We’re not going back. Now is the time to accelerate digital adoption.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new challenges to every business, including Adobe. We’re sharing the lessons we’ve learnt — like the need for real-time customer insights — in this six-part series.
Explore other lessons
1: Real-time customer insights
2: Communication agility
3: Human connection
4: New ways of working
5: Reexamining strategy
6: Digital adoption
COVID-19 — a catalyst for change
The pandemic has dramatically changed how so many of us work. And from the
looks of it, these changes won’t be temporary. Many experts believe COVID-19 will
cause the world to completely rethink how business is done. And while that can
be a challenge, it can also be an opportunity.
“If you aren’t digitally strong, invest in digital transformation now because it’s the future. If you are digitally strong, accelerate it.”
Mari Cross
VP Americas Customer Success, Adobe
More enriched content, more engaged customers
There’s nothing like a pandemic to make you step back and look at how you’re serving your customers. At Adobe, that meant rethinking how we could use our digital capabilities to better meet their changing needs. One way was with our online learning community, Adobe Experience League.
Online forums have always been a way for people to connect with peers around the world and at the moment, we really need those connections. To make Adobe Experience League even more helpful during COVID-19, we curated sets of our most popular video tutorials so it was easier to find answers quickly. We posted a CXM playbook to help businesses through digital transformation. And we added Italian and Chinese to our list of supported languages — two areas deeply affected by the pandemic.
Furthermore, with our Adobe Summit presentations now online, we’ve added a wealth of new self-service resources on our website. “Posting all those videos created so much content to help with what our customers are experiencing,” says Mari Cross, vice president of Americas customer success at Adobe. “And it created an appetite for peer-to-peer conversations. Everyone is so interested in how others are handling COVID and we’ve been able to pair companies together to exchange ideas.”
“Having the online response option really helped insulate us more than we could have possibly hoped.”
Stephen Buckner
Assistant Director of Communications, US Census Bureau
Make your digital adoption count
COVID-19 became the proving grounds for the US Government’s digital transformation. Trying to reduce barriers to participation in the US Census, they’d spent the past decade modernising their operation and making it easy to do online. But when census takers could no longer go door to door, a digital survey was no longer just an option. It was a necessity. “I think the way the 2020 census was designed, with having the online response option, really helped insulate us more than we could have possibly hoped. It has been a saving grace for people to be able to respond from the safety of their homes,” said Stephen Buckner, assistant director of communications at the US Census Bureau.
Go digital — or grow your digital
If you haven’t already, now is the time to increase your online and mobile adoption and to provide self-service ways for customers to get the information and products they need. Especially when they can’t connect with you in person or when your call centres are being overwhelmed. Cloud solutions that allow you to manage content, create web pages, target your audiences and swiftly ramp up to meet spikes in traffic will allow you to pivot more quickly to meet changing demands.
If your business was already digitally strong, this time is an opportunity to accelerate your digital presence and capabilities. It may be to meet increased demand. To quickly launch a new COVID response web page. Or if your traffic has dropped due to the pandemic, to start looking at how to maximise the tech solutions you have, so that when customers do come back, you have the ability to discover who they are. It’s also a great time to train your team on new technologies and how to maintain your digital presence.
Digitising your customer experiences will be key to not just riding out the
pandemic, but being better prepared for the future.
Key takeaways:
Changes made during COVID-19 will very likely be permanent, so if you haven’t started your digital transformation, it’s time to start.
Create robust online forums for people to learn, connect and exchange ideas with each other.
Customers need to be able to find you from anywhere, so make sure you have a strong online presence that is tailored for mobile devices.
Use cloud solutions to quickly create or adapt websites, manage content and meet spikes in traffic
If you’re already digitally strong, use this as a catalyst to accelerate your capabilities.
Download the eBook
Get the full playbook — with additional examples — as an eBook.
Explore other lessons online
Read each of the six lessons for adapting and advancing during a pandemic.
How customer data and our field marketing team helped us quickly pivot our strategy. Plus, how NASCAR used digital tech to understand vast new audiences when they moved their races online.
How our crisis response team created new messaging and rolled it out in just a few weeks. And how medicine marketplace 1mg sent emails to 14 million users to clarify confusion about COVID-19.
How we stayed connected to our customers. Also, how Vitamix is using food to bring people together. And how theatre companies and orchestras are finding new ways to keep their audiences engaged.
What we learnt from moving Adobe Summit online in just three weeks. Also, how Australia’s NSW Department of Education is using what they learnt from last year’s bush fires during COVID-19.
How we’re meeting the needs of our remote workforce. Also, what retailers everywhere are discovering. And how TSB Bank rethought their digital services and what they gained.
How we’re using our online learning community could help our customers. And how COVID-19 became the proving grounds for the US Census Bureau’s digital efforts.