The world is practically reeling under the lethal Coronavirus that has already claimed more than a thousand lives besides making several thousand falls sick. More than the death and health hazard, the scare it caused to the people around the world and the helplessness it caused to the medical experts and public healthcare systems, are more impactful than the diseases themselves. Apart from quarantining people in secluded facilities and taking disinfecting measures across public places, the healthcare establishments couldn’t do much to stop the spreading of the disease.
Naturally, in many severely affected countries as well as the ones having a moderate outbreak of the epidemic, the people are being advised to avoid public gathering and regular whereabouts outside of their home. For many people, now working from home no longer remains a lifestyle attribute common to some fortunate IT workers. It has now become a reality for many white-collar jobholders. People are forced to work from home whether they like it or not, whether they are used to it or not.
In such a situation when people cannot step out of the door for buying groceries or medicines or other essentials, on-demand app solutions can play a very essential role. Already in many countries around the world where even the outbreak had a moderate impact as of now, people stopped visiting markets and restaurants. Well, it seems on-demands apps with their smooth delivery system can fulfil people’s needs at such trying times.
Basically 3 types of on-demand apps will experience the highest demand. These are respectively, on-demand grocery apps, on-demand laundry apps, and on-demand food delivery apps. Since people are now locked in their homes and they no longer can go to local shops, malls, laundries, and restaurants, these apps can allow them to fulfill their needs.
But since every human contact is now being viewed with extra caution and there is a persistent fear factor associated with the delivery people coming into contact with the subscribers, on-demand apps and the businesses have to take these factors seriously and address them accordingly. If you want to hire mobile app developer for building on-demand apps in the time of the flu epidemic, consider the following things listed below.
Couriers Without Body Contact
During any virus outbreak, coming into direct body contact seems to be the biggest risk factor. This is why any on-demand app should be prepared with a no-contact courier. Such a courier process makes sure that the delivery person doesn’t have any contact with the goods they deliver. This ensures that even if the delivery person is infected or has come into contact with another infected person, the disease may not spread when he delivers the items at people’s doorsteps.
Make a Meticulous Plan to Meet Demand
Panic buying is a phenomenon already experienced by many countries that are severely affected by the Coronavirus outbreak. People have emptied the entire stock of paper rolls, hand sanitizers, soaps, and numerous items that they require on a regular basis. Even on-demand apps can experience such panic buying from users and hence they need to be prepared with the stock.
Moreover, they need to make the stock of goods available where the demands of certain items are likely to be maximum. For example, in all countries where Coronavirus cases are on the rise, hand sanitizers, hand soaps, and tissue alerts will experience high demand.
Spreading Awareness
For an on-demand app, the responsibility also lies in spreading awareness about the disease and how the spreading of the virus can be successfully prevented through a host of effective measures. Spreading awareness is also important to prevent people from panicking and orienting people with health hazards and other scientific aspects of the disease. Wherever people are panicked to even come into contact with the on-demand delivery person, spreading awareness can be an important remedy. By spreading awareness and giving people the right health advice you also create values for your target audience and boost your brand presence.
Utilize the Power of AI for Efficient Supply Chain
Doing business through an on-demand app during a virus outbreak has some additional challenges such as understanding the people’s mindset. As everybody is going to behave in a panic-stricken or suspicious manner to strangers during such an epidemic outbreak, your app needs to take this changing mindset into consideration. Understanding the customer mindset and user behavior is crucial for making the right business decisions. This is where the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) proves to be important.
Since the demand for products can be very hectic at such times and considering the regular business situation you often have no clue about the reasons behind the upsurge or downturn in demand, an AI algorithm by taking into consideration different factors along with demographic and health data can deliver most relevant insights to help you predict the demands and make products available accordingly in those areas.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can easily be the parts of an on-demand app solution during a virus outbreak as they can personalize the product recommendations based on the geographic location, needs, and product specifications of the users. Moreover, it constantly helps update the recommendations based on the change in the people’s mindset or medical condition. Such hi-tech measures will help with improved demand forecasts resulting in better business output. Thanks to the AI-based inputs on-demand businesses can make their stocks and inventories prepared to meet the increased demand.
Moreover, AI-based on-demand apps can also make business recommendations regarding the purchase of new products and inventories as and when required. As per the emerging business revenue needs, AI-based apps can prepare themselves with the right solution.
Conclusion
As the World Health Organisation (WHO) already announced Coronavirus as a global pandemic, the demand for on-demand services for emergency supplies will continue to increase. On-demand apps in this season will experience higher demand than ever before.