Tech Trends to Shape Your Product Strategy in 2021
Last year, as the UK was coming out of the first lockdown, I hosted a Treatwell webinar event with tech leaders to discuss the tech behaviour trends that came about as a result of COVID-19.
As the UK starts to emerge from its third lockdown, I look back at the topics discussed and highlight the tech trends that you need to shape your product strategy in 2021.
Thank you to all the tech leaders that spoke on behalf of Treatwell, Moonpig, Cazoo, AnalogFolk, Printed.com, Peanut App, Cyber-Duck, iwoca, Teemill and King and McGaw, and our friends at District 4 who helped recruit such an all-star lineup.
Watch the entire event or specific speakers (I’ve included timestamps below)
“We saw an increase in bookings while consumers opted for ease and convenience because people’s normal habits have been broken”
“We’ve seen a 100% increase in traffic from men’s related haircuts”
“With a lot of people being at home, inner-city bookings have considerably declined as people are looking to find something a lot closer”
“Increasing demand for hair and beauty fixes means that people are less price-sensitive and a lot more flexible about when they have their appointment… we think that price sensitivity will come”
“People are concerned about hygiene and what procedures are in place for their appointment… people are uncertain about whether something is actually going to go ahead or whether they are able to commit”
“It’s completely changed what they want to focus on, what they have the budget to do and how to even keep their businesses open a lot of the time”
“In recessionary times, rather than looking for new customers, you need to look for the best experience for existing customers and that’s going to help you grow”
“Mindsets over demographics. Demographics used to be easy enough to use as a predictor of behaviour because everything was normal, but as we come into these times then everything has changed…Mindsets define the way someone is thinking when they interact with a brand… it helps us start to predict their behaviour”
“The fact that we are in these crazy times has helped us with selling in the mindset approach… demographics stopped being those reliable predictors anymore… and people started to listen”
“We used small audio clips from our customer service to find the gaps… so when we make the decision of not approving someone, we really know what it means for their livelihood and their lives”
“We helped, trained and explained to people [about how to get a government-backed loan]… the government loans were probably the best deal they would ever get in their lives”
“In iwoca we have hyper transparency… we had to create a lot of information consolidation and different ways of bringing things together”
“We got accredited to provide CBILS which is a government based loan for small businesses… We didn’t know if we were going to get it… and we didn’t give up”
“This is a very challenging time for people and small businesses…personal communication between us and them is the thing that is going to make them continue their business and take the money responsibility”
“We launched 4 consecutive agile campaigns… We shifted to focus more on social and email marketing to maximise the more cost-effective channels, and leveraged more user-generated content and repurposed old assets”
“We offered a 20% discount from key workers, offered free re-prints for wedding customers and shared uplifting stories from our customers printing NHS materials”
“We expanded our product range by introducing a Health & Safety Collection. We introduced a whole suite of new products for health and safety equipment…This was also received very well.”
“People were printing of cards to share with their loved ones… people in our community were showing a lot of love and care”
“Engagement on our social channels has gone up by double digits… email open rates have risen by approximately 10% on average… unsubscribe rates for emails have roughly been halved.”
“Activity on peanut has really increased, including a swipe engagement of 30% and a 40% increase in content consumption, so the use of community was really increasing”
“We created groups…It was important that people who wanted to know about fertility clinic closures in the US [for example] had places to go to find out this information… but while some people enjoyed using peanut to share frustrations… other people found it overwhelming”
“We wanted to make sure we created something that was going to work in the long term if we were going to make a change to our app.. We launched a feature called ‘Mute Key Words’… users love the control and peanut is their safe space”
“Before we knew it, bang, all of the products started flying off the virtual shelves. We broke every record and indeed every prediction the company had. We have been practically in constant peak mode ever since”
“With the threat our factories closing, we just got started [on Ecards]… we released the whole feature in one week... It was successful because it was a combined effort by everyone at the company with one clear goal”
“In April, Moonpig decided to donate all the proceed of Ecards… to a few different charities… We’ve been very fortunate, but we’re also very mindful of what has produced these results… supporting the team has been crucial in these times”
“When it comes to understanding our customers, our strategy has been changed over the last few months… we’ve been allowed to focus on doing experimentation, doing research and UX improvements… understanding where we come in the priorities of our customers is key to the development of the product”
“We started seeing some trends in categories, such as children and grandchildren which had not been very common…we hypothesise that it’s the older high street shoppers, forced to overcome barriers to online, so we need to explore shopping habits and their UX needs.”
“Our key metrics went totally crazy… key metrics such as viewing product pages all went through totally strange numbers … For product teams, this makes it very hard to measure the impact of what you’re actually doing and delivering…’
“We adapted our hand over experience where we delivered the cars to our customers to make it safe and changed our ways of working for our operational staff… we introduced an NHS hero offer, offering £250 off for key workers…we paused our advertising and recut TV and radio adverts to focus on safe home delivery”
“We introduced clear sign-posting across the website to say that we are still open…Despite what we think is clear signposting across our entire customer experience, people still contacted us to say are you still open ”
“People still need cars. Even though the economic situation in the country has changed and we’re in lockdown… the markets not going away”
“We found attitudes have really changed since the crisis… before in a survey of 500 customers 36% said they would be willing to do it [buy a car online]. This has risen to 64% since the crisis”
“We listened to our clients and understood how their industries had morphed. Our researchers looked at changing user behaviour around accessibility and innovation”
“Social distancing — is this actually going to become a tremendous opportunity… with constraints come creative opportunities.”
“We had to come up with clear messages to the team calling to focus on the core challenges… we came up with stability, growth and togetherness’”
“We listened to our clients and the market. We could see that technical debt, usability and accessibility remained a constant problem for clients. We invested in lead generation to acquire new prospects through innovative campaigns”
“Because it’s been so tough we are now saying to ourselves, what is it that our customers are looking to us for? Which bit of all the things that we offer do they really value, and how can we make the most of those insights?”
“Why do we need fancy offices? Why do we need offices at all? Why can’t we run our businesses in a remote way.”
“Watching organisations to see which one’s have their teams with them, [companies that have invested in and valued their staff] they’re able to do all the things that they wish to do ambitiously during the crisis.”
“Doing the best for our communities externally… in the context of the digital economy, once you find which bit of the organisation we’re going to do really well and properly… really simplify the message … K.I.S.S — Keep It Simple Stupid”
“There is no point in beating ourselves up… actually take it forward, put it behind us, more into harder, deeper and better at our core business, get rid of peripheral activities and really concentrate on our own people being able to deliver what it is that our customers are wanting from us”
