Focus on Optimizing Customer Experience in Post-pandemic

Businesses around the world are profoundly affected by the coronavirus, and they need a plan to survive and take control of the situation in hand. The coronavirus is not the first universal health threat and will certainly not be the last. This novel virus that emerged from China caused hundreds of billions in lost revenue and made some businesses in the United States to ask for federal help. 

In a fast-changing and dynamic business environment, you must be proactive in turning a crisis into an opportunity. Crises are unpredictable. So business managers must strive to minimize the effects and look for improvement areas.  

Bad companies are destroyed by crises. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them. –Andy Grove

The ability to respond to a crisis in a calculated way will determine what businesses can survive and which ones should be left on the ash heap of history. Great managers can use a crisis to challenge the organization’s ability to adapt to new conditions.

In any phase of doing business, a crisis may hit you, whether it is financial, organizational, personnel, or a natural crisis like coronavirus. But no matter how hard you get hit. It’s all about the chances there are in it for you. Sometimes the best marketing and branding opportunities are at the heart of a crisis.

How to Respond to the Market Shift in the Post-pandemic?

From the moment COVID-19 presented as a pandemic, it was clear that it will change the business priorities and strategies. Affected businesses should take necessary measures to respond, rebuild, and recover from the coronavirus effects and get back to their pre-pandemic routine.

Revamping the marketing strategy should be one of the first actions done by CMOs and other people involved in marketing for post-pandemic.

The coronavirus will change the customer’s buying habits drastically, and business managers have to adopt a new approach for driving forward. In the post-pandemic world, only restructured companies can last.

If you try to stay ahead of the radical, sudden changes, you will be in a better position to respond to the customers’ demands and drive business forward. Post-pandemic is a good time to revise the business fundamentals.

It’s All about the Experience You Create

The pandemic dust will settle, and businesses have to deal with customers with new expectations and attributes. Behavioral, purchasing, spending, searching, evaluating, and engagement patterns will change.

You may have the same customers, but their demands and expectations are changed, and they are looking for a new experience that matches the situation.  Here is where the experience game begins.

The experience you deliver in the post-pandemic determines if your customers will stay with you or tend toward competitors. As Salesforce reports, for 80% of customers, the experience of a brand is as important as its products or services.

How to Optimize the Customer Experience for Post-pandemic?

Great customer experience has three bases: Interaction, engagement, touchpoints. As long as you try to improve the experience customers get from the brand, you can expect increases in Interaction, engagement, and touchpoints.

Since customers in post-pandemic are looking for a new experience from the brands they have been in touch with, planning and delivering a unique experience should be an urgent priority for the businesses.

If you fail to deliver a brand-new experience to meet the expectation, forget your customers. Now it’s the best time to revise and optimize the customer experience journey. Here is how to do it.

Collect Insights

Asking customers is a straightforward way to learn about their insights, needs, and expectations for post-pandemic. Simply design a survey and send it through email to them.

This way, you can show the value you place on for customers, and also it helps to establish an emotional connection between the parties. Insights obtained from this survey will help you to optimize the brand experience.

You can also use insights from Search Console, Google Trends, Shopping Insights, Find My Audience feature, or other ways of collecting data. Try to gain as much data as you can.

Revise the Marketing Funnel

According to a study by Bankrate, American’s spending pattern is changed due to the coronavirus, and they are spending less money. On the other hand, Global Web Index reported that American people are consuming more content.

So the first big shift in marketing funnel and strategy begins from here. We have customers who are consuming more content but are spending less money.

Searching for useful information and watching videos related to needs like online grocery shopping or recipes and cooking is significantly increasing. It means that people are replacing traditional habits with digital solutions. 

In the post-pandemic, customers will dedicate more time to think and decide about purchasing a service or product. Also, businesses must expect changes in customers’ criteria for brand loyalty. They will be more loyal to brands that offer more social value.

 So the old-fashioned ways for moving customers through the marketing funnel won’t be applicable anymore. Look for new, innovative ways.

More Automation Needed

The workplace will change significantly in the post-pandemic, and businesses must have fewer people in the office and let more employees work from home. When there are fewer people on board, automation can play a more important role in the business.

Automating processes will ensure that fewer people onboard do not interrupt the workflow, and there will be no disorder in customer service. Chatbots and messaging apps can help you with this. 

Tell a Unique Story

We have heard a lot about storytelling and its role in marketing, but storytelling will also change in the post-pandemic. Now it’s the best time to be more creative with your stories and offer more values to the customers through unique, entertaining stories. Don’t miss the opportunities of using newly gone viral apps like TikTok for storytelling.  

Wrapping Up

Despite all the damage that the coronavirus has done to the global economy, there are chances for businesses to be more creative and go for adopting new strategies. In the post-pandemic environment, be more fearless at reinventing the ways of connecting with customers and going beyond the usual limits. 

Guest article written by: Hamid Ganji is a tech enthusiast who enjoys reading and writing about technology trends. He also works as a copywriter and contributor editor at BSUPERIOR SYSTEM LTD. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hamid-ganji-1070bba1/ – Twitter: @about_hamid – Medium: @hamidganji