13 May 2020, The current COVID-19 crisis is driving long-term changes in how US consumers buy and interact with brands – and they are not happy with the level of personalization and reassurance delivered online by most companies, according to a new study of 1,000 US consumers.
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The research, commissioned by AI-powered personalization platform Kameleoon and leading experimentation agency Widerfunnel, found that while time spent online has skyrocketed by 37%, consumers won’t go back to offline channels – nearly a third (29%) said they’ll be using digital channels more post-crisis. Just 14% said they’d switch back to offline shopping.
Unsurprisingly, the most popular current activities are watching and listening to streaming entertainment and reading the media. 56% are devoting more time to entertainment, with 14% admitting to having doubled how long they were spending on the activity. Nearly half (47%) are reading more news online.
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How brands behave now will have a major impact on future revenues. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of consumers said the experience currently delivered would change who they bought from, and how much they spent in the future. Those that do provide a personalized experience now will benefit long-term – 42% said they’d spend less (or switch completely) from brands that hadn’t delivered during the crisis.