3 Plans to Make for Your Post-Pandemic Workplace

Mobile technology has become vital in enabling businesses to continue to operate successfully in the post-pandemic world. In our latest report, A Defining Year: The State of Mobility 2021, we learned that a mobile-first strategy is essential for businesses to stay afloat. Learn how you can position your organization at the forefront of the post-pandemic mobile revolution with these three key strategies.  

1. Enhance Your Customer Service 

Customer service has always been a vital part of any business. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, organizations around the globe had to pivot and adapt the way they interacted with their consumers and customers. Whether that was dawning face masks or providing a digital alternative to communicating with customers, every business changed in some way. 

When you think of customer service, you can envision the service desk at a big box store, or a 1-800 number to chat with an agent on the other end of the line. But with the ever expanding digital marketplace, customer service has gone digital too. Research has found that 54% of customers have higher expectations for customer service today compared to one year ago. 

Consumers are buying everything online, from clothes and books to real estate and investments. And if anything goes wrong along this digital buying journey, customer service needs to be readily available. Quick access to an agent on chat with quick responses, or ease of returns with shipping labels already included in a package, should be a part of your business plan for the post-pandemic workplace. If businesses fail to do this, customers will simply go elsewhere.  

Customer expectations matter. According to Deloitte, customers are likely to spend 140% more after a positive experience. The need for customer service has shifted to digital, with chats and emails, and consumers expect an immediate response. Enterprises can utilize technology to facilitate this increase in digital customer service and manage these conversations.  

2. Proactively Identify Problems Before They Arise

When technology is a major part of how a business operates, IT and C-Suite executives need to plan for problems before they occur. Fixing a problem after it’s begun can cause delays and, on occasion, create additional issues. In our report, 67% of respondents agreed their business needs better tools to diagnose issues before they become a problem.  

Enterprises should have a plan or solutions in place to be made aware of issues before they arise. For example, being notified when a printer is low on labels before it runs out can save valuable time in a busy distribution center. Getting a low battery warning on a scanner, or an alert when a freezer is dropping below a certain degree are also necessary in preventing potentially catastrophic and costly issues. To ensure maximum uptime and productivity, as well as the best user experience, enterprises need to be able to see data on functionality such as battery usage, app usage, network coverage and more, and in real-time. 

If COVID-19 taught businesses anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. No one expected the world to shut down overnight, but it did. So, what can a business do to be prepared for another pandemic? Plan ahead.  

In our report, we found that 68% of enterprise leaders agree they need better business intelligence to help navigate future unforeseen issues. Now that we are well into the pandemic, every organization has learned from their own experiences on what they would do again, and what they would never do again. Forward thinking businesses will learn from this pandemic and put a plan in place should this, or anything like it, happen again.  

3. Go Digital and Protect Your Data 

The pandemic, lockdown and subsequent changes in consumer behavior have accelerated the digital transformation of businesses by up to six years. Businesses need to prepare for a more digital marketplace. Mobile technology is more critical now in the emerging post-pandemic era than it has ever been. 

While integrating more technology into your business, security needs to be a priority as well. In our report, we found that 67% of respondents agreed their organization needed better security and user authentication across all mobile devices.  

A  corporate mobility policy  will establish guidelines around the use of mobile devices and apps within your company. It will answer important questions such as, who within the company should get what type of mobile device (laptop, tablet or smartphone)? What apps do workers need or are allowed to install on their own? Who gets access to what documents and files and from where can they access them? The best corporate mobility policy is simply to have one. Once something is in place, it is easy to grow it and change it as your company evolves, and having mobile device management software in place can help businesses manage this process. 

Is your organization ready for the next disruption? Create a plan to help your business survive and thrive in the post-pandemic future. Be a decision-maker who, if agile enough, can make the changes needed and integrate the right tools to lead your company through this mobile revolution.