Covid-19 pandemic raises digital expectations

According to the core results of a survey conducted by workflow experts ServiceNow and Civey, more than a year after the Covid 19 pandemic, Germany’s expectations for digital products have risen significantly. The online shopping experience and seamless and simple processes are used as a benchmark for digital services such as citizen services.

Companies have something to do, because the lack of a positive customer and employee experience can sometimes inhibit people’s acceptance of pandemic-driven digital services (such as home education and home office).

Detlef Krause, Vice President of the Europe, Middle East and Africa Center and General Manager of ServiceNow Germany: “During the pandemic, people experienced first-hand everything digital can provide them. For a long time, integrated and smooth services have been convincing in online retail. -Complete everything in one click.

At the latest, all other benefits must be measured, whether it is about civic services, mobile or mixed work, in-company service benefits, or the current extremely low-rated family education.

Companies must meet the expectations of employees and customers for the concept of mixed work and provide a seamless experience to increase acceptance and treat 21st century companies fairly. “

The pandemic is setting new standards
Companies must now adapt to a mixed work environment at the latest. During the Covid-19 pandemic, customers and employees learned about the possibilities of many new technologies. You can now expect the smooth flow and high flexibility you get from popular online shopping, for example, in other areas of life.

Therefore, it is not surprising that 60% of Germans have increased expectations for digital services during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 18-29 age group and families with children are particularly demanding. Only 20% of respondents were clearly numerically disappointed by the reality check of digital discounts related to the pandemic. The vast majority of people have clear ideas about how digital services should work and the user experience that can be expected.

Home office: greater potential
The attractiveness and acceptance of the service depends on the experience it provides. In some cases, the expectations of the digital process cannot be met. When asked about their usage behavior in the Covid-19 economy, respondents clearly prefer digitally complex online shopping (52.4%) to newer models such as home office (24.2%).

The acceptance of homeschooling lags far behind 4.8%, which may be due to insufficient equipment and lack of digital processes and concepts.

Digital citizenship service: does not work, does not exist
The Covid-19 vaccination campaign brings many citizens closer to the possibilities and advantages of digital citizen services, and can be an example of the use of other digital services. On average, one-third (35.6%) of people want to use digital citizenship services in the future. However, there are also big differences here by age group.

Young people have persuaded them: 80.2% of students hope to use digital citizenship services more frequently in the future. The trainee is 60%. This is also a clear motivation for cities and municipalities to further improve their offerings to be particularly attractive to the younger generation.

When asked about personal services for citizens, about 67% of the respondents answered that they would like to digitally apply for ID card, vehicle registration, residence or passport registration or re-registration in the future. The leader here is the ID card application. 80% of students hope to complete this work digitally in the future. For people aged 30 to 39, this proportion even reaches 88.9%.

Mixed daily life without friction loss
Daily life is a comprehensive and smooth mixing process-these are the Germans’ current expectations of companies and organizations in the private and public sectors.

“From home office or home school, to online shopping, to digital citizenship services, Germans want to adopt a hybrid approach and be able to flexibly decide whether to take advantage of online and offline offers-all without friction,” Freer explained road.

“Future work is no longer limited to specific locations, as we have been told in the past few months. Unconnected teams, silos, and manual processes are a thing of the past. We are in the midst of a workflow revolution that pave the way for a hybrid world .”

investigation method
The survey was conducted by Civey on behalf of ServiceNow in April 2021. More than 2,500 people from Germany 18 years and older participated in the survey.