In early March 2020, Indonesia announced its first confirmed case of COVID-19. Since then, there have been rapid shifts in consumers’ lifestyles, purchase patterns, and consumer behaviour as they are starting to recalibrate their budget.

One of the observed shreds of evidence is that consumers are becoming more price-conscious, which affects their channel preference. These facts are a wake-up call for businesses to adapt and reiterate their ways of interacting and engaging with their customers by reducing interactions (i.e. physical distancing, work-from-home policy, etcetera.).

During these unprecedented times, experience and trust are determinant factors for businesses to make or break.

Nielsen’s study on the COVID-19 outbreak shows what we have witnessed in Indonesia, as well as in Tokopedia, on how consumers shift their purchase and selling behaviour.

During March-April, “panic buying” was observed among consumers as people anticipated more disastrous days to come from the spread of COVID-19. Suddenly, healthcare products have a surge in sales. This phenomenon was seen by numerous irresponsible sellers as an opportunity to maximise profits.

To avoid further price discrepancy, Tokopedia took significant action by shutting down thousands of shops profiteering from COVID-19.

In early May-June, customers’ ‘new normal’ behaviours became more consistent. We started to witness higher dependency on e-commerce or digital platforms to support remote working and personal hygiene.

According to Nielsen, 30 per cent of customers plan to shop online more frequently, with more than 35 per cent of them planning to visit malls less frequently. Another research published by McKinsey indicates that Indonesian consumers have shifted their purchase of household essentials to online channels (previously purchased offline and online mostly for secondary needs products only).

Hence the shifting to online will potentially become a new normal as consumers expect to reduce in-person activities for a more extended period.

Tokopedia evolved to adapt to the big shift in consumer behaviour

Given the facts, Tokopedia plays a vital role in these times of adversity by providing an easy and convenient way for all users to fulfil their needs online. Things that were previously purchased offline are now available on online platforms with plenty of shop options, regularly updated stock and supply, and sold at transparent prices.

Also Read: 3 much needed mindset shifts to thrive in a post-COVID-19 world

To maintain economic and business sustainability, all the businesses that previously only operated offline and are heavily impacted by COVID-19, have been provided with an easy way to onboard on our online platform. Businesses that choose to open up a shop on Tokopedia will be exposed to 90+ million monthly active users all over Indonesia in only a matter of minutes, and with zero set-up costs required.

The infographic below shows the impact made by changing the way we engage with our users, and most importantly, how we endorse local brands to further secure the Indonesian economy.

Adapting to the new customer engagement strategy

As part of the changes, we have to ensure that Tokopedia keeps their promises to serve customers and can be contacted 24/7 regarding any situation. We’re all aware that more customers depend on us right now, like the end-users staying at home, either for work or school, and need to get all the essentials delivered to a home, or even new merchants with financial instability whose off-line store closed due to this pandemic.

Hence, the big shifts in strategies and prioritisation have been made to win our customers’ and employees’ hearts.

1. The big shift from channel-based to service-based customer management
The shifting to service-based management has been started since the end of 2019 as the response of the projection of the increase in customer interactions (that have not considered the pandemic condition). But then, the number of interactions increases faster than expected. There is a 40 per cent increase during the pandemic, but we’re ready to face it because the change has started earlier.

The service-based centre is beneficial for our front-liners as they are able to have more profound and accurate product knowledge.

As a result, the transformation enables us to increase productivity, improve quality, respond faster, and improve customer satisfaction, which in turn increases more than five p.p. thereafter.

2. The unthinkable success of Work From Home for the Customer Operations team

WFH was not an easy task for the operations team, where the accuracy of workforce placement and productivity target mainly requires physical presence and direct floor management. Yet, we were able to successfully deliver it in three cities within only one week of the deployment.

Being the first Indonesian technology company to implement digital customer service, we are able to run a fully work-from-home operation without sacrificing the quality of our services to our customers.

3. Automation to cater to what customers need

We implemented three-layer automation to identify and solve customers’ challenges:

• Self-Service: Users can immediately get answers to their inquiries before they ask CS. This can deflect more than 90 per cent of the shipment issues.
• Chatbot: An Artificial Intelligence that consists of 3I: Interface (having a messaging interface that makes it easy to use), Intelligence (the capability for solving issues, not only inquiries), and Integration (with the system by API). It can deflect more than 60 per cent of chat sessions.
• Gandalf (API-Integrated Email Response): System that replies users’ tickets based on a set of condition rules and gives suggestions or actions. This is rear protection and still able to deflect 30 per cent of email tickets.

These become important due to the new normal of the traffic while the increase reaches 400 per cent during a big promo period. Minor alteration on the system was done to adjust to the pandemic situation.

4. ‘Proactive and Protective’ customer engagement and education
Beside proactive engagement to educate users and reduce the number of customer complaints, protective actions are taken by sweeping the platform for sellers who are setting the price of a product way over the market price — which frequently happened during the COVID-19 pandemic — as the demand for masks and hand sanitisers surged.

Also Read: The new communications playbook for the new normal

Nevertheless, this protective action is done regularly, from sweeping the platform for prohibited goods to taking down items that do not comply with the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency’s (BPOM) regulations.

5. Liven up the voice of customer monitoring through customer engagement hub
Customer Engagement Hub is a one-stop command center to monitor the voice of customers, operations performance, and transaction status in real-time. Tokopedia realized that what we see in the channels is just the tip of the iceberg.

Around 80 per cent of issues faced are not submitted to the channels and, in most cases, they criticize the brand to others through social media or to their friends/families.

To tackle this issue, Tokopedia strives to stay one step ahead to see things from the social universe. Hence, we can make informed decisions and take mindful actions to arrive at the most appropriate solutions.

In conclusion, COVID-19 has ignited new lifestyles and new behaviors that carry tremendous challenges and learnings in the area of customer engagement and experience.

Adaptability and agility are certainly at the core of businesses facing unexpected circumstances such as a pandemic.

We must learn to learn faster, change more quickly, and understand the new normal to continue winning customers’ hearts.

In a business of trust such as Tokopedia, especially in times of adversity, the role of Customer Excellence as the company’s front-guard, and the closest to the customers, is now more essential than ever.

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