The crisis has accelerated the shift of customer experience (CX) from physical to digital-first, exacerbating existing CX challenges and growing the digital divide between leading organizations in CX and others.
To thrive in the Next Normal, organizations should accelerate their digital transformation efforts (DX) and become truly customer centric.
"During the crisis' peak, organizations displaying customer empathy have adapted quickly. In the next normal, most empathetic ones will stand to thrive. Therefore, organizations must remain deeply connected, understand their situations, and continue to act in ways that build trust," says Lawrence Cheok, senior research manager, Digital Commerce, Marketing and Digital Transformation at IDC Asia/Pacific.
Amid the pandemic, leading organizations have leveraged technology to stay connected, continue engagements, and adapt experiences to their customers' needs. More importantly, these organizations' responses have changed customer expectations for the next normal.
Customers have demonstrated that empathy is what they need and are looking for from organizations – empathy is not an option but a requirement.
Figure 1: Examples of Organizations Already Pivoting to Empathy at Scale
