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| © Patrick Foto | Getty Images |
By Eran Halevy, Entrepreneur
Consumers want valuable solutions to their problems fast. With the help of technology, digital transformation enables businesses to improve customer experience and get customers what they want conveniently. It’s always made sense, but the adoption of digital transformation has still been slow.
Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the need of digital transformation has never been this urgent. Businesses that fail to transform will likely be left behind and risk losing their place in the market.
How businesses are embracing digital transformation
Innovation is happening at unprecedented rates. While restaurants partner with tech companies to increase their mobile ordering capabilities, gyms and fitness companies make use of the media to reach out to their customers with their physical locations closed.
Let's take a look at some of these examples:
- Papa John’s offers Facebook Instant Ordering to allow customers to place orders easily.
- Walgreens has partnered with Postmates to deliver grocery items and personal care products.
- Orange Theory, Planet Fitness, and 24 Hour Fitness live-stream exercise classes and release home workout plans.
- Under Armour has hosted a 30-day Healthy at Home fitness challenge to encourage customers to stay active.
How can you embrace digital transformation successfully? Consider these concepts:
1. Switch your mindset from being product-focused to being customer-focused
When it comes to embracing digital transformation, customer experience is very important. Instead of focusing on the features of your products, put more emphasis on catering to the wants and needs of your target customers.
If you understand clearly the problems of your customers and offer them a customized experience that can solve their problems, they will become your loyal customers. Take the restaurant examples, instead of promoting their food and menus harder, they make the change to offer delivery service to customers who have to always stay at home by partnering with tech companies.
2. Scale-up creating innovative digital experiences
Consumers now expect shops and businesses to produce a lot more digital content that is personalized, fast and cheap (or even free). Therefore, entrepreneurs need to adapt to this trend and scale-up digital design, collaboration and content production rapidly to keep their customers engaged.
For example, the global furniture dealer Insidesource launched a digital magazine and started an online competition called Quarantine Studios to engage with its audience amid COVID-19. The campaign invites participants to create furniture made of unconventional materials found at home. The winner will have their furniture professionally reproduced by Corral.
3. Craft the customer journey without having to depend on technical teams
I know what you’re wondering, is it really possible to craft a customized customer journey without having a technical team?
The answer is yes. There are plenty of new technologies that entrepreneurs can leverage to do so.
You can find code-free platforms easily. For example Squarespace and Canva for content and website design; WordPress and Wix for hosting; Hotjar and Google Analytics for analytics visualization.
Code-free technologies are designed for entrepreneurs who may not have any technical or design background to create digital experience efficiently without having to recruit an extra team.
4. Enable remote workforces and automation
With the help of technology, employees no longer need to work in a specific place all the time; some jobs can even be taken over by robots. For example in retail, in-store robots are used to handle transactional tasks like checking inventory in store aisles and fulfilling remote order.
To enable remote workforces, consider using project management tools and uou can always stay connected with your team with virtual conference platforms.
5. Now is the time for digital transformation
COVID-19 is basically a wake-up call for entrepreneurs to embrace digital transformation. It may not be easy to change the way you’ve been running your business for so long, but know that the beginning is always the hardest. With all the tools and examples listed in this article, hopefully, you can adapt to the transformation successfully and keep your business striving!
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