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Business owners may be weary of navigating the myriad of challenges related to COVID-19 of late as the Delta variant has in many ways taken us two steps back in our fight. With that said, we know the uncertainty related to the pandemic may linger for months, or even years to varying degrees. However, some businesses have returned to the workplace, perhaps only temporarily, while others remain in a remote or hybrid work environment as we wait to see what the upcoming weeks and months bring.
Wherever your business may be on its path to a new sense of normalcy during which COVID remains a part of our lives to some degree, it’s critical to understand how to best serve your customers and keep your employees safe, while remaining nimble for the future and continuing to provide high levels of service. Let’s face it, ‘business as usual’ is everyone’s goal, but achieving it may have many different meanings.
Wherever your business may be on its path to a new sense of normalcy during which COVID remains a part of our lives to some degree, it’s critical to understand how to best serve your customers and keep your employees safe, while remaining nimble for the future and continuing to provide high levels of service.
Many of us experience Zoom fatigue from time to time but connecting with each other virtually brought a new level of interaction and a more human element to business transactions with our customers. Letting others into our homes brought down formal professional barriers. We all got used to “sorry about the mess,” “the dog,” “my baby crying” in a way that brought us together because we shared these challenges and faced them collectively. It also forced us to see one another in a new light, simply as human beings. For our customers and clients, it meant we were no longer just their banker or business associate. Because our interactions became more personal new bonds and stronger relationships were formed, connections that underpin successful client relations. As you begin to, or further take down the walks of your current remote environment, remember that COVID has in many cases demanded that we look at each other as people first, before professionals, and that trend is likely here to stay. Think about how this can be an advantage for you and strengthen existing and future relationships you will build going forward.
Many of our business customers adopted and rapidly added remote services driven by technology into their business operations. For many that wasn’t easy, but the benefits were real and can be lasting, providing convenience for customers and protection for businesses from financial, operational, physical, or social upheaval. Further, because of these quick adaptations to technology and other offerings, customers have come to expect and rely on multiple channels for transactions, large and small. Conveniences that drive speed and efficiencies, such as the digitization of accounts payable and receivable functions, continue to be adopted widely by businesses to ensure timely cashflow.
The pandemic continues to drive businesses and customers to trust technology about which many had reservations—necessity will do that to you. But having broken down resistance, now is the time to evaluate these tools to determine how they can enhance your business model, increase efficiency, and play a role in operational cost management. If you haven’t, it’s also time to reflect on how your business may benefit from an augmented way of operating based on technology adoption and lessons learned. Talk to your business peers, local Chamber of Commerce, or your bank relationship managers and be open to new ways of operating that will help you succeed both now and, in the future, no matter what may lie ahead.
Clients and customers will likely continue to expect these same conveniences even as we integrate back to more person-to-person business transactions and meetings. Continuing to provide these offerings and developing business models that can be scaled for disruption will be essential to continued success, preparedness for future business success, and customer satisfaction.
While not completely in our rear-view mirror, we all hope we’ll never live through the extreme challenges that were presented this past year and a half. But having done so, it’s critical that we all reflect on the positives of the steps we took to manage through and embrace and retain those initiatives that made us and our businesses stronger collectively.
In ways that few of us could have imagined, we now understand that the unexpected is inevitable. Having taken the time to learn how to adapt, overcome, and improve as we continue to face the COVID pandemic, we are all better prepared for the future. Most important is to remember that when the time is right, our goal cannot be to go back to business as it was before. The way many of us now conduct business because of COVID, how we serve our clients and customers, and how we utilize technology to do so must be here to stay. A “return to normal,” is no longer enough, we must put our lessons learned to use to drive our businesses forward.
Our guest blogs are written and produced by organizations within our membership. They are not intended to reflect the views nor opinions of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.
Cris Sigovitch is Senior Vice President, Head of Treasury Management Services at People’s United Bank. In this role he is responsible for the strategy, direct oversight and expansion of the Bank’s enterprise-wide Treasury Management and Commercial Card sales organizations, working closely with the Banks’ product and operations groups to deliver best-in-class working capital solutions to clients.
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