POV on how sales & marketing helped customers and adapted to changing paradigms.

During a large scale crisis such as the COVID-19, companies that lead with empathy and genuinely customer concerns are able to build long-lasting relationships.

The COVID-19 global humanitarian and economic crisis has forced individuals and companies to rapidly change how they live and work. Many aspects of business and life are being challenged and disrupted; in some cases, the next normal may look very different as new ways of working are carried over into the future.

Companies are doing their best to manage through this pandemic—from ensuring an effective crisis response, to managing supply-chain disruptions and ensuring the well-being of their employees by bringing telecommunications policies.

“Prior to COVID-19, only 27% of Companies had a dedicated telecommunication policy for their employees”

In this context, Customer Experience takes on a new meaning altogether, since the need of the customer has shifted towards fulfilling more immediate concerns.

Leading organizations are re-orienting their customer-experience efforts to meet their customers’ primary needs, such as safety, security, and everyday conveniences. By Consciously providing an empathetic and caring experience during this crisis, organizations such as ours can build a foundation of goodwill and long-lasting emotional connections with the communities they serve.

These actions will inevitably speak louder than words and convey a message that “we are here for you.”

Even though the economic disruption caused by the Pandemic is unrivaled in its scope, this is not the first time that organizations and in particular customer-facing professionals have to ride through the significant contraction of the local and global economy.

Like all other times before, this too shall pass. If you are wondering, how does this not affect Sales and Business, and it does affect Sales. However, it also depends on the team’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

“A recent McKinsey survey of US consumers found that 64 percent of respondents have felt depressed, anxious, or both over the past several weeks, and 39 percent stated that they would be unable to pay their bills after one month of unemployment.”

In today’s day and age, we as customer-facing manager tend to tune in on the current circumstances. We have been hearing “Now is not the time for this deal” quite a lot.

However, most organizations are not thinking about the Pandemic itself but the consequences. Here is what we have learnt about how our prospects and clients have been feeling about business impact of COVID 19 and how we are approaching this.

Tune into Customer’s Concern

Most of the customers are worried about slow growth and the consequences of this slack. Now’s the time to keep our ear to the ground and listen to our target markets. We are actively reaching out to our customers, prospects, and partners, and asking them how we can help.

This connect with customers gave us a unique insight into customer behavior and helped us quickly adapt our sales strategy. In the end, we conveyed to the customers and prospects alike, that we are here as their long-term partners to improve the overall experience and add value.

Adjust and adapt with changing Content & Messaging

With changing circumstances, our messaging and content delivery has also changed. Earlier where our messaging actively reflected our ability in Digital Transformation across various platforms.

Now, the focus is more on helping organizations tide through the current times. Of course, we are still actively selling our services & solutions but moreso by listening to customer concerns and market needs acutely with focus on remote collaboration and digital workspace to help customers acknowledge and accept the problems that they are facing and give them a solution.

Quickfire Innovation

Showing Empathy and consideration, understanding customer needs, these are one part of the game. But is it enough? No. What comes next requires agility and the ability to adapt to change.

As an organization, we needed to quickly re-evaluate and reposition our solutions to address the growing concerns, and to do that we came up with a new offering to enable business continuity and remote operations. With a BCP consultancy and realigning our offerings, we are now in a position to enable our customers to effortlessly and seamlessly handle remote operations and also prepare for future disruption.

Not just Customer Experience but employee experience

Deals don’t close by themselves. Motivated employees always add value.  With weekly newsletters, interactive engagements and regular connects with stakeholders and HRs.

We are keeping employees engaged and in-tune with what is happening at KNOWARTH. The result is an improved output. Happy Employees. Happy Customers. 

Empathy. Goodwill and long-term planning

The crisis won’t last forever. Worst case scenario puts the end of COVID-19 12 at 12 to 18 months, that’s still a long time away. How we engage and connect with our customers in the coming months will have a massive impact on business. Acting and engaging with empathy and goodwill will play a huge role in building your customer base for the next quarter or maybe the following year. That’s why maintaining integrity in this pandemic is so crucial. Because after it’s over, potential customers, employees, and partners will be asking us about 

What did we do? 

How did we help?

How did we contribute?

At the end of it all, both sales and marketing team have been able to give a much-needed refresher to the messaging but also tried to build confidence in our customers and prospects.

Chintan Shah, Signing Off.