Consumer Expectations Changes After COVID And How To Adapt Your Customer Experience

In a short period of time, this virus has completely revolutionised the lives of our consumers, employees, leaders and everyone out there around the world. But despite all these incredible overnight changes, life seems to be carrying on in different and uncertain circumstances. Although this crisis is changing a lot of things, your customer-brand relationship is more important than ever. We know that customer experience is the way to differentiate companies in a highly competitive environment where products and services are nearly the same.

During COVID-19 the challenge is not only to try to be different but to pivot, innovate and transform. This pandemic will have a long-lasting impact in the mind of customers but companies will have the opportunity to have a long-lasting impact in consumers’ lives. In a recent interview historian, philosopher and best-selling author Yuval Noah Harari mentioned that COVID-19 is the accelerator of where society and businesses would have been in many years’ time. “Mr” Corona has infected over 4.5 million people, with nearly two million recoveries, and 320K global deaths. Did we need all this chaos as the push that companies needed to take advantage of the technology that was available out there for many years? This chaos has traumatised an entire society and will impact forever the lives of millions of people and consumers around the world. Over history, crises have impacted the globe in good and bad ways but one thing is certain: those businesses that resisted digital transformation are now feeling the danger. It is time to act quickly and adapt to the new customer’s mindset. Stéphane Garelli, Professor Emeritus of World Competitiveness at IMD and Professor at the University of Lausanne states that this crisis will last about 18 to 24 months. During this time companies that lead with empathy and genuinely address customer needs can strengthen their relationships.

Starting from today, I am going to share articles on what are the six main consumer behaviour and expectation changes and how companies can address customer’s acute needs today and build stronger ties with them, preparing for the life after COVID-19. These six consumer behaviour changes and recommended actions should be aligned across four different dimensions that will become critical in your customer experience strategy during and after COVID: Digital, Empathy, Trust and Social Responsibility.

Consumer behaviour change #1: Tech and beyond

Consumers have been forced into quarantine, isolation and lockdown and for many that means they had to really reevaluate their life priorities, habits and behaviours. As COVID-19 has dramatically pushed consumers to be more digital we shall expect them to be more accepting of AI, robots and technology in general. Most consumers now accept that technology can help them to do the things that they normally do but in an easier way. Those consumers that were reluctant to go digital will now have to. This is shifting the laggards face-to-face with the virtual world and as they have made the investment in effort, learned new habits and interfaces- many consumers won’t go back.

Coronavirus has accelerated this trend massively and increased the need for cashless and contactless payments as well. It has also created the need for driverless delivery solutions which means that companies will have to quickly invest in these robotic automations to adapt. We will quickly come to the point that consumers will prefer autonomous driver options and will be more confident about using them themselves. This pandemic is moving robotics from novelty to essentials. Infact, in February Meituan Dianping started using autonomous vehicles to deliver grocery orders to its customers in Beijing. The company had already been testing these vehicles back in 2019 but the pandemic has forced it to deploy them early so that they can give consumers ‘no touch’ delivery solutions.

What does it mean for businesses?

• Businesses should accelerate digital options and offer those contactless solutions and deploy “touch and pay” payments–whether from the smartphone or card.  Using contactless payment allows people to avoid touching cash and keypads during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. This will reduce the possible transmissions of the virus and is a safer way to make payments for both the retailer and the consumer. The mobile phone was the major driver of this trend and COVID-19 has pushed the need for it enormously. What was a futuristic concept before now it’s not futuristic at all. Convenience and safety of payment have been important drivers of excellent customer experience and consumers will be expecting smarter and convenient ways to pay giving retailers the opportunity to capitalise on creating better customer experiences. According to a study carried out by Mastercard, 79% of consumers are using contactless payment solutions with safety and cleanliness as the key needs. In addition, 74% plan to continue to choose contactless after the pandemic.

“Social distancing does not just concern people’s interactions with each other; it includes contact with publicly shared devices like point of sale terminals and checkout counters,”

said Blake Rosenthal, Executive Vice President and Head of Mastercard Acceptance Solutions. “Contactless offers consumers a safer, cleaner way to pay, speed at checkout, and more control over physical proximity at this critical time.” These convenient payment methods provide an opportunity for retailers, restaurants, bars etc to address the current need of consumers to avoid carrying contaminated cash.

• The virtual working, consuming and socializing has created a massive and further shift to virtual activity for anything. For customers that are experiencing the convenience of the virtual way of doing things means that anything that can be done virtually will be. It is more important than ever to alienate any obstacle of going virtual, from banking to online shopping. Retailers are experiencing a high demand in “digital shelves” and those that never prioritised the need for e-commerce channels before are left behind. As you are virtualising your experience make sure that you provide it with frictionless processes, convenience and ease of use. Most importantly make sure that both your virtual and real experiences cohesist and complement one another.

My feeling is that a craving for “real” will also build up soon and the value and notion of “real” may increase drastically.

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More consumer expectation changes in the next article. If you missed my latest customer experience webinar: “Adapting Customer Experience in times of COVID and beyond” you can watch the replay by registering your interest here.