It’s not just about digitizing everything; it’s about serving human needs at the most critical of times, putting humanity at the centre of our ability to continue to function as a society.
With many organisations forced into remote-working setups, and limited capacity to deliver physical services, there is a growing need for service providers in all industries to accelerate digitisation and agile working across their entire operation, from supporting their employees and adjusting their supply chain to communicating and delivering products & services to customers and partners.
At the same time, people who might have been considered slow to adopt new tools or preferred more traditional solutions are now being exposed to new ways of working, communicating, and consuming. And many of them are realising that some of these solutions are much better experiences than what they have been used to.
While we are forced to adapt amid the crisis, we can also view this as an opportunity to focus our energy on designing what truly matters for our people, our communities, our partners, our customers, and our employees.
Public services
For public services, this is an opportunity to remove bureaucracy and deliver everything through digital channels, video conferencing, on-demand delivery, and call centres. As we are currently restricted from standing in line and submitting physical forms for vehicle registration, this provides the opportunity to improve that experience for good. Imagine never having to come into a public office just to submit paperwork again! The vision of digital voting may become true, just because we have to – but the experience we create can become the best one we could imagine, increasing voter turnout, avoiding crowds, and miscounts.
Financial services
For financial services can now feel confident in accelerating existing processes of digitising all services, while also providing live banking support through video conferencing, and human support through phone calls and chats. This is true across the board for retail, commercial, investment banking, SMB services, freelance solutions, and the internal employee experience. When it comes to our banking and finance, many of us have wondered out loud “why is it like this still in 2020?” Now is the opportunity to shape it in a way that serves real human needs, and — given the expected economic downturn — to provide improved efficiencies for the financial service providers.
Healthcare services
For healthcare services are rapidly introducing and scaling more telehealth, on-demand, and robotic services. While these technologies are not new, we are now seeing mass adoption and usage of these solutions outside major providers with local and independent care providers experimenting and introducing them. As more providers and patients experiment with and adopt these tools, the more we should think about the optimal patient and care provider experience. What is the role of physical clinics? What’s expected of empowered patients, and how can they best prepare themselves for home treatment? When do we use an app for diagnosis versus calling the doctor? These questions are starting to become more real and practical. Now is the opportunity to confront some of them and shape the healthcare experience we all wish to see.
Education services
The transition to remote teaching and learning has forced our entire education system to transform in a matter of days. From pre-schools to higher education, everyone is exploring ways to deliver classes virtually. While this might not be ideal, one might argue that this is the best thing that could happen for truly upgrading the way we teach, study, and learn. As institutions jump right into delivering existing content through Zoom, there is an opportunity to think about how this new setup can enhance the learning experience moving forward. How do we use our classrooms and campuses? What is the role of teachers and parents in a remote setting? How do we design a home-learning environment for students? And how can we re-imagine the delivery and engagement formats to compete with other online and virtual content experiences?
These examples are few and broad, but they need to accelerate change is real and present for many organisations across almost every industry. The need to take action may be forced upon us, but the opportunity to design and shape solutions that could improve our service experiences for humanity is up to us.
“Because what matters to people, matters to business, and matters to society.”
