The year behind us was tremendously difficult. The obstacles we faced because of COVID-19 left most of us on edge, exhausted, and seeking solutions to unprecedented problems. The only obvious benefit of the pandemic is that it happened when it did, not 10, five, or even three years ago.

Because of ongoing digital transformation across the globe, most economies were able to respond. Businesses stripped of their ability to operate face-to-face jumped online. Some of these efforts were smoother than others, but most soon navigated through the clumsiness and established streamlined remote-based operational processes.

Through it all, business got done, and enterprise moved on. But what lessons were learned? We recently heard from more than 500 business and technology leaders as part of our "Transforming the Norm” effort — which became a comprehensive review of how business has transformed throughout the past year-plus and where we might be headed in the near term.

As with most times of trouble, leaders must mitigate their own fears through levity and putting their team’s, customers’ and organization's goals ahead of all else. This means adjusting the desires and plans for the organization and recalibrating in response to the external stimulus.

For most leaders, their organizations' wish lists remain long — most hope to innovate through advancements in technology and infrastructure. What they’d planned for 2020 was primarily derailed. Survival became the priority. This meant mainly focusing on and serving their users — inside the organization and out.

What do these users want and value? That seems entirely open to debate.

What customers deem valuable

Most of the leaders we spoke with say they are close to their customers and understand their desires. However, most of these leaders don’t actually measure user sentiment or can't do so.

The fact is, 395 people we spoke with "believe" they understand what their customers want. The truth is only about 25 people of the more than 500 we spoke with admitted that they don’t know what their customers want regarding service and support nor how they want to be communicated with.

One example of this is regarding self-service. Most of the business leaders we spoke with believe user self-service (the ability for people to serve themselves when they need support) will increase over the next two years even though less than half of these organizations can currently meet perceived customer desire for self-sufficiency.

Likewise, only 29% of leaders say their organizations have everything to accommodate this demand if users want self-service. The caveat, of course, is that most organizations don’t measure customer wants and desires.

Customer engagement

Communicating with customers remains pivotal, especially now as the business world's remote nature has changed how business is getting done. Fifty-four percent of those we spoke to said that email is the most important engagement channel for customers to engage with their company. The telephone is nearly as popular (53%), and in-person communication remains a strong engagement channel, with 40% citing these as essential engagements.

Thirty-five percent of leaders said live chat is the most critical channel for engaging customers.

Organizational size plays a part in communication. Sixty-two percent within companies with 50 to 99 employees saying email is the most critical engagement channel for how their customers engage with them; 48% of respondents working in companies with more than 500 employees said the same.

Day-to-day change here to stay

It’s no secret that organizations have dramatically changed the way they operated in 2020. According to the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics, from January to December 2019, of the 32.6 million people in employment in the U.K., 8.7 million reported having worked from home, which is less than 30%.

Fast-forward to April 2020, and the figure increased to more than 46%, a jump of almost 20%. In the light of these statistics, we wanted to find out how effectively organizations are dealing with remote working, what positives and negatives they’ve encountered, and look closer at the repercussions for the service desk and IT support.

Organizations that operated through in-person office engagement have been forced to re-engineer. Seventy-two percent said that they could work effectively as an organization remotely, despite the fact they’d never done so previously. Some sectors found it easier than others to cope. For example, 74% of those in the IT sector say remote working is a success, compared to 33% of those working in HR, a sector that thrived face-to-face.

Organizations under three years old (63% work effectively) or between 15 and 20 years old (66% work effectively) were the most successful at pivoting. However, some of the barriers to the changes in the way we now work is a lack of adequate technology for the situation, poor employee technology knowledge and skills, and the need to invest in new technology.

Despite all of this, staggeringly but unsurprisingly, 94% of organizations reported changes to their business' day-to-day operations in 2020. With a 20% jump in the number of people working remotely from December 2019 to April 2020, this is likely the reason for drastic organizational changes. With this in mind, it’s great for the future of business to see that six in 10 companies say remote working saves them money.

Conclusion

We've been through a great deal of disruption. The digital transformation is in full bloom. We thought it wasn't possible at the beginning of 2020, but it has been addressed by nearly every business that strives to survive.

While many of us may have feared the changes we faced, personal and professional survival always finds a way. We’re vastly farther ahead technologically than we were a year ago, and we’ve all probably matured much more than the previous 12 months might suggest. Of course, with all things learned, there is still room for additional growth along the way.