The world has experienced a massive shock and resets across multiple fronts, and it all happened almost overnight.
No warnings were sent out, no analyst of any kind could have predicted that. But yet, some were ready. They might not have prepared for this kind of wave, but they were able to quickly get back on their feet and keep going.
Even though we have all experienced this shock differently, it has led to a common question: What will happen to the customers? Will their behavior change? How can we measure these changes? How can we keep delivering on new expectations?
The motive hidden behind any business initiatives today, is the need to reconnect with our customers and keep up with the unexpected. Sounds impossible put like that, to keep up with something we cannot control nor foresee, but in fact we can.
The change is not over
Today our approach to the topic will be slightly different to what has been discussed so far. Discussing how to adapt to what is currently happening , is important and many have written about it and provided great insights. But understanding that the aftermath of the pandemic will no longer be a “back to normal”, but yet another change is what we want to look at here. The change is not over, but this time we can prepare for it.
How we used to behave before the pandemic will never be a normal we will return to. And what we are facing right now is only temporary. There will be an after COVID and it won’t be to go back to what we knew to be “our normal”, nor what we are experiencing now.
The normal of tomorrow
There has been an urgency to shift to the digital sphere across all the industries, to keep up with the pace of change and to push our customers to adapt accordingly. But have we asked ourselves, what will happen when this pandemic will disappear? Will we pick up where we left off? Do we even remember how it was back then? Can we anticipate the impact on our customers behavior, our employees’ attitude, our business processes flow?
What this global pandemic has taught us, is that our processes need to be ready, ready to react. They should not be reevaluated when faced with a problematic, instead they should be so volatile and flexible that they can anticipate, quickly shift, and implement new flows that can easily be adopted internally but also externally by our customers.
In such disruptive times, where nothing seems stable and we have completely left our comfort zone, how can we predict the behavior of our customers?
How can the backbone of our business become so responsive? How can we ensure to evolve in the right direction and keep up with the change?
The answer is short: You need to understand the behavior of your customers in order to put in place the right actions. In other words, you must know who you are addressing yourself to. But how?
Alignment
If you need to remember one word out of all of this — it’s alignment.
Like many things in life, we need to have a ground to step on — well a company works the same. The foundations must be rock solid to handle the unexpected. For a company, a foundation means: to own a culture, deliver on a brand promise, and align business goals across the organization.
And now, ask yourself — what is the constant that does not change, ever? The need to acquire customers. If you exist, it means that customers are consuming your product/service. So, isn’t it clear that it should all start by listening to our customers? Let’s understand how and why.
First you need to lay the right grounds to ensure that your business goals are aligned with your brand promise.
Agility
We’ve come to understand that there will be another change, that it will be another unexpected shift but this time we can prepare ourselves to be ready. And this is what you should do.
To allow your business to react and keep up with the change, it needs agility. And how do you become agile? By constantly, and in real-time, stay connected with your customers. This will allow you to become aware of any changes: whether it is new trends, unexpected external crisis, internal disruptions etc.
It is like putting a cardiac person on a heart monitor constantly to track the heart beats to detect what triggers the heart to speed up or to slow down. You need to detect the signals and warnings that will give you that extra length to prepare.
In other words, you need to turn to your customers and listen. Pick up the data, analyze it, understand it and this needs to be done time and time over and in real-time. This will allow you to always have a connection with what is most insightful and valuable to you. And only this way, will you detect the changes you need to adapt to.
If you are faced with a crisis, but have picked up on indicators before it was already out of hand — you are ready to respond, and suddenly, you become relevant again. You have not lost the race — you’re still in the game and probably well ahead of your competitors.
So now that we have the right foundations, we have the data, what could we be missing? A common digital space for data to become accessible and actionable.
And all these elements must work together, and not be isolated. There is only one way to do it — it needs to be supported by a technological platform that allows the information to align with business goals, flow across the organization, avoid silos, pick-up the relevant trends and crisis in real-time and provide a common digital space for information to spread. Only then we are ready for change and that, no matter when or how it will present itself.
Think Customer
Now that we have understood what is needed for our businesses to be agile and respond proactively to change, we will reach those moments of truth: delivering high level customer experience.
Remember our customers should always remain at the heart of every outcome, even before we take any decisions. As Jeff Bezos says: