CX Today spoke to Infobip this week about what businesses must do in order to keep up with the customer of 2021. The piece, which included exclusive commentary from Noel Lavery, UK Sales Director, shared with our readers some mind-blowing stats, including IMRG Capgemini’s latest Online Retail Results reveal that UK online sales grew 74% year-on-year in January 2021, which is the largest rate of growth since the start of the first lockdown in March 2020. Lavery also issued advice to businesses in how to keep one step ahead of the CX game in order to retain the new swathe of customers.
He said: “The consumer of 2021 is more demanding than ever before, with a third of UK consumers saying that they have higher expectations of customer service following lockdown.”
This got me thinking about what makes a post-COVID consumer. Consumer behaviour is always a fascinating thing to follow, but with the volume of general life changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic – such as social distancing, face masks and the rule of six to name a few – this was always going to bleed into consumerism attitudes.
What’s interesting though is that initial changes to behaviours brought on by the pandemic, such as increased empathy, patience and understanding when live agents are delivering CX are no more. Consumer behaviours have reverted back to pre-COVID days, with demand just as high. As quickly as COVID-19 came into our lives these patterns that have emerged are gone.
Could this be down to customer repression when it comes to the pandemic? Or perhaps simply wanting life as they know it to just return back to the way it was? And another important question, is the revert back to old consumer habits proof customers could be reluctant to embrace the new normal?
The swift revert back to old habits has however, highlighted the need for businesses to not take them at face value. And it brings to light one consumer behaviour that has come out of the pandemic that could be considered permanent – customer unpredictability.
