There has been so much change to how we work in recent months that some of us might not immediately realize the innovations already gaining steam before the global pandemic struck. As marketers, workplace technology continues bringing us closer as a team so we can serve our customers in these stressful times, even while we navigate challenges in our lives.
It’s important to be honest with customers and team members about the situation. We’re not just working from home right now but working from home (WFH) during a pandemic. It’s been a shock to the system. Using technology to strengthen our connections with customers and employees has been key in responding to these truly unprecedented times.
Respond to Change by Putting People First
How should marketers respond? At Informatica, we process more than 10 trillion cloud transactions per month. It’s clear now that people are consuming content in off-hours and that work is changing.
In the traditional B2B space, we have to reset and take a fresh look at how we communicate, recognizing that customers have families and other pressing needs. 9 to 5 is becoming increasingly outdated, so we don’t get to pick when we’re listening to customers. We have to be on call outside the conventional time windows.
To best serve our customers, we must remember to put employees first and ensure they have the resources they need to be successful. That’s especially important now that we’re all working from home and dealing with very different personal circumstances and working conditions.
As a business, we need to set clear goals that center around customers and increasing customer engagement while, through supportive leadership, keeping our employees’ well-being in mind.
Meet Customer Needs Through Curiosity, Agility, and Sensitivity
The pandemic calls for increased agility to meet new customer needs in the crisis. We’re responding with more sensitivity to understand how each customer is affected. We’re in a unique spot because people want to talk to us. Companies are going through furloughs, downsizing, and reevaluating their legacy applications. Our CEO has spent time personally with customers, and we are scaling to meet their needs.
We’ve found that some companies are hit harder than others in the crisis. So, instead of adopting a blanket approach to marketing, we need to be more curious and precise than ever in our messaging. We must use all the new information to identify opportunities and deliver richer, more targeted pursuit experiences. We need to get this rich data into the hands of our salespeople so they can respond best to customers. We’re prioritizing intent information, which comes to us through DemandBase, so we can build rich dashboards and empower teams to respond to customers meaningfully.
Given the tough changes they’re facing, it’s critical to consider how you can help customers navigate this crisis. Informatica provided a subset of customers with more access to products at this time so that they had more horsepower and fewer barriers to their creativity.
People are emotionally taxed right now. By being sensitive to our time, we can usher in a new era of curiosity and creativity, showing customers that we’re agile and adaptable while also delighting them.
Harness Technology to Boost Productivity
With new challenges on everybody’s plate, it’s essential to strike the right balance between being innovative and helping your people to stay focused on the right work. That’s especially important now that we are all physically isolated and working in different environments. As a marketing team, focusing on the right work maximizes our productivity, gives us the best return on investment and helps us reach the right customers.
We have found that work management technology comes into its own here. We implemented Workfront throughout our marketing department and consolidated all workflows into the system. This single platform enables everyone in disparate teams and locations to share information, view progress against tasks, create content collaboratively, share ideas, and manage complex processes.
It helps our people see how their work aligns with that of other teams and with our overall business objectives. It ensures that innovation aligns with our strategy and priorities. It puts each individual’s work into context because they can see what other teams are doing and how their work fits into each project.
For us, having a single work management platform that connects all our work results in better transparency, visibility, decisions, and business outcomes. This technology enables us to work more effectively and efficiently, ensuring that everyone can focus on being productive rather than just busy.
Implications for the Future of Work
If the current crisis has taught us anything, we need to prioritize the needs of people above all else. I think that is going to be key to the future of work. I believe that was the case before the pandemic hit, but the changes imposed on our lives have focused everyone’s minds more acutely on the needs of individuals.
For me, successful workplaces in the future will enable and empower people to work in their way. I advise business leaders to find out what enables people to do their best work and what gets in their way. Then use the right technology to enable people to flex their creativity and deploy their talents to the best effect without IT-related distractions or impediments. If people can bring their best to work daily, productivity, innovation, and – ultimately – customer advocacy will soar.
Working during a pandemic has introduced an age of heightened sensitivity when dealing with colleagues. Well-being bubbles up as a topic at the start of every conversation. This change in mindset can be used as a catalyst for change in the future of work.
Companies will now need to invest in meaningful health and wellness programs to attract and retain the best people and help their people maintain a healthy work-life balance. Technology will have a pivotal role to play. Collaborative work management platforms will be vital in keeping people connected, facilitating innovation, and maintaining the focus on delighting customers among people who no longer share the same office or work schedules.
Crucially, by choosing technology that supports collaboration and understanding our people’s needs, we can ensure that the kindness and consideration we have shown during this unprecedented crisis are not forgotten. The winners will be not just our employees but also our businesses and the customers we serve.
