Life Beyond the Pandemic: What Brands Can Do Now
Brands can overcome uncertainty by filtering out pure speculation and focusing on what’s knowable. Even in a suddenly disrupted business environment, there are still solid facts that we can build from.
Below we list 5 things to think about immediately, as well as 3 longer-term considerations for brands looking to survive and thrive in a radically altered marketplace.
— No. 1
Take your customers' pulse through customer research, right now.
How have customers' behaviors changed (or not changed?), what's driving those changes, in terms of beliefs, thought processes, new economic realities, and new routines? How might you better respond to these shifts?
— No. 2
Are new customer segmentation opportunities arising in response to the pandemic?
How relevant are your existing customer segments? Do you need to modify segmentation models to be relevant to customers during the next 18 months (or longer) as new behaviors, thought processes, and customer types emerge in response to the pandemic?
— No. 3
How adapted is your end-to-end customer experience for how your customers are coping with a new reality? Do you have a customer journey map for customer experience management? Has it been updated in light of the current crisis? Is it still grounded in reality or in assumptions about customers that no longer apply in the current context? You need a picture of the optimal customer purchase and usage experience and a realistic plan to get there as quickly as possible. For the past two months, most of us have been working on an ad hoc basis. In the coming months and years, ad hoc approaches may need to give way to more considered business models and processes for navigating an altered landscape.
— No. 4
How comprehensively are you addressing the need for personal safety among customers and employees? Have you adapted how you service customers to truly address this need, both physically and emotionally? Are you dealing with personal safety in a way that not only keeps your business viable but strengthens the level of trust your customers, employees, and other stakeholders place in you? It’s already clear that trust in some brands is eroding while others are gaining trust. How your brand behaves now will decide where you fall on this spectrum.
“How you treat people now will be remembered for years to come.”
— No. 5
How are you dealing with customers in extreme distress, through no fault of their own?
This group might be small, it might be large, but how you handle these people will also showcase your values for all to see for a long time to come. The world is watching.
Longer Term Action Items
— No. 6
What new business models that seemed out of reach just two months ago now appear viable and potentially profitable under these new circumstances? What experiments and innovation tests can you run, now, as a bridge to the future?
— No. 7
What structural advantages can you use to become more competitive as a result of this crisis? Where are your competitors failing to respond and letting their customers down? How can you win over customers who were previously loyal to others but who have become disgruntled in the current crisis?
— No. 8
What's your re-start plan for customers? How are you going to ensure that customers choose you as they emerge from lockdown, back to facilities and contexts that they may view differently now?