Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Transformative Mega Trends Shaping Post-COVID Consumer Behavior, finds that COVID-19 has brought significant changes in consumer behavior, compelling them to perceive home as a hub for work, wellness, and entertainment, with connectivity as the key enabler. As consumers strive for safer, contactless, and connected environments across homes, cities, and workspaces, technologies such as augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing will take center stage in the post-pandemic era. Additionally, with the rise in online shopping and the demand for contactless transactions, companies will focus on a clear digital and omnichannel strategy to serve the digitally empowered customer.

“Health and hygiene will become a central focus for consumers. From product placement to internal business operations, companies will have to put health and hygiene into their core business strategies,” said Chaitanya Habib, TechVision Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Also, enabled by new connectivity technologies, cars will become points of health, wellness, and wellbeing. Top technologies such as healthcare wearables, mHealth apps, technologies for clean and pathogen-free interiors, driver monitoring, and diagnosis will gain strong footholds in the industry.”

"Personalization using behavioral data will be key for the post-pandemic customer experience journey.

Habib added: “We forecast enterprises’ use of customer behavior analytics to grow 20% from 2020 to 2025. Creating intelligent experiences with the power of AI will allow companies to offer hyper-personalization of the individual consumer journey, which is a prominent component of converting an adopter into an advocate. Use of existing data and analytics will help retain customers and allow for product upselling.”

Market participants should leverage the following strategic recommendations: 

• Extreme personalization of the consumer journey: Advanced natural language processing devices and interactive digital assistants, combined with Big Data and AI, will extract meaning from unstructured datasets to analyze customers’ preferences, modes of communication, and relationships across diverse user groups to enable a high level of personalization. 
• Internet of Home: As homes become a central hub with the ability to seamlessly switch between other connected environments, including offices and fitness centers, companies must develop multifunctional solutions that control multiple products and devices. 
• Digital mental health care: Healthcare delivery is moving toward consumerization and patient-centric models. Patients want to stay connected and engaged with their healthcare providers. It is essential to use personal health data to understand a patient’s daily behavior, challenges, and motivating factors and modify engagements accordingly. This level of personalization requires the use of digital technologies such as AI and predictive analytics.