With the last few years seeing businesses going through a rollercoaster of a journey, a lot completely depended on the customer just for survival. So how has the customers wants changed due to COVID and the lockdowns?

Well now customers are looking for speed, personalisation, and good packaging – that aligns with sustainability. Sustainability is arguably at the forefront of what customers are looking for, or what they say they are looking for and it is now more important than ever to work on that attention to detail.

The last couple of years has been make or break for a lot of businesses and customers were key in the making of most. Customer loyalty was brought to the forefront, as businesses had to adapt to suit their customers needs and how their needs changed. One example was certain businesses applying a payment holiday for customers, which really did pay off as people could see the loyalty back and knew these businesses had their backs.

COVID for businesses was about looking after relationships, but also building new ones which really did develop over this time and arguably needed more looking after. Essentially all customer relationships need nurturing and that is one way to keep your business ticking over in the early days.

Arguably, there hasn’t been an awful lot of change, just things have sped up. We have as a society and economy become more digital, and this has resulted in consumers wanting service at a faster pace, but we were always on a path to becoming digital regardless.

For consumers there has been a major pivot to digital in terms of the way we work and buy. It is however unclear yet if this is going to be a long-term change to the way we live, and with it being so uncertain there is still a lot up in the air. 

For a lot of businesses, you have got to build a relationship with your customers and sustainability will play a huge part in this. To build on relationships it is about a communication channel, and not just connecting them to you, but connecting them to each other.

Unfortunately, it is not all plain sailing. It is important to remember that and take the rough with the smooth. Sometimes think about customer loyalty, what are the characteristics you look for in loyalty? Most will think trustworthy and honestly – providing what you say you will. And if the customer is calling you out for not doing these things, maybe this is a good thing, as maybe you should be doing better.

It is on the business entrepreneur to realise they are always going to have to improve in some way. Improvement is a given – it comes with the job.

Being authentic with your honesty is also important, for example being open and transparent – explain your decisions and telling the truth as to why these changes or price rises are happening, they will appreciate this and be far more likely to stick around.

Everyone knows it is easier to keep a customer, than to find a new one!