Based on a recent study, 33 percent of business leaders believe they didn’t do enough in terms of communicating with their clients during the coronavirus pandemic. They argue that this resulted in damage to customer trust as well as their brand.
This is according to the research conducted and published by Pegasystems, which pointed out that a third (33 percent) of business leaders damaged their brand reputation and also lost customers as a result of poor communication practices.
What the pandemic exposed in business operations
According to the report, the importance of having a streamlined communication between the businesses and their customers was emphasised. For instance, the report found that almost a similar proportion (33%) of business leaders said that a single mishandled communication had damaged their brand reputation. However, 50% of business leaders believed there was something they could have done to help their clients during the pandemic.
The study also reveals that 75 percent said that the pandemic revealed more gaps in their enterprise systems and operations than expected.
Embracing digital transformation is the way to go to get back on track
According to the report, the best possible way to enhance brand reputation, mitigate the damage and, certainly, sustain operations in a post-COVID-19 environment is to direct attention towards digital transformation.
More than two thirds(66%) said the digital transformation would be their priority, with 58% speeding up the ongoing projects and 56% allocating more budget in digital transformation-related initiatives.
Regardless of the type of transformation, the businesses want to pursue, most of them are interested in embracing customer relationship management solutions, cloud-based systems and Al-driven analytics and decision making.
During the presentation of the report, Don Schuerman, the CTO and Vice President of Product Marketing at Pegasystems, said that digital transformation should no longer be viewed as necessary but as essential in today’s business.
He said that understanding customers and placing them at the centre of their business operations is the key to remaining future proof to the crisis.
Unfortunately, many business leaders had to learn this through the hardest way possible!