Reflection on 2020/1

In the middle of March last year, the world changed overnight.

Boris, stood up and told us that we had to work from home, then stay at home. This was the same for every business in the country. The immediate issue at hand was "How do we continue to work ?"

Fortunately for us, our offices are literally only a place to sit. We have no permanent infrastructure at our office bar some computers and an Internet connection - our staff already worked part or all of their time at home.

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"Go work from home"

Even more fortunate, as an ISO27001 registered firm - audited by the BSI and proudly displaying the kitemark - we had a documented Disaster Strategy and associated procedures in place. This largely is a "work from home, full time message"

So, immediately after Boris' conference changed the world as we know it, I had a short telephone conversation with my Operations Director and we implemented our Disaster procedure. For us is was a simple online message to our line managers to put the Disaster Recovery procedure into place.

As far as activity goes, nothing really changed apart from the fact that nobody journeyed to work - they just all continued to work from home. We supplemented that later as time went by, by getting extra computer monitors, chairs etc delivered to staff so that their home offices were more appropriate for full time working.

Working Online was already a way of life

Online meetings were nothing new to us, we have used Microsoft Teams for some time and many of our meetings are online - even when we are all in the office, it's just more convenient!

Talking to many of our customers, I realised that our Navigator DMS was helping them to operate from home effectively as well. Setup for staff was simply to install Navigator on their home PCs - no fancy tech setup was required and they could then work effectively from home without a problem. We quickly helped many dealers to move online with ecommerce integrations.

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The new "normal"

So, now as we start to move back into our offices, I'm starting to plan the "new normal". A blend of home/office working was already part of life at Navigator anyway, but we have now extended it from 4 days a week at work to 3 - this will bring more of a work:home life balance.

However, the way we deliver our services has changed forever. During lockdown, we changed our implementation and support processes such that we can effectively deliver and install Navigator at a new customer without ever stepping foot on site, and we now will be giving customers the choice - passing the cost benefits of a remote implementation in part or full to the customer.

Online training makes it easier not only for us, but also for our clients, who can train a team on a one-by-one basis or even have training take place out of working hours to reduce the hassle of changing DMS.

We've also changed our offering so that our new ecommerce offerings are part of the standard package - implemented free of charge - including items such as online payment, Digital Signature and Web site integration.

Supporting our team mentally is crucial

Now one key item for going back to work will be supporting our team in re-integrating into the office environment - most haven't stepped into the office for a year and we don't underestimate the challenges that this will give many.

Looking forward, we have come out of this stronger - ready to deliver a stronger solution to our customers who in turn are also stronger.

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Serve | Sell | Deliver

The challenge now is that for the past 12 months, dealers have got used to selling, serving and delivering their services almost exclusively online. These online solutions will continue to run but will be significantly less used as customers start to use all channels for interacting with the dealer - online, by phone and in person.

The nightmare, but common issue will be that customer who interacts over multiple channels - with maybe an online enquiry, but telephone to complete the sale agreement, with an online sign up and payment and physical handover.

Fortunately, I know that we've got that covered, and can help our Dealer Customers to provide that 5* service to both their customers and their team members in the future.