“In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.” Albert Einstein
The Harvard Business Review team suggests there are some specific behavioral changes that will change the way businesses think about consumer products and services. All three of them are opportunities for many Brands. How do you support a growth in single person households, our desire to depart from dense living to less expensive and more spacious neighborhoods, and a new work environment that needs to integrate with all things “home”. Covid-19 has disrupted the status quo. Where is there opportunity to support these new consumer behaviors and preferences?
According to a recent McKinsey post, digitization of everything was moving at a brisk pace prior to the Pandemic. The current need to virtualize so much of how we work, live and learn has simply sped up the digitization trajectory.
Your website is often the first point of entry for a consumer into your brand’s ecosystem. How does your website deliver in a world where distancing and virtualization have already changed consumer behaviors?
All of this starts with an experience on your website and conversion events that lead to a sale. Business professionals know this, of course. But Covid-19 has disrupted the status quo. How does that change the way your website needs to engage consumers or businesses you serve? Here are five ways McKinsey suggests that you can improve a buyers’ digital experience given the changes we are already experiencing.
Improve the self-service options you already have. For example, on websites, ensure buyers can readily find information, compare options, make purchases, and receive service without live support from sales reps for less complex needs.
Rapidly fix what’s broken on websites and mobile apps. Watch for technical issues in real time and resolve them as they appear. Such no-regrets moves could deliver incremental revenue and improve the digital experience in ways that promote increased loyalty.
Keep the human touch for complex interactions. Have your sales reps on call to support buyers by phone, videoconference, or webchat, whenever they need it; a 24/7 or 24/5 live presence can be especially meaningful when remote interactions are the only options.
Think like a consumer. Ensure any e-commerce channel provides a B2C-like experience for every product or service, whether a new purchase or a repeat order. Link e-commerce sales goals to your overall sales targets and incentives systems. Be willing and able to double-count credit when customers interact both digitally and with sales reps.
Measure your progress. Are you a primary or secondary supplier? What is your churn rate, loyalty score, rate of customer satisfaction? Does your performance vary between digital and in-person interactions?
Please get in touch if you’d like to let us provide a Website Wellness Assessment. It’s complimentary for two months so we can provide our clients with an extra set of hands and possibly a fresh perspective. It’s a good time to rethink the ways in which your website helps connect and convert to generate revenues and growth going forward.
The team at Emotive Brand in Oakland, California does some of the best writing I’ve seen about why brands need to be based on emotion and the importance of empathy and compassion, always, but especially right now. They make it simple and clear. If you need some inspiration, this quick read will give you a reset and position you for rich conversations with team members and customers throughout your day. The time for emotion and meaning is now.
For more content about Working From Home in the time of Covid-19, visit our Brand Central Home Base content corner and see what’s up across 5 categories of interest.
To our Valued Client Family, our LinkedIn Network and Prospective Clients getting to know us:
We are living and working in unprecedented times. We want you to know that we are here for you, right now and always. Many of you know that Brand Central Solutions has a dedicated team of distributed professionals across the United States and Globally. Our Sourcing Manager works remotely in the Bay Area. Our HQ is located in San Diego. Our Production Coordinator works remotely from the greater Boston Area and our Ops and Finance team is in Boston, now all working remotely in unison. We have designers in Utah and India and a wonderful partner team on the ground in China. We will continue to take steps to ensure the safety of our team members, families and communities.
Business as usual is not the priority but continuing to deliver excellent service to our clients remains a number one priority. Our organization is set up to stay connected and to finish projects we have in-house and implement projects that may be used to support your WFH teams, Onsite Teams, Brand Messaging during Covid-19 or Corporate support of vulnerable populations in your local Communities. Our elite group of dedicated supply chain partners are set up for remote support of factory workers who at this time have adapted to distancing guidelines, along with stringent health and safety rules.
Our website homepage features a new content resource called Home Base, to be of extra support to you at this time. In it you will find useful resource content and hacks for organizing work from home office spaces, managing kids, wellness tips plus a few or our favorite work playlists and tasty recipes that help you grab a fast lunch and refuel for your afternoon Zoom conferences. We want to be relevant to you right now.
