3 Big Takeaways from the COVID-19 Crisis

As with every unplanned business disruption, the more learnings we can make now, the more likely we are to recover quickly and be more resilient and prepared should a future crisis occur.

1. Remote working has unlocked a new kind of business agility

Despite the fact that the COVID-19 crisis was first reported in China in December, for many companies it still felt like the transition from business as usual to closures and remote working came extremely quickly. 

Fortunately, remote working had already become commonplace for many forward thinking firms, with supporting technology in place to ensure that employees have secure access to all the tech that enables them to do their job as normal and communicate effectively with their team. 

However, the majority of office-based companies have had to quickly adapt to this new remote working practice, incorporate new technology systems and coach their employees to successfully adapt to these changes.

While this transformation may have been forced upon some businesses quicker than they’d have liked, this extreme change has meant that far more organizations are now able to quickly swap their everyday working habits from office-based to remote, with little disruption to their business. This has meant that firms are becoming more agile and robust while also opening themselves up to a bigger pool of potential employees, with a fixed location no longer being mandatory.  

2. Customer engagement channels are changing

In a post-COVID-19 world, businesses will face many new and different challenges. However, the biggest challenge stated by 1 in 3 businesses is focused around customer engagement. Over the past few months, the world has been disrupted in a way we have never before experienced and, consequently, consumer behavior has changed as result.

This shift has meant that there is now a bigger focus on re-engaging your customer base, understanding how your consumer’s values have changed, how this has affected market trends and what channels will be most effective when communicating in this new world. 

It’s estimated there are 44% more emails being sent to customers now than before the pandemic started, which is problematic. Email service provider Hubspot suggested that sales teams are sending less emails due to lower response rates during the crisis. So, if email was always your go-to channel for customer communication, you might want to consider an alternative digital medium. SMS is quickly becoming a strong contender to replace or supplement email marketing, with an impressive 95% open rate.

3. Constantly evolving to meet consumer demand

The pandemic saw demand for certain industries soar to extremely high levels with businesses such as grocery retailers unable to keep up. However, many other companies experienced an almost overnight drop in demand, putting a different kind of pressure on them. 

A key learning here needs to be around having an agile marketing and logistics strategy. The pandemic saw a key shift from offline shopping in high street stores to online shopping with home delivery. Pre-COVID-19 shopping habits were slowly shifting to a more digital approach; the pandemic merely exacerbated this trend.

By investing further in your digital offering, creating a more robust delivery service and also ensuring that your marketing strategy is constantly evolving, listening to customer feedback, monitoring consumer sentiment and able to pivot to meet changing demands, then your business should be in a more stable position should consumer behavior continue to evolve in the digital sphere.

At the start of the COVID-19 crisis, business continuity plans (BCP) became something of a buzzword as companies scrambled to adapt to the ever-changing pandemic. By now, many businesses will have a tried and tested BCP in place, but it might be worth creating a version of your BCP that also incorporates significant changes in customer behavior. This would mean that your team is ready to enact a plan, quickly analyze changes to market trends and customer sentiment, ensuring that you’re able to adapt quickly and effectively to continue serving your customers should a future crisis occur.