If one of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, had been told that just over 100 years after the Virginia Declaration, his new country would become the world's leading power for many years to come, he would probably have applauded wildly but, in all honesty, he would have found it hard to believe such a prediction. And yet, we can learn a lot from the contrast between the reasonable expectations of that time and what reality ultimately proved to be. Franklin wrote that "investing in knowledge always yields the best returns," and today we must take good note of that maxim if we want to overcome the difficult situation we are going through and put ourselves at the front of the starting grid for tomorrow.
The time to intervene in knowledge is today. Or rather, it has been "today" ever since the pandemic accelerated digital transformation to levels that were unthinkable just at the beginning of this year. In a recent article in Customer Experience Magazine, this acceleration has been quantified with specific data: in just eight weeks between March and May, digital acceleration was equivalent to what would normally have been expected over the next five years. This acceleration does not refer solely to technological innovations, which are in fact only the tip of the iceberg. As usual, the big change is happening outside the environment directly controlled by the companies themselves; that is, in the customer environment. The obligation of companies today is to go to those environments, understand what has happened, take note of it, and prepare to follow the guidelines indicated by the market.
This wake-up call is more relevant than ever because we are entering what is known in certain contexts as the "golden quarter," due to the convergence of dates such as Black Friday in the Western market and its Eastern counterpart, Singles' Day, and the spending associated with the Christmas season. However, for those who fail to do their homework in line with trends and the profound disruptions associated with the pandemic, this quarter may be anything but golden. It is true that in the major markets, with China now unlocked and the West facing many uncertainties ahead, there is a noticeable trend toward business rebalancing. But sectors such as clothing and footwear are still struggling to recover, and their suffering may continue for many months to come, facing massive layoffs and similar measures that often mean bread today and hunger tomorrow.
The situation resulting from the consequences of the pandemic has divided the productive economy into two: the sector that has understood that the best thing to do is to stay put and wait, and another bloc that accepts uncertainty as the "only certainty" and, from that point of view, has lost its fear of rethinking business models to the extent necessary. For this second group, it is much easier to visualize the irreversible changes that have taken place in the way customers now spend.
Consumers are shopping online more than ever before. Consumption is growing at a dizzying pace in some sectors, while in others, purchasing processes are completely digital even though physical stores have reopened. If only because going to them means "standing in line," and fear is added to the recommendations in a context oftouchless society that, at least for the next few months, will set the tone for any business and any commercial interaction or transaction.
Investing in knowledge today means practically setting aside the lessons learned from what worked best in the recent past in terms of online business. That worked for a moment in time that will never return, and would have continued to work if the incorporation of new customers into the digital space had occurred gradually and organically. Instead, an influx that is the result of an unprecedented disruption introduces other new variables that must be taken into account.
For example, many of the players in this new market are not only newcomers to these environments, but are even consumers who viewed online transactions with suspicion or fear. They found them strange, if not downright hostile. And yet they have been forced to take the leap and have been surprised by the advantages that are now indispensable to regular customers of this channel: immediacy, convenience, agility, and autonomy in the purchasing process. An intelligent approach to these consumers, who were not expected to arrive so quickly, is one that takes a keen interest in their doubts and experiences and tailors consumption options to their possibilities and expectations. Those who manage to win over new consumers by offering them the customer experience that other companies deny them will also have gained brand ambassadors and evangelists.
Shaping these options is not just about providing suitable payment or transaction options, or offering additional guarantees or particularly welcoming messages. It is also about knowing whether our product lines are consistent with their priorities, and whether our efforts in digital marketing and social media are in line with the implementations they expect from us. That does not mean eliminating these efforts. Rather, it means the opposite: redoubling them. This also puts us in an unparalleled position of advantage over competitors who, compulsively applying the idea of saving at all costs, have chosen to eliminate these items because they consider them to be expendable and minor expenses. If the cost per click is now lower, now is the time for teams to focus on advertising campaigns, attracting traffic, and driving conversions.
"The lack of understanding about new customers and so much uncertainty surrounding the purchasing behavior of existing customers means that relying on historical data is a big risk," CXM points out in this regard. "Instead, digital teams should spend time analyzing search reports and other web analytics to inform merchandising and marketing decisions; by doing so, they will gain the insights needed to understand what users are really looking for and how they are likely to behave."
Another major challenge in retaining customers who have come without being called is responding effectively to orders. One of the biggest problems faced by supermarkets in Spain at the beginning of lockdown was that they were not prepared to cope with large-scale demand, and for weeks that seemed like years, customers watched in amazement as their orders were scheduled for delivery 28 days after the purchase order. This goes radically against the lessons of this crisis: there must be stock, there must be commercial partners who can supply a product if our store is out of stock, and there must be warehouse and logistics management that is forward-thinking enough to be able to deal with return policies that provide the customer with a beneficial experience.
The worst investment you can make in these times is saving for the sake of saving, the compulsive fever of cutting costs at any price and in any department. Customers haven't disappeared; they've just changed channels and are hungry for suppliers who, in addition to products, can offer them a customer experience. In other words: trust, support, peace of mind, and a narrative that differs from the pandemic doom and gloom that now floods their daily news feed without exception. Providing a frictionless journey requires combining legal compliance actions with transparent, real-time information on inventory levels and delivery.
In a context of total uncertainty, applying past policies or standing still and waiting for the storm to pass is the worst strategy we can imagine. Now is the time to design campaigns—many, varied campaigns—that are attentive to the inputs of consumers whose resources are likely decimated. It is difficult to predict who will survive, but it is clear that those who do not invest in customers today, during this "least golden quarter in recent years," will find it very difficult to continue operating next year. No matter how erratic the market behaves, "there is still time to ensure that processes, training, automation, and communications are in place to guarantee that peak operations run smoothly."
