Five Things That Won’t Change Post-Pandemic, No Matter What

As vaccines become more widely distributed and we start to see a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s hard not to wonder what the future of work, business, and life will look like in our “new normal.”

But if this experience has taught us anything, it’s that things are simply unpredictable, and the only thing we can expect is the unexpected. Through it all, however, I have noticed five underlying themes that business leaders can hang their hats on as we navigate our new normal. 

Empathy is everything. The COVID-19 crisis, unlike any other event most of us have experienced in our lifetime, has amplified the need for businesses to lead with empathy in everything they do, from interactions with customers to employee culture.

Companies have been throwing around the e-word for a few years now, especially when it comes to customer experience. That makes sense, since the digital age has given consumers unprecedented choices and power and they naturally gravitate and stay loyal to businesses that seem to care about them.

But COVID-19 also made the need for empathy really real–the determining factor in whether a company is perceived as customer-centric, an outstanding employer, and a good corporate citizen. I don’t foresee many companies being foolish enough to turn off empathy after the pandemic has subsided, so I think this trend is here to stay.

C-Suite executives are increasingly being held accountable. Empathy is no longer just a nice quality for business leaders to have; consumers and business have high expectations that it’s in their DNA. The CEO must now also act as a Chief Empathy Officer, able to see the world from a deeply human perspective and drive that mindset throughout the organization. Other C-suite executives are being held to the same high standard.

Empathy might seem like a fluffy buzzword in a business sense, but it has become the defining characteristic of company leadership, now and for years to come.

Digital acceleration is the new digital transformation. The pandemic has, if you will, transformed digital transformation. Once business jargon, digital transformation has become a business imperative that must be executed at warp speed.

“In just a few months’ time, the COVID-19 crisis has brought about years of change in the way companies in all sectors and regions do business,” a McKinsey report said. “Companies have accelerated the digitization of their customer and supply-chain interactions and of their internal operations by three to four years.”

Digitization will continue shifting into overdrive in 2021. To stay competitive, organizations must have an expansive digital presence delivering a strong customer experience. Digitize quickly and well or die 

Customers’ expectations keep rising. COVID-19’s impact on consumer habits has been profound. Take Black Friday, when traffic at brick-and-mortar stores dropped more than 50 percent compared with last year and online spending rose nearly 22 percent to hit a new record 

By hastening the digitization of the consumer experience that was already well underway, COVID-19 has made it a prerequisite for every business to deliver a delightful experience that demonstrates a complete understanding of the customer’s needs and wants.

How well organizations can adapt to this new reality will define market winners and losers for the foreseeable future.

Thick data’s importance grows. 2020 marked the 15th anniversary of when Roger Mougalas from O'Reilly Media, Inc. first coined the term big data. Companies have been obsessed with big data in recent years as they comb through ever-larger stores of data to understand patterns and trends.

However, big data has a big hole–it lacks emotional intelligence that provides the “why” context. That’s why thick data–non-numerical, qualitative knowledge of customers’ emotions, goals, and behavior–has become so essential in gaining insight into the many nuances around customer experience.

As COVID-19 upped the ante for clicking with customers on an emotional level, more businesses are realizing they need to combine big and thick data to truly know and empathize with them.

So there you have it: five trends that are certain to influence technology and business in 2021 and beyond…no matter how uncertain the times are.

Andy MacMillan is CEO of UserTesting, an on-demand human insights platform.