The pandemic triggered by COVID-19 and the consequent quarantine forced companies to adopt solutions immediately to ensure business continuity and preserve the health of employees. As part of a company that provides these solutions and that was very much used by customers and partners - old and new - to help them in this endeavor, I was able to follow the whole panorama of this “new era” of the digital relationship.
In addition to all the adjustments that this crisis demanded from us - more agile processes, new channels of relationship with customers and partners, digitalization of sales, etc. - I noticed that the human aspect more than ever should be prioritized. Care for the relationship should be redoubled and given special attention in these times of distance
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We started to have several meetings online, including with many customers who are not used to it. This situation showed us that the human aspect must never be forgotten in the midst of “digitalization”: we had to build relationships practically from scratch, with people we never met in person and that we did not have the prospect of meeting in the short term. In addition to showing that our solutions were reliable enough to be acquired and deployed remotely, we had to show that we, as professionals - and human beings - were also reliable enough to help them in the difficult endeavor that is the adequacy of processes and business continuity in times of crisis.
However, not everything was difficult: in many companies that had obstacles in the normal sales processes, the crisis provided an agility that did not exist: customers also simplified their acquisition processes to allow faster deployments.
Such benefits will not be overlooked and will most likely be adopted after the pandemic has passed, following a global trend: according to the study "Starting a new era of digital wellness", conducted by Quartz Insights in partnership with Citrix, simplicity is the key: 84% of the 1,000 respondents said they only want intuitive and easy-to-use applications. Still, 34,43% of them stated that productivity would increase if they were allowed the home office, something that we are seeing now in practice.
In another human aspect, this crisis has opened doors in the supplier-resale-customer relationship: contacts that were previously difficult due to complex processes became more frequent, and managers found themselves increasingly close to their employees who, in fact, would be the end users of the solutions - something that helped in decision-making, based on simplicity, robustness and user experience - something essential in times of remote work, in which “digital well-being” must be taken into account.
All of these facts show us that, even in an age of distance and digitalization, nothing can replace human relationships, which are essential in an area as close to people as sales.
* Luciana Pinheiro is Sales Director at Citrix Brasil
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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