The New Normal

Is your business well tuned into new and powerful customer behaviours?

- Rich Allen

Welcome to the tech generation of customers! Smartphones and access to web-enabled services have created new and interesting challenges for businesses today. Not sure why? Just consider a typical day in the life of today’s well-connected consumer…

Jeff and Mira have had a long day. Their commute home was mostly silent. The long, hot summer day has sapped their energy and right now they can only think about finding a few minutes of rest and relaxation at home.

As they turn into their driveway, their energy rises as they think about making dinner together in their newly remodelled kitchen. Having designed the kitchen to be both comfortable and functional, they are excited to enjoy it again this evening.

But they can tell that something is not right the moment they open the door. The house is stuffy and hot. It takes only a moment to realise that the air-conditioning unit is not working. After a quick check of the system, they realise they will need some professional AC help.

Opening up her laptop, Mira does a quick web search typing ‘AC repair in Frisco, TX’ into the search box. Up pops the web list of 1,370,000 results starting first with four sponsored ads from AC repair companies in the area. But Mira can tell these are paid listings, so she scrolls quickly down to the Google maps listings and clicks on the ‘more listings’ tab to see all of the AC repair businesses near their home.

Together, Mira and Jeff pore through the listing of some 20 AC businesses located within five miles of their home. They are looking specifically to see who is open right now and if they are, what kind of reviews have they received from their customers. They find many businesses that are still open, but several have none or only a few customer reviews. They find a few who have well over a hundred reviews with average ratings of 4.8 or above. Together they decide that these are the businesses they should call first.