that’s true, contact center agents should know that and be able to use that to be a “voice of calm” for customers in the midst of a volatile environment.
“That will earn the company ‘brownie points’ with the customers,” Brown said. “It’s also entirely possible that for companies that have planned ahead, the tariff strategy will run its course before it can impact customers.”
Contact center agents need to go into each interaction with the mindset that customers are coming in at a negative five or worse and that they need to lift them all the way to a nine or 10, Brown added.
Reassess the Customer Journey
The customer journey has never been more crucial with the proliferation of digital channels, self-service and empowered customers who can buy, get delivered, return and critique products any time, any where and any day.
How does something like tariff turmoil affect the customer journey?
Walters said she’s recommending CX leaders specifically take a look at which parts of the customer journey might suffer due to the tariff uncertainty.
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“Supply chain disruptions are likely, so what communications and proactive measures can we take to set expectations?” Walters asked. “Materials will become more expensive, so what alternatives can you provide to budget-conscious customers? Now is the time to be proactive in your customer's journey.”
5 Action Steps for CX Leaders to Address Tariff Uncertainty
These expert-backed recommendations from Wethman aim to help customer experience leaders respond effectively during market disruptions such as rising tariffs or economic volatility.
| Action Step | Why it Matters to CX Leadership |
|---|---|
| Rally internal stakeholders | Bring together your key internal stakeholders and increase awareness during anxious times. Making decisions in a bubble won't work. Everyone must understand why this matters—it can’t just be the CX team "crying wolf." |
| Support urgency with data | Have the data that shows the themes you're seeing and the operational metrics being impacted. Leaders need to understand why it matters, and the data will help tell that story. |
| Encourage call listening | Encourage leaders to participate in call listening with frontline agents. There is no better storytelling than hearing the stress directly from customers. This is the real "voice of the customer" impact. |
| Push for quick wins | Identify quick wins and tie them to meaningful moments. If you can tell a compelling story about how the environment is affecting metrics, you may be able to push initiatives like self-service forward faster—for wins across both customer experience and business outcomes. |
| Align messaging with brand | Partner with Marketing and Brand teams to craft proactive messaging that alleviates customer concerns. Collaborate to develop consistent Q&As and talking points for agents and frontline managers that reflect your brand promise. |
| Conduct retrospectives | Once the immediate crisis has passed, prioritize retrospectives that show the impact of your actions—highlighting where they saved time, money or resources. This builds momentum for future initiatives. |
“CX leaders should be strong advocates for their companies to plan for business resilience so that they minimize disruption to customers when those times come,” Brown said. “As such, they should regularly look around corners for scenarios that could disrupt the business and highlight them for the business to plan ahead.”
