Thanks to COVID-19, 85% of global companies have accelerated digitization, and 67% have accelerated automation. With the rollout of vaccines, 2021 holds the promise of being less disruptive and many businesses are cautiously optimistic about a possible return to “normal.”
How soon that will be, we cannot say for certain. What we can do, however, is to discuss how the post-pandemic workforce may operate in India.

Live Support Becomes More Important
Providing your client with empathetic support during the transition is critical. 2020 saw us increase our reliance on chatbots out of necessity. We’ll continue to use bots in 2021 but will also have to improve service delivery.
Ironically, 80% of clients prefer dealing with a real person over a chatbot. To improve the customer experience in 2021, we’ll require a hybridized solution for client support. Companies that excel will use a combination of pre-chat bots and real people.

Chatbots Will Enhance the Customer Experience
Bots will become more sophisticated and move beyond a merely supportive function. Most automated chat software now focuses on answering client questions and making recommendations.

In the future, they’ll take a more active role in client administration. Bump, the Cloudnine Group of Hospital’s bot, is a prime example of what to expect.

The chain focuses on fertility, childcare, and maternity and introduced Bump to assist pregnant women. The AI-based engine searches the client’s record and populates the details of relatives who use the same telephone number. The app currently allows patients to book appointments and optimize their diet.

The company is presently developing additional functionality so that the bot can handle each step of the onboarding process.

Remote Workers Likely to Increase in India
7 out of 10 Indian CXOs believe that the disruption experienced in 2020 was not an isolated incident. They expect further disruptions to occur going forward and so are likely to expand the remote working model.
Most Indian executives are already accustomed to working off-site and will continue to do so. Remote working has several benefits to both the team member and the company, and companies will continue to capitalize on these.

Firms to Become More Adaptable
If anything, 2020 proved that the workforce must be more adaptable. Going forward, companies will begin to reskill workers so that they’re more versatile and can fulfill more than one role. Job descriptions are likely to become slightly more fluid, and adaptability will be a critical trait that interviewers look for in new hires.

Increased Collaboration Between Different Business Units
Companies will look towards creating a more cohesive structure rather than relying on distinct silos. Business units need to collaborate to speed decision-making and bolster innovation. Increased co-operation between units also improves the customer experience and satisfaction.

Building Trust With Team Members
2020 was a year punctuated by uncertainty. Disruptions to the normal business model made it necessary for companies to scale down operations, institute shorter working hours, and even retrench some team members.

While the measures were necessary, they often damaged the trust between the company’s leaders and consultants. After the pandemic, firms will have to focus on rebuilding that trust through transparency, communication, and empathy.

Companies to Plan for all Contingencies
85% of customer experience officers in organizations that navigated 2020 successfully felt that they’d balanced their short- and long-term priorities well. They’d been able to do so because they had planned for a wide range of contingencies.

More Internal Hygiene and Health Roles
The workplace will change post-pandemic. Those companies that will resume work in a traditional office environment will focus more on health and hygiene.

They’ll space out workstations more and consider changing shifts to facilitate social distancing better. We’ll see an increase in demand for cleaners and ventilation specialists. In addition, security will take on the additional responsibility of minimizing the spread of disease.

The Key Takeaways
2020 was a somewhat tumultuous year, but it taught the business world many valuable lessons. Going forward, firms will apply what they learned and become stronger organizations as a result.

The key takeaways are that businesses must better prepare for “disaster” scenarios, build trust within their teams, increase collaboration, and, most importantly, become more adaptable.

Companies that rise to the challenge will have a distinct advantage over those that do not.