1. Remain open to new ideas
2. Connect with your customer base
Customers always feel more valued when businesses try to build relationships with them specifically, rather than just treating them as a transaction. This is a key reason behind why we have boosted the headcount of our social team, to bring more news and updates to brokers. People also feel valued when they get quick answers to their queries online, and so we’ve increased our efforts to listen and respond to brokers in real time through live chat. Maintaining regular and relevant communication with customers can play a big part in strengthening a reliable core customer base in the longer term.
3. Evolve your online experience
4. Show you care about your staff
5. Strengthen your community ties
Intertwined with the previous point, the pandemic has elicited deeper community bonds between people in many towns and cities. This has already had an impact on business, with 59% of consumers saying they have increased their usage of local services and retailers. So, with a shift towards customers lending greater support to the economies around them, playing a relevant and proactive role at community levels should help attract an influx of regular, loyal customers. And this is just as achievable for a larger organisation as it is for a small one: the RSA Community Grant Programme is sharing £250,000 to small, local charities who have lost income due to COVID-19. The chosen recipients are nominated by our employees, to ensure the money goes to the causes they care about the most. It has also allowed them to continue supporting issues dear to them, at a time when our corporate volunteering programme has had to be suspended due to the pandemic.