Where are all my customers?

There is not one aspect of life that the pandemic has not affected. 

Nothing is the same anymore – whether it is a growing suspicion of door handles and taps in public spaces or a new-found respect for homemade bread, the pandemic has changed the way we do life. The scare of infection and spread is very real and that colours every aspect of life and business.  

Travelling for business or pleasure will change. Some say that online marketplaces for homestays – like Airbnb might be hit hard, as customers prefer the hygiene and sanitation standards of established hotels, if and when travel starts getting back up on its feet. Some say there may be a spike in car sales as people prefer the safety of their own car as opposed to public transport and cabs. 

According to a Nielson study of recent purchasing trends in e-commerce and traditional channels, once the pandemic started to spread, there was predictably the initial rush to stock pile pantries with food staples with long shelf lives and interest in health and hygiene products such as face masks and sanitizers. Store footfalls went up and the basket size got bigger as there was a panic to buy and hoard whatever was possible. Then came the lockdown. Restrictive living meant a fewer number of store visits and more online shopping – but regardless of the channel, it was only about the purchase of essential supplies. Nielson also went on to predict that even post-lockdown, there will be continued focus on health and essentials for living, permanent shifts in the supply chain and a continued preference for e-commerce. 

According to Coresight Research here are the top purchases online – 

• household products (71.6 percent)

• food (69.5 percent)

• personal care (68.5 percent)

• health products (58.7 percent)

• books, movies and streaming (31 percent)

• clothing, footwear and fashion (28.7 percent)

• beauty products (25.5 percent)

• electronics (16.2 percent)

• alcohol (15 percent)

• toys and games (14.7 percent)

• sports and workout equipment (9.3 percent)

• furniture and home improvements (8.3 percent)

So is this how things will be, once we start resuming a return to life after the lockdowns are lifted? Will this be the new normal? 

So while customers are still around, so to speak, their priorities have changed. Their medium of engagement has shifted and what grips their attention now, has certainly evolved into something different. 

Our customers are working from home – and so videoconferencing is now the norm. Education and a lot of the entertainment of kids happens online … when it comes to shopping, its “essentials only” with luxuries at the way bottom of the list. 

It all seems to revolve around three key factors – 

• Protect – health and hygiene are on top of the list

• Connect – when social distancing is the order of the day, it is important to stay connected

• Entertain – in-home media consumption is high! The Disney+ App has more than five million downloads. There is a 50% increase in streaming services. 

There is a huge increase in mobile usage, gaming and consumption of Social Media – which together is the ideal chance for brands to engage with their customers, with messaging being centred on well-being, networking and community, and the whole world being brought together by this pandemic. The need of the hour is to creatively connect at a time like this. There is a huge ocean of customers who are waiting to be engaged and there are several new and happening avenues to connect – Instagram and TikTok to name a couple. 

So while customers are It is totally in the hands of brands to make use of – 

• a huge captive audience

• demand 

• ecommerce 

• great delivery infrastructure 

• terrific social media engagement 

• lots of new technology

While all this is there, there are some who might argue that in a crisis, consumers behave differently and that does not mean that this change would be permanent. In china, for example, things are back to how they used to be before the pandemic and there are even reports of increases in purchasing. The customer might be careful about his health, but he might just bounce back. All this means is that brands need to handle hygiene protocols differently because the expectations of customers would have changed significantly. 

The customer is home. And he might be for some more time. He has been affected in many ways. There is every chance that he has been impacted financially. He might have faced the loss of loved ones to this pandemic. He is, in many ways a different animal. He wants to be touchless and digital and contactless as he is concerned about hygiene and safety. At the end of the day, it is a new normal for everyone – customers and businesses alike. 

With some careful manoeuvring, businesses can still be relevant to the customer.  And how can they do that? By doing what they can to help each of their customers get back on their feet. Businesses need to take advantage of all the technological advances that have been made in order to make life less complicated and easier for their customers. They need to go the extra mile to make their customers feel safe on the one hand, and while everything has changed for them, businesses need to somehow communicate to their customers that for them, people are way more important than profit. 

The businesses that are successful at giving their customers a great experience while engaging with them are all “investing in methods to centralize analytics and decision making approaches and scale them exponentially, across all connected channels. CX leaders are investing in customer data platforms (53%) and real-time decision engines (45%)”. *Pega

Engaging with customers, armed with insights about them, will be the key to keeping customers happy and secure and trusting in you. And that will be a true win-win situation. One thing is crystal clear – not being prepared for this will be disastrous to businesses. They need to be ready and agile and quick to adapt to the changing needs and expectations of a post-pandemic customer base. And that will make all the difference between a brand that has customers and one that doesn’t.

Understanding the changing market trends and implementation of quick and bold strategic decisions aided by intelligence driven technology will determine how businesses see through this crisis and meet the needs of tomorrow’s customers. 

By Jayathi K. 

The author is a professional Content writer at Xerago Analytics with over a decade and half experience in creating content on diverse topics related to business & Marketing content.

Xerago offers marketing COE ( Xerago Centre of Excellence) for the organisations of varied sizes and industries. Xerago Analytics is the known name in the area of marketing cloud platform implementation and marketing Analytics services. Irrespective of the nature of your marketing needs and your current capabilities with respect to skills, process, technology and analytics, Xerago will set up a right sized CoE for you. The company with HQ in CA, US has global presence with offices in Mumbai, Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia & Chennai and has been serving big brands from BFSI, Technology, Automobile, Telecom sectors. 

To know more about the range of services that Xerago offers  from Marketing and Analytics domain visit us at - www.xerago.co

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Created on Sep 20th 2020 00:02. Viewed 470 times.

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