{"id":43619,"date":"2020-12-22T09:46:37","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T17:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=43619"},"modified":"2021-10-19T09:28:43","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T16:28:43","slug":"a-year-of-change-10-salesforce-research-stats-to-sum-up-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/a-year-of-change-10-salesforce-research-stats-to-sum-up-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"A Year of Change: 10 Salesforce Research Stats To Sum Up 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This year brought many twists and turns, upending the way we live, work, and shop, and the implications for businesses across sectors and geographies were, and continue to be, massive. Salesforce Research<\/a>, a team dedicated to investigating and reporting on the latest trends impacting the relationships between businesses and their customers, doubled down on its mission this year. The team surveyed nearly 80,000 consumers, business buyers, and decision makers across the globe \u2014 more than twice as many as it did last year<\/a> \u2014 to understand how the pandemic is reshaping customer behavior and how businesses are responding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the top 10 data points we collected that encapsulate the impacts of 2020 on customer engagement, digital transformation, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

60% of customer interactions now take place online<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The shift to digital-first customer engagement was well underway before<\/a> the onset of COVID-19, but the global pandemic has accelerated this fundamental pivot as people across the globe spent less time in stores and more time in front of their screens. This summer, global consumers and business buyers surveyed for our annual State of the Connected Customer<\/a> reported that six in ten of their interactions with companies were digital, compared to 42% in 2019, with no anticipated dip in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A separate<\/a> study conducted earlier in the summer found significant portions of the population spending increased time browsing the internet (54%), using social media (45%), and watching streaming videos (45%), offering a clue of both the established and emerging channels where this digital engagement took place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

68% of consumers expect to buy essential goods online after COVID-19<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s no secret that 2020 was a banner year for ecommerce. In fact, Salesforce\u2019s Q2 Shopping Index<\/a>, based on an analysis of more than one billion shoppers on Commerce Cloud, saw a 71% year-over-year surge in digital sales revenue. But as shelter in place orders proliferated and social distancing practices became the norm, the types of items sought by online shoppers evolved, too. For example, our Shopping Index found<\/a> that digital spend on essential goods such as food, personal items, and other grocery store staples rose 154%.<\/p>\n\n\n

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