You have a clearly and compellingly positioned brand with highly engaged consumers. A recession comes. Nothing to worry about, right? Not exactly. According to John Quelch, Senior Associate Dean and Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, “You need to know more than ever how consumers are redefining value and responding to the recession... They are more willing to postpone purchases, trade down, or buy less. Must-have features of yesterday are today’s can-live-withouts.”

When the economic landscape has changed, you have to modify the story you tell. When times are tough, let the customer’s know you care. Find ways to add value by expanding your services. To do so effectively doesn’t require you to change your product, only to alter, improve, the experience for the end user.

Listen to your customers. Find out what they’re thinking, what’s keeping them up at night, what emotional needs they have. Stay true to your core brand position, but evaluate how the brand can remain relevant, or become more so. Then adapt your strategies to exceed consumers’ changing needs. Remember, if you give them what they ask for, you merely satisfy them. If you exceed their expectations, you will inspire them to come back. During a recession, exceeding expectations has even greater effects because consumers are expecting less, and chances are, the competition is giving them just that.

Currently in the travel tourism industry, consumers are speaking to us through their changing search patterns. The internet leisure travel search trend is toward all-inclusive vacation packages. Travelers are not necessarily spending less on vacations; they just want to know exactly what their expenses are before they embark. The economy has changed and so too has your consumer’s perspective. Simply knowing the upfront costs significantly changes the quality of the experience for the consumer. The set price provides security and a sense of control in our troubled economy.