If you look at Google Trends and ask how many people have been searching for information on ‘Digital Transformation’ then the results are startling. In the past five years, interest in this topic has increased by 400-500%. Interest has also been dramatically boosted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some businesses have literally had to pivot from one type of business to another.
Whisky and perfume manufacturers used their infrastructure and expertise to make sanitizer gel. Retailers with almost no online offer suddenly had to embrace e-commerce overnight. Consumer behavior and expectations have changed and so a permanent transformation is necessary, the change for some companies has been dramatic.
CX Relationships
One of the most important relationships that brands can nurture is the relationship they have with their customers. It’s essential to work with a customer service specialist as a partner, not just as a service supplier if you want to get the best from this customer relationship.
This was true in the previous years, but is even more important now. I believe that executives need to be exploring several questions:
- Has our marketplace or industry permanently changed?
- Have the expectations of our customers changed?
- Is this ‘new normal’ creating a situation where new competition may emerge quickly?
- How can we get closer to our customers and quickly generate greater loyalty and satisfaction?
- Are there new opportunities that we could embrace, but we have not done it because our customers would not expect us to change so quickly?
It’s worth thinking about how Jeff Bezos and Amazon approach the world as an ecosystem of connected services and businesses. He got into the cloud because Amazon needed so much storage and computing power for their retail systems. Now AWS is a global cloud powerhouse. Prime actually has real benefits – like free shipping – that keep customers using Amazon services. Compare the benefits of Prime to most “loyalty” schemes you belong to and the difference is obvious.
If you need to transform to stay in your existing market or to embrace new opportunities then you need to bring your customers along with you. This is why it’s vital that you work with a customer service specialist that is agile and flexible and able to offer advice – not just deliver service to the KPIs that worked in 2019.
Embracing your customer and moving to a new place with them will always be easier if you can ensure that your customer service operation moves with you. Find a customer service specialist that you can call a genuine partner and your transformation will be smoother and more successful.
Let me know about your own experience of change and transformation over the past year. Leave a comment here or get in touch via my LinkedIn
