Have your products been affected by the need to sell from home? (https://www.pipedrive.com/en/blog/s
There has been a 173% increase in working-from-home activities since 2005, with more than five million employees regularly working from home in the US. But while working from home as a concept may be nothing new - the Covid-19 pandemic has forced most of us, without warning, into home-based offices while simultaneously changing the needs of our customers.
Your product or service may have gained or lost relevance to your target market, or selling a particular item at this time might be impossible due to supplier delays or other logistical hold-ups.
Before panicking, it’s good to take a step back, rethink your offering and re-define your sales goals. If your product or service has suddenly become less accessible, desirable or affordable, are there ways to reignite its appeal? Here are some points to consider:
- If you sell courses or workshops, can you take them online?
- If you have a physical store or restaurant, can you switch to deliveries?
- Can you adapt your product to appeal to your customers? For example, some distilleries are pivoting to make hand sanitizer
- Can you offer discount codes, vouchers or payment plans?
- If you offer a service that cannot be easily altered, such as hairdressing or personal training, can you create online DIY tutorials at discounted rates?
Of course, you don’t want to appear opportunistic during a global health crisis, but when implemented sensitively, you could be doing your customers a huge favor by finding creative ways to meet their new needs. Essentially, you must first discover what those needs are, then you can make suitable adjustments.
What steps are you taking to identify your customers’ changing needs during this pandemic? And what are the main challenges you have experienced with selling from home so far?