Will a lot happen over coffee ... in the new normal

One wonders what will happen to the delight of falling in lust over a coffee, beer or a meal? In this social distancing world, that is. Will that date at the cafe even last as long as it might today or be all tech driven and touch free? Higher consumption of bandwidth, and gradually higher valuation for startups like Thatspersonal, IMBesharam, Lovetreats, and Kinkpin? Wait, wait, stop that runaway train of your thoughts.

This article is about changing human behaviour, social, consumer or otherwise, in the new world. Clearly normalcy, as we knew it, is far away. What we have today might become the normal. In my previous article around the same subject, I had suggested a few ways to keep customers engaged. Today, let us consider what could go behind that engagement.

All forms of physical consumer interactions now take significantly more time to complete than earlier. "Beam me up, Scotty" is distant, even the thought of necessary air travel is troublesome. It will take longer to enter and purchase at a store for instance, and human beings will naturally prefer to transact increasingly more online.

...used to visit Wal-Mart super centers at 2am to see store-wide replenishment in action. Might not be a great thing to do anymore.

In locations coming out of lockdowns change in behaviour is already perceptible. People enter cafes, stores or other transactions and get out as quickly as possible. Lingering, browsing and ambling through aisles is not preferred and that impacts many businesses. Banks might like quick transactions, but restaurants and cafes won't. Apparel stores won't. Stores selling high value items want you to linger, but can't. The whole experience becomes restrained and unidirectional.

So, yes, deep flirting or start of seduction over a cup of coffee at a Cafe will become a challenge

Now, if physical human interactions have to be reduced, businesses must figure how to enable quicker, and hygienic touch free transactions. This implies a few specific things:

Required Changes to keep the customer engaged

Understanding and predicting consumer behaviour. This isn't really in the realm of behavioral economics:

• Not just by extreme use of analytics, but also by experimenting on interactions; enable self service but assist while re-configuring interaction and congregation spaces
• Training interface staff to be more patient and empathetic
• Keeping the human element alive and not shutting out interfaces
• Providing as much of an interactive (or even augmented reality) experience online as possible

Tightening up (or even creating) the last mile delivery chain with:

• Better trained, and efficient delivery personnel who are more empathetic to a customer and her needs
• Systems which track progress meticulously on the delivery chain, and integrate back ends faultlessly.
• Effective and empathetic customer service, with better trained associates who have seen how line functions operate

Tightening up supply chains, drastically and that needs:

• Overall better processes in store operations and warehousing, supported by better trained staff
• Much better trackability, and almost real-time configurability
• Removal of all process Vs IT blindspots

Common Factors

You will notice, there is some commonality across, namely

• The human element and empathy: This will not grow on its own among employees. Training and coaching are required, customer service associates need to see operations to understand what actually happens. Separate of course, is how do we treat the employees themselves, but that is an important topic for another day.
• Technology and Innovation : If you still haven't started figuring your Digital and Innovation strategies, you better. Post haste.
• Better and tighter processes, supported by measurement: Revisit your processes, realign then, start measuring them. If you can't, please get someone to get you off the block.

Of course, you can choose to do nothing, you can choose to say your company is already digital. My opinion, always debatable, is that this needs change of mentality and attitude, and investment from the companies. And true stewardship from the CEO.

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Suhas is co-founder, Partner at 3nayan, a niche Strategy Consulting firm which helps Growth Enablement and Organizational Effectiveness through services in Strategy Re-Energization, Process Engineering, Integrated Process Automation and Digital Transformation.

#customercentricity #customerengagement #analytics #singleversionoftruth #truth #transparency #empathy #blackswan #covid-19 #engagement #kpi #leadership