Digital technology and innovation are continuing to transform the way companies sell their product and consumer habits. The most disruptive change in the product market is consumer’s change in expectations on the timing and speed of getting the product or service they need. A couple of years ago, the average time of delivery was several days, while today it is as short as 30 mins for some product categories. Digitalization has created a new kind of buyer: constantly connected, aware of technology and app-native. This has shaped the way companies interact with their customers:
Social selling has replaced the cold calling in sales teams, and especially for B2Bs. The highest ever population of social media means companies have to switch to this channel for their product promotion. Customers do not contact the brands anymore: a relationship has to be built, which should be the company’s initiative. Reach out and educate the audience by sharing the content relevant to consumers, which is solving their problems.
Proactiveness is the main aspect of the new, digital-first, customer service. Customers no longer connect directly, but through the use of a range of channels to find solutions. Reviews are growing, becoming the digital version of word-of-mouth brand awareness. Social media is now a part of the customer service world.
To succeed in the new digital era of product market, there are things to consider:
Flexibility in IT
Implementing agile IT systems into business has been recognized as the most important need by 86% of businesses. For digital transformation, cloud technology is critical. It enables businesses to be fast and flexible, meeting customer demands quicker.
Personalization
The rise in more awareness of different products and services, as well as such demographic changes as growing individualistic culture, amount of single-person households, decrease in the income gap and the trend of ‘shopping around’ has made buyers not care about the price range as much: people now access both lower-cost and luxury brands all in one go. For digital transformation in the retail and product market, this means that in order to attract and retain the consumer, a more personal approach has to be implemented. 75% of customers admitted being more likely to buy the product from a company that recognizes them by name, knows their purchase history and recommends products based on their liking. Despite a lot of privacy fuss in the last years, customers actually are happy to provide some of their data to organizations in order to receive a more personalized experience.
Omni-channel
Digital transformation taught consumers that they can get anything they want, whenever they want, however they want it. Today, consumers do not use only one channel in order to learn about products. Often, they combine all of them: offline, web and mobile. Digital disruption of different channel approaches has become in switching from multi-channel to omni-channel approach. The big difference is, unlike the multi-channel approach, where consumers received adjusted messages based on the channel they used, omni-channel approach connects all channels together, tackling consumer’s painpoints not only throughout their customer journey, but way before that, and after.