If you want to connect and talk/email about your new work situation, share a story or brainstorm a way to use your brand capital to support the communities you live/work in, we are here for you. We are all available during regular business hours and welcome your contact.
I know we will get through this time and prosper together as a community.
Stories have the power to calm us, to entertain us and to take us on journeys for hours at a time. Reading may just be the key to getting some time to focus on your work while you are home with kids. Common Sense Media is a wealth of information about all things kids media, including age appropriate reading. This must-have resource link provides an interactive age selector and book titles with reviews for the age you have selected.
When kids are little it seems like we read the same books over and over again for hours and then magically one day that changes. I’ll never forget the day our then 5 year old walked through the kitchen nose-to-book lost in a Magic Tree House story.
Think about scheduled independent reading time daily, so you can plan important calls or a project that requires more focus during that time. Reading time together before bed or curled up under a blanket on the sofa is still blissfully happy for kids and important. The independent reading time you schedule during the day is a Work-From-Home hack that is very rewarding for kids who are reading and huge help for you.
Full disclosure, I am in a dual career couple marriage and my business partner happens to also be my life partner and husband. We have been at this for 20+ years. We don’t typically lead with that fact because we want our clients to know our brand and culture, not our marital status. Our corporation is more than competent to bring solutions to Fortune 1000 companies who depend on us to manage their brand compliance. What does it matter that we fell into working as business partners and we happen to be married? It doesn’t.
It’s not easy. Most of my friends say they could never do it. Trust me, if you are a dual professional couple right now, managing work and family life under one roof, you can do this temporarily. The fact that you don’t own a business together, removes a ton of complexity. Reading this may even give you a sigh of relief that you do not actually have to “work with” your spouse! Harvard Business Review has published this article (FREE Content) which unpacks the current challenges and gives you some tips for taking action daily as a Dual Professional couple in the time of Covid-19. We sincerely hope this provides some relief from the normal tensions around balancing the priorities of two professions under one roof.
I have been working remotely on and off for many years. It so happens that I am in an office currently but have been working at home again during this health crisis. I have gone back to a few bad habits which included skipping lunch. This is a surprisingly common habit among remote workers. For that reason we are sharing simple lunch ideas to refuel for that afternoon Zoom Conference meeting. Our ideas are brought to you by the largest social media food platform on the planet – Buzzfeed’s Tasty Brand.
Beloved by digital natives and Millennials, Tasty provides fast and engaging video recipes that are typically delivered in about one minute with a written recipe posted beside the video. It’s entertaining as well as a pragmatic way to ensure you are refueling for the afternoon ahead.
If you are professional parents working from home for the first time, you are in good hands with this guide from the Harvard Business Review Press. I have found their content to be clear, concise and digestible. They are well researched and understand they are talking to consumers of content who need and want knowledge that can be used. We have a Biology major at home involved in the experiment of online University. But we remember what it would be like if we had to take on home schooling in addition to our jobs. For those of you who have smaller children, this is a really good guide.
Here’s a question I posed to my friend the other day:
Would you read a letter from China differently today than you would have 3 weeks ago? I would! That’s why I’m posting this very down to earth letter from the Director or Microsoft China after their outbreak. She talks candidly about what she learned from remote work and most-interestingly, what she learned from her customers. Her letter was published on March 2, 2020. I am grateful to Lily for sharing her perspective. We think it’s a golden nugget of insight that got lost in the plethora of LinkedIn feed articles. We are all in this together.
In the best of times, it’s hard to turn off distractions and focus while working remotely. It’s even harder now as we navigate daily information briefings, our kids schedules, work that is evolving and less than ideal new work spaces at home. Covid-19 has created the ultimate work distraction and it’s real.This is one of the best checklists we’ve seen. I have worked remotely on and off for many years these are all actionable ideas that can help you focus on work and compartmentalize the constant stream of Covid-19 information.
Recent Comments