© Priya Narayanan, Assistant Professor of Marketing, IIM Kozhikode. Views are personal.

Teaching in a virtual classroom over the past few months has made me think about how the thoughts and actions of digital customers are different from what marketers have traditionally thought of as customer behavior. The pandemic has accelerated the change by getting people to engage in activities that they carried out either infrequently or probably never, be it online shopping, online banking, working at home, or even using a laptop. This article is an attempt to examine how today’s digital customer differs from the traditional customer, and the implications that this holds for businesses. The views presented here are based on my observations and do not claim to be comprehensive.

First, the digital customer is often, but not always, characterized by behaviors that digital technology allows for. The most common behavior is that of easy switching between activities, which was first evident when the television remote came into the market. Switching occurs because consumers want variety, can easily move between windows, and there are lots of activities competing for their attention – motivation, ability, and opportunity, as consumer research would call it.