The Coronavirus Means That Businesses Must Focus On What Matters Most – Their Customers

By Heikki Väänänen | CEO & Founder

In my latest Forbes article, I take a look at how customer experience has become the driving force for businesses looking to stay afloat in the wake of COVID-19. Over the past few months, it has become clearer than ever that a customer’s interactions with a company, particularly during a crisis, can trigger an immediate and long-lasting effect on their sense of trust and loyalty. As such, keeping those customers happy needs to be a top priority if businesses are to continue to succeed during tough times. 

Businesses are coming to the realization that customer experience data is the fuel in the engine that drives positive operational change within a business. This data often comes from an assortment of different places and in many different forms, but the challenge many businesses are facing is deciding which facets of the data should be acted upon. 

Businesses will often make the mistake of gathering lots of data and implementing numerous changes in an effort to try to make everyone happy all at once, and while this may work for some companies, it’s an age-old fact that being quick off the mark doesn’t mean you’ll win the race. For customer experience data to be truly useful, assessments need to be made to discover where the biggest pain points are, and which areas need to be prioritized, allowing them to implement strategies that will positively impact the company and, most importantly, the customers, long-term. 

The best way in which this can be achieved is with an omnichannel overview of the business. During the pandemic, for example, there’s been an enormous uptake of digital services and, from the customer’s point of view, expectations differ significantly between online and in-store. By having a comprehensive understanding of both the online and in-store shopping experience, businesses can gain actionable insights and implement calculated and well thought out strategies, regardless of whether the customer is looking for support online, buying online and picking up in store (BPOIS), or making an in-person purchase. 

While the whirlwind of pandemic-induced changes is unlikely to slow down any time soon, businesses must remain focused on what really matters – the customer – if they want to successfully navigate the evolving commerce landscape and weather the worst of this crisis. 

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