Break your Old Habits - 3 Digital Trends for Enhancing the Consumer Experience in 2019

We are increasingly living in the digital age, and every industry will continue to be challenged, altered, or disrupted by it. The sooner economic development and investment promotion professionals understand this, the sooner they will have the opportunity to integrate ‘digital’ into their core business strategies and help their organizations stay relevant.

In the world of economic development, individuals usually associate digital with marketing. However, there are many other areas where community and government organizations can further take advantage of the digital wave which can give you a competitive advantage.

As we move into 2019 let us consider digital trends that you can adopt to help your government or quasi-government organization improve it's customer experience. Whether your customer is a citizen, civic leader, or a company, enhancing their journey and experiences with your organization using digital tools will be extremely valuable for communication and engagement, and overall generate new leads and grow your community!

1. Customers Enjoy and Prefer More Mobile Experiences 

Quick Facts:

• Mobile-influenced offline spending is already over $1 trillion. People do heavy mobile research before indulging in offline purchasing in almost all categories. Source: Forrester

• 90% of smartphone owners use their phones while making purchasing decisions in a brick and mortar store. Source: Marketing Land
• When people search on mobile, it tends to lead to action: 92% of those who searched on their phone made a related purchase. Source: Think With Google

What does this all mean for community and government organizations? If your website or communications are not mobile friendly, you are disappointing a large segment of the population (ie. your customer base) and by extension are isolating yourself from the potential connection that could be made via a mobile search.

Furthermore, the rise of mobile usage has created a unique opportunity for organizations to create newer, more meaningful connections with their prospects. For example, you can consume a prospects professional history in seconds with LinkedIn’s latest mobile enhancements.

Utilizing a tool like LinkedIn’s QR Code can help you to quickly digest information about a connection, and the quicker you are able to establish a relationship, the longer you can spend nurturing and cultivating it into a lead.

Action Item: Make sure that you website is optimized for mobile users

2. More Content Influencing the Buying Process

Business intelligence is the new normal - We think we understand what a prospect really needs or wants, but how do we know?

85% of location decision-makers are relying on more content sources to make decisions than in the past. More content available means more inputs to the decision process. Whether it’s a white paper or an independent study published on workforce availability data, like EMSI's talent scorecard, we now have more inputs to influence how we think.

Therefore, it is crucial to provide access to important information about your community via easily accessible digital content. The clearer and more transparent you are about your assets, the easier it will be for an individual to fully understand your value proposition.

Even more valuable are the analytical properties that can underlie digital data. By tracking what information is getting viewed, through means such as inquiry forms, downloadable content, or website monitoring, you can see what prospects are truly interested in, and tailor your conversations to those key areas.

Action Item: Create a content calendar to prioritize and plan out releases throughout the year

3.  Apps and SAAS Continue to Kick A**

There is more to life than email - The proliferation and integration of apps and software services improve communication and government performance.

Emails can move at a snail's pace. If you've ever sent out an email and had to wait hours, or even days for a response, then you know how much this can hinder progress. Luckily, there are faster and more efficient communication channels that you can learn to take advantage of!

Chat bots allow prospects to contact you in real time. According to a study in Harvard Business Review, "companies that try to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving queries are nearly 7 times as likely to have meaningful conversations with key decision makers as firms that try to contact prospects even an hour later". If your organization is using email to respond to inquiries, it is likely that you are not responding in a timely enough manner. Instead of sending a message to a generalized contact email, which can easily go unnoticed, using a chat bot sends these inquiries straight to a live individual who can respond instantaneously. This quickened response time can be very helpful for contacts and makes them feel valued, which elevates the reputation of your organization. Furthermore, the faster a prospects get relevant information, the faster they can make an educated business decision.

The use of messaging apps, like WhatApp also continue to be on the rise. These messaging tools functions very similarly to text, allowing group messages and pop-up notifications.

Statistica estimates that the number  of  users  on  messaging apps 
was approximately  2  billion in  2018.

This method is great for quick messages or updates to clients that don’t require the formality or depth of an email, allowing the progress of a project to flow smoothly without delay hiccups. Far too often projects take longer than they need to due to miscommunication; causing strife for clients and making your company look bad. Given the rate at which individuals are on their mobile phones (see above), getting a notification on an app would be easily checked and responded to, even when contacts may be out of the office or away from email.

Action Item: Take advantage of more communication channels

The new year is all about making resolutions. If your organization is resolved to improve the way that they interact with customers, then implementing these action items is a great starting point! If you would like to know more about how government can leverage digital solutions to transform in 2019, please feel free to send me a direct message on LinkedIn, or view a recent webinar that I gave on Investment Promotion Online!

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