Our CEO Darren Hill continues to navigate Thompsons successfully through lockdown whilst planning for the new-norm, read his opinion below on the key attribute for post lockdown success;

At the beginning of lockdown my family were blessed, my daughter gave birth to our first grandson; Albie. He arrived two weeks early at the end of the first lockdown week, at 0429 on Saturday 28th March. The excitement of being a first-time grandparent has helped me throughout the last two months. Albie has heightened my focus on the aspects that are most important in my life and the key ingredient we will all need for the future.

In my last piece I commented that “automatic behaviours” had already been formed in consumers and clients ahead of the new-norm; I remain confident in that comment and feel every business who wants to be successful in the coming years needs to be empathetic to those behaviours and highlight measures they are implementing to attract a safety conscious consumer.

Indeed, Thompsons are empathetic to the new automatic behaviours and have encompassed home working, enhanced risk assessments, staggered shifts and visible hygiene.

Thompsons will elaborate specifically, on the physical attributes needed for interiors of restaurants, bars, workplaces and retail over the coming months, but today I wanted to share the underlying attribute that consumers want to see in you personally; or your brand to ensure they decide to direct their attention and revenues at your business.

The toughest part of solving this equation is; within business there are multiple influencers on this attribute, a single individual may portray it, but a business has many touchpoints and each contact must reinforce it.

When you have acted correctly and put all the correct measures in place throughout your organisation to promote this attribute; the opinions still remain personal to the consumer or client, you can’t demand they buy from you,  you need to demonstrate why they should consider buying from you.

Now, more than ever, successful businesses need to focus on their own behaviours to demonstrate this attribute, as they are reliant on every individual within their structure to demonstrate it through their actions, their thoughts and their behaviours.

Thompsons site managers have developed into pastoral roles, many of our site staff are going out of their way early in the morning to ensure all site staff get to work safely so they don’t have to share compact vehicles.

As consumers venture outdoors post lockdown, they need to feel safe, all businesses are seeking the key ingredient to attract the limited spend available; consumers at all levels will focus their attentions only on businesses that they TRUST.

Trust is the key attribute in all of our decision making, clients and consumers will be more sensitive to this attribute as they decide where to dine, where to socialise, where they work, where they travel and the companies they choose to work for or place orders with.

Opinions have already been formed in most instances, how were your employees treated as they entered lockdown? Have you visibly been doing the right things throughout the period, will you do the right things when they return, have you displayed trust and did you deliver?

I hope the perception of Thompsons is positive, even though the business has had many people on furlough they have endeavoured to do the right things and not profiteer from the pandemic, reaching out to clients to ensure they are safe and well rather than chase debts, remote site health checks for staff, communicating regularly with the entire workforce through blogs and fortnightly Q&As. Yes, there have been some minor blips but overall, the passion to do the right things has been at the forefront of the decision-making process.

For businesses that are about to re-open, there is still time to influence trust enablers, will consumers feel safe in your environment, have you considered all possible clash points of business function, have you treated your returning employees well, do they feel safe and have they got clarity on their behaviours when the doors open?

Some measures such as sneeze screens are a quick useful fix; but do your staff adhere to the guidelines when they are not behind the screens? Are they correctly inducted on how to engage with the public and do they care about your brand enough to perform their roles in an extraordinary way to build further visual trust measures?

Trust is a multi-layered component that needs all influencers to collaborate, but often it is just the simple basics of reliability and endeavour which clinch the deal.

I have seen many negative examples over the past few months but I would rather focus on a few positive examples;

Admiral, within the insurance world, have issued rebates on car policies as fewer cars are on the road and usage is down, they didn’t need to do this, but they now stand out as a provider that you can trust to do the right thing and I hope they will benefit from success in the future as a result of this.

My personal experiences over the past months go back to the birth of Albie, firstly as an automatic behaviour I trusted in the NHS to do all the right things for my family during his delivery and as always, they stepped up to the plate.

The second example I didn’t expect; I tried to get supplies for my daughter in a number of the large supermarkets but they were packed, although they were doing the right things I needed a bit more space as an inexperienced shopper navigating isles multiple times; I was a mobile chicane for everyone.

I went to one of the smaller stores and was greeted by 2m queuing outside,, which was re-assuring, sanitisation as I entered and clear isles to allow me to source items I didn’t have a clue where they were stocked, coconut milk being one example that baffled me, I never did find chipotle paste!

All pretty standard so far, I felt a bit guilty at the amount in my shopping trolley, as I approached the tills I felt the need to declare I was shopping for 2 families due to the arrival of my grandson, the lady on the check out was really interested and I quickly whipped out my phone to show her pictures of my new grandson.

After a few minutes of scanning she called a supervisor as I was packing, after I paid, I was presented with a bottle of bubbly free of charge to celebrate the birth of Albie.

A small gesture with amazing timing, which reinforced care throughout their organisation, they now have my trust and my custom for the future.

Every individual, in every organisation matters, if they don’t care, your brand wont be able to build trust through words alone, one slip at any touchpoint could be the end of your brand reputation, instil trust in all of your behaviours, care about your people and build visual measures that clients and consumers can trust.