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Department of customer relations has always been an important function of every company. The reason for this is that the department is the face of that company for their customers. Thus, attributes such as good relations with customers, being accessible, and having proactive approaches have always been invaluable assets of this department. I am one of the faces of Arikan Automotive that our customers are familiar with. As the type of our chain is B2B, our customers are automotive manufacturers (OEMs).

In this role, aforementioned attributes such as being proactive and being accessible have always been at utmost importance for us. Until recently we believed face-to-face communication is the most efficient of all and thus took the first flight available when there is an important issue to be discussed. If we were travelling to have a heated discussion, we brought a box of Turkish Delights to break the ice by translating the Turkish proverb “Eat sweet and talk sweet”. We had our relationships with our customers in such a good moderation that we were fiercely disproving each other’s thesis in the beginning of a meeting and trying to find a name for their baby on the way in the end of that same meeting. These business trips have always been more than just a business trip with a window opening to a whole new culture for both sides.

And then, there came a time when everything changed. And not just in our position - in every sector, in every department of every business certain things had to evolve in the past year. The year has passed but it has not: Covid-19…

For many of us the word “pandemic” was just a word learned at school as the larger version of an epidemic. During the past year, we had to learn everything about this word by living it, with all the things it brought and took from us. It changed almost every “normal” we had in our lives. We were introduced with new terms such as working from home along with many new habits, sayings, and concepts.

One of the most frequently used “news” in that sense was most definitely applications such as Zoom, Teams, Skype and Meet which we use to bring us closer when we are physically far away.

It is always difficult to break an old habit. Especially decades-old ones. We had to change the way of our business meetings from opening them by shaking hands in a meeting room halfway round the world to just clicking on “start meeting” button while sitting in our living rooms. Businesspeople were split into two groups; there were the ones who easily accepted this change and adjusted it in accordance with their routines and there were the ones missing the good old face-to-face communication and being reluctant to let go of their habits.

But today, after a year has passed since we were locked down in our homes, we made use of one of our best competences as humankind since the dawn of time - we adapted to this new normal.

Of course, there are some of us attending online meetings with an elegant shirt combined with PJs at the bottom, because why shouldn’t there be? :) Creativity does not always manifest when creating something from scratch, it can be seen while blending the new with the existing. If the ultimate goal is to safeguard our agenda and our relationships despite the thousands of kilometers in between, these kinds of creative touches are what we used to increase our comfort during the process of reaching that goal. And they are now delightful topics of the social media content of that time of our lives.

I do not know if we will ever be able to get back to “normal”. This is still a topic of discussion for many. There are ones who see business trips as a thing of the past, and there are ones who develop “hybrid” models that fit to their business dynamics. I do not know what this new world order has in its sleeves for us. But I do know this: there are billions of people around the globe -including myself- who love what they do, and I am sure we will be ready for any “new normal” life will throw at us with a few creative solutions we keep in our pockets.