Two ways to stay in the mindset of the customer in an automated world

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Automation makes life easy

Let’s be honest. Automation is beautiful. People with a vacuum cleaning robot or a robot mower will know what I mean. You don’t need to do anything, it’s all taken care of. It saves time. It saves money. It improves your quality of life in various ways. And to think these are just the initial stages of automation. Just wait until we all have driverless cars. I drive some 65,000 kilometers per year. That means I spend more than 35 days a year behind the steering wheel. I can’t wait to get a driverless car because this example of automation alone will give me a number of free weekends a year. Anyway, that’s my personal situation. I’m sure we can all think of situations where automation would drastically improve our lives.

Convenience is the new loyalty

As a business leader or as a manager, it is important to understand the value of automation in your industry. Think about how to improve your customers‘ quality of life through automation. Automation increases convenience. Concentrate on making your customers’ lives as easy as possible. In tomorrow’s world, convenience will be the new loyalty. Already, the supplier with the most convenient offer often gets my business. I love to book my hotels via booking.com because it is so convenient. Just look at the success of home-delivered food in a box. Hello Fresh brings fresh food with cool recipes to your doorstep. People pay a lot more than they would if they got the same recipes in a grocery store. They pay for the convenience and the automation. All you have to do is subscribe and the food is delivered at home every single day. No need to think or act anymore. Convenience is becoming the new loyalty.

Check out one of my recent episodes of the Consumer 2020 show to hear more about this opinion:

 

Two ways to stay in the mindset of the customer in an automated world

So what will happen if everything becomes automated? Amazon could send me books I didn’t order because they can deduce that I want them. Booking.com might send me details on new hotels in a region I’m planning to visit because they know me. And if an automated process is responsible for ordering and delivering my food, it will be very difficult for other companies to attract my business because I myself will hardly spend any time looking for food anymore.

It’s not hopeless, though. Here are two strategies to make sure you can still find new customers in an automated world.

1. Make it personal

Remember the key message of my latest book ‘When Digital Becomes Human’: a personal touch is invaluable in a digital world. This is based on the old economic law of scarcity. When something becomes scarce, it increases in value. The number of companies a consumer has a personal connection with is decreasing, so the value of personal service is increasing. Figure out different ways to make your company more personal. Train your staff to think like this, send personal messages to people, take the time to thank your customers… There are so many ways to give personal value to customers, but it’s something most companies don’t invest in. BE different. Invest in personal relationships. It is very valuable in this digital world.

2. Inbound marketing strategies

Many companies invest in online content. Great. They should, too. Everyone should look for a way to add value to customers through content. Problem is that most companies just throw their content out there on digital channels without baiting the hook. You can’t go fishing without baiting the line and that bait is called inbound marketing. Post content on social channels. Post it where the people are. Also, post content on your own channels. Figure out ways of capturing people’s data so you can follow up on these leads once they’ve tasted your content. Bait the hook to spark their interest so you can convert these leads into new clients. In our automated world, relevant content will become ever more crucial in attracting new clients. If you forget to bait the line, though, you will fail big time. Never go fishing without bait.