Have we now reached a point of no return, with the world recovering, consumer behaviours may have changed forever?

Customers Embracing Technology

Consumers are now rapidly growing accustomed to engaging in digital technologies, they appear to be happy to shop from the comfort of their own homes, and look set to continue to develop and embrace this habit even further. Older generations who previously shunned shopping via a device have had to become more familiar with technology, they are having to track down supermarket slots, figure out online banking and ordering their beloved gardening resources. This way of interaction shows no signs of diminishing and businesses across all industries will need to look at every aspect of their digital presence in order to ensure that they are providing a highly effective experience for the customer.

Healthy Digital Trends

Higher demand for digital interfacing is emerging not only in the product sector but also in services where digital interfacing is becoming more of a commonplace. Telehealth, for example, has seen an explosion in its use as people seek health-related services such as therapy, patient care, advice and interventions via electronic information and telecommunication technologies rather than face-to-face. Companies such as Peloton have seen an unprecedented surge in demand with its interactive at-home workout bikes and streaming service growing ever popular as gyms across the globe closed. They sold 400,000 bikes in February 2020 and have seen an exponential rise in demand for its fitness equipment and monthly subscription rates have now doubled its sales to over 886,100.

Use Your Own Device  

World responses to the pandemic saw many employees begin working from home in March 2020. Having the freedom to utilise their own technology, with no work restrictions brought a whole new meaning to Bring Your Own Device. Even where workers had a business laptop, they were able to depend more heavily on their own personal devices to access work resources. Before lockdown, 87% of businesses relied on employees to use BOYD and these figures are only bound to have increased. Productivity rates already increased by 34% where employees were allowed to use their own devices so we can only wonder if this rate has grown significantly since workers have shifted to home environments with limitless access to their own hardware to stay organised and remain on task.

App’tastic

In the past apps were seen as something that much larger businesses invested in but now we are reaching a point where nearly every business will need to provide an app. Social distancing has forced the need to leverage the power of apps to provide contactless experiences for ordering, loyalty schemes and booking systems. 

Flexible Working

Working from home had already grown 159% since 2005 but with corporations now considering if they need their office spaces, our city centre landscapes are due for a massive change. Flexible working has proven to generally improve productivity, stress levels and overall wellbeing and all of this will be increased post pandemic now we've all had a taste of it enforced upon us. Property in both commercial and residential will now evolve as people and companies crave more creative use of office space, both in the home and at the corporate headquarters. And let's not forget, other benefits include less pollution, reduced costs and more time with family and friends.

So What Does This All Mean?

The global pandemic has accelerated us by roughly five years into the future in terms of how consumers make business decisions and purchases. We were already starting to see signs that online retail and mobile apps were the future, but now it's actually here, all in the space of three months! There will be short term winners and losers in all of this, but when the dust settles and people and businesses start to get back to some sort of normality, I can see the upsides will far outweigh any negatives. People will be happier, the world will be less polluted, businesses will be more efficient, and technology will be leading the way.