Be a change agent and save your business in times of crisis
In these times of COVID-19 and dizzying change, more leaders have a hard time assessing whether their business is going to make it or not. Of course, you have the few industries that are blessed to be in the exact right place at the right time. Chances are you’re faring well if you’re in home-based solutions, remote working technology, or health-protective devices. At least once you have figured out how to handle the surge in demand.
But what about the rest of us? How can we increase our survival chances and actually thrive in these times of significant shifts? I recently wrote an article about it: “Times of Crisis: Should you Think like your CFO?“. It covers a few fundamental principles to keep in mind as we face the COVID-19 crisis. More specifically, how to make sure you find the right balance between securing short-term cash and keeping innovating for the long haul. These are necessary strategic product and business principles, but they’re not enough. You also need to act on the ways you go-to-market and evolve accordingly. Let’s now dig into how the current crisis is impacting the way we go-to-market, and what to do about it.
The Good News: your value proposition is still valid in most cases
What used to make your value proposition resonate before the crisis is still likely valid in your customers’ minds (unless your business was quite dysfunctional from the start).
As an example, we all still need to eat. It’s here to stay. But we have adjusted how we enjoy our favorite foods, and it’s not only home delivery. Restaurants have experienced a shift in their own competitive landscape, reinforcing categories like online cooking lessons or shows. They can still adapt by offering superior convenience and safety in delivering your preferred meals at the door. Even better, they can look into creative ways to re-create their unique atmosphere in a virtual mode.
You get the point, your core value proposition is here to stay. Yet, how you deliver it will likely have to evolve either temporarily or permanently. The reality one year from now will probably be a mix of old and new go-to-market strategies. Yet, it’s still worth doing a sanity check on the health of your fundamental value proposition. I’d recommend you go directly to your customers and do some qualitative interview work. It will help you probe where they stand and let them speak their minds on what has shifted or not. You can leverage a lot of the typical persona work I already mentioned in the article “5 Proven Principles to Get Your Persona Creation Right“.
Check for changes in customer expectations
While interacting with your customer base, now is a great time to assess any shift in how they expect your experience to be provided. In other words, how should you deliver your product or service today? We are surrounded by countless shifts in customer experience delivery. As an example, the business traveler in me has been used to certain perks from my preferred airlines. With travel resuming, the constant attention I used to have from flight attendants might just not make sense anymore for sanitary reasons. Still, with all these changes, my attention has now shifted to how safe my traveling conditions are. So you can expect the most successful airlines will now be the ones over-indexing on the “new” aspects of safety (like SouthWest keeping middle seats empty for such reasons).
One particular set of insights for you to chase are shifts in what we call the “non-negotiables“. As mentioned above, safety is a good illustration that is indeed top of mind in multiple industries. The rise of eCommerce is also raising the bar on expectations for “free and fast delivery”. So if you have your own direct e-commerce platform, you’ll experience this pressure more than ever. Once you better understand these “non-negotiables” from your customers, it helps you adapt the way you deliver your product or service.
Think of the whole customer journey
With more business shifting online, the consistency of your go-to-market and channel strategies is more critical than ever. You can refer to my previous article “Top Secrets to Successful Pricing on Amazon“. In my experience, companies with inconsistent terms, conditions, and policies are at an aggravated risk to be eaten alive by large e-commerce platforms. The way to shine these days is to get your act together. So focus on consistent and coherent delivery of your products or services across channels.
Along these lines, don’t under-estimate soft boundaries between channels. Brick-and-mortar retail is far from dead but needs to re-invent itself. It can provide a radically updated experience with virtual-like interactions (think touch-free for instance) and embrace the omnichannel reality. The battle is raging on. It will be fascinating to see how giants like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target position their uniqueness, once the dust settles on today’s global crisis. The point is that more than ever, you should understand and influence every touchpoint you have with your customer and assess how the current crisis is impacting each of them. This is universal, whether you are in a consumer or enterprise business.
Don't believe technology will solve it all
As you think of the best possible ways to deliver your product or solution in the light of the crisis changes, technical innovation shouldn’t be the only area of focus. Customer experience is multi-faceted by nature, so think how you can improve and even transform it by innovating into adjacencies. As an example, the physical meeting overdose has been replaced by a Zoom meeting overdose. There’s real fatigue taking place at the end of a 5-hour day of Zoom calls (not even 8!). Technology can help, but only up to a certain point. The solution will likely come more from new ways of interacting in these meetings. That’s a significant challenge, and I trust some technology giants are working hard on it, not to be disrupted in the long-haul.
But, how do you spot these better ways to deliver the customer experience? It’s where psychology (not technology) will help you solve it all. To get into your customers’ minds, “systems thinking” is quite powerful. You might already practice it without knowing! To make it short, first, you try to identify evolved customer behaviors (mostly through observation and active listening). Then, you connect the dots and surface the underlying elements (the root causes). Done the right way, it will help you understand the customer experience’s psychological aspects. You will better understand what truly matters to them and adjust your requirements accordingly.
In conclusion
Nothing, not even COVID-19, is here to stay. But today’s global crisis is shaping new behaviors that provide a silver lining for the companies that understand how to leverage such a change. So make sure you listen intently to both your customer and market voices. Once you’re clear on behavior shifts, map them to how you deliver your current customer experience and look for creative ways to adjust, while sticking to your brand value.
And most importantly, be ready to adapt again (and again). Only the fittest and most agile will survive!
I’m genuinely interested in getting your feedback on this topic! How successful have you been with your own adjustment to these times of changes? Which other considerations worked for you? Just comment on this blog or drop me a note on The Product Sherpa site!
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