- Demonstrate empathy
The strain of pandemic life has served as a lesson in empathy and social awareness for both businesses and individuals. Many of us started examining our consumer communications more closely as a result of increased economic pressure and a hypersensitive audience. Throughout the pandemic, we questioned whether or not each fresh email, ad campaign, blog post, tweet, and push message would come across as callous or unauthentic. Is this the appropriate message at this time? Does this truly represent the ideals of our company? Should we make a statement about…?
Of course, providing an answer to these queries is not simple. However, developing the habit of assessing brand communication through the eyes and experiences of your audience is a great ability that will be important to have in a post-pandemic world. Trust and influence are two intangible qualities that enable successful businesses outperform their rivals, and empathy is their cornerstone.
2.The importance of timing
In 2021, while you refine your communication tactics, keep in mind that gestures, experiences, and verbal communication all contribute to the expression—or absence—of empathy. When it comes to how an idea is seen and what kind of emotional response it elicits, seemingly insignificant aspects like message timing and customization can make a significant difference.
It has never been more obvious how bad timing can affect (otherwise) sound messaging than during a pandemic. KFC decided against using the “finger-lickin’ good” UK campaign slogan during a COVID increase due to timing issues. Additionally, it’s the reason Geico opted not to air their “Perfect High Five” advertisement in March, which showed coworkers high-fiving in, get this, a real office.
A message can be obscured by bad time, while its importance can be amplified by good timing. Real-time SMS order updates and delivery alerts have been crucial to gaining the trust and loyalty of customers as food and grocery delivery apps experience record downloads during the pandemic. Delivery applications support a frictionless exchange, offer a smooth cross-channel consumer experience, and show regard for health and safety concerns with a choice of straightforward, well-timed messaging.
Additionally, keeping context and timing in mind will enable you to modify your message approach in response to unusual events. Recall the ineffective KFC advertisement we described earlier? Instead of conceding defeat, KFC took advantage of the situation by turning the blunder into a cheekier, more genuine, and COVID-aware spinoff.
- Transparency Overcomes Perfectionism
A stay-at-home directive has been issued to over 95% of Americans at some point throughout the pandemic. With that information in mind, it is simple to understand why online retail orders increased by an astounding 146 percent in the second half of 2020. Although increasing sales were a plus for many retailers, the unexpected flood of orders placed during a socially isolating holiday season added significant stress to supply chains, overburdened fulfilment facilities, and resulted in enormous package jams.
Companies had to decide whether to be upfront about delays at checkout or to apologise after the fact as they battled to meet delivery deadlines and protect its employees. Smart businesses opted for option one: they offered an apology, clarified the cause of the delay, realigned expectations, and requested patience in return.
While psychology studies have shown that transparency is actually an asset, many fledgling businesses tend to view it as a calculated risk. It pays to under-promise and over-deliver when reporting a delivery delay, asking someone to wait on hold for a customer care agent, or setting expectations for a product release. The “cost” of under-delivering on expectations (i.e., when the real wait time turns out to be longer than the advertised wait time) is actually seven times greater than the incentive for over-delivering, according to a study of customer service centres and ride-sharing applications. In other words, especially in an environment of fear and uncertainty, optimistic projections can have disastrous results. Although keeping your cards close to your chest may somewhat lower cart abandonment rates, a bad customer experience and declining lifetime value are sure to outweigh this modest benefit.