Coronavirus is impacting many businesses, employees, and customers adversely and it’s unclear the duration or level of impact at this point. Almost every industry and vertical is affected, even our business. What we do best is help businesses, so with this article, I hope that we can help a few businesses in how they handle their customer/client communication during this time.
Should I tell my customer and clients?
Yes, customers and clients rely on your business for their lives and/or businesses. That means they should know what your business’ current situation is on your operational hours, employees, adjustments due to shutdowns, and ways you’re helping during this time(even if your way to help is by closing down to limit exposure of your staff and customers to others).
What should I tell my customers and/or clients?
If your business has to slow down or shut down because of health concerns, does this affect your customers/clients? If so, regular communication about the status or capacity of your business is essential. Our team is working from home for the foreseeable future, but we are 100% operational through our team and partners/vendors at this time.
What if my business needs to temporarily close?
Temporarily closing is not a great situation for any businesses, let alone those that require customers visiting their location to generate revenue. This is where it is important to both communicate this to your customers/clients in all mediums available(social media, email, even calling directly to those you have contact information). Your business has customers and clients that communicate with your staff and they are probably concerned for your business and the people they work with. Hopefully no one in your staff has become ill with Coronavirus, and if they have not, then it is important to communicate this.
Communicate the precautions you are taking in your business so your customer base knows that you are making the efforts to assure the health of your staff.
How to make the most of a bad situation?
Obviously there is a massive economic impact of the current health pandemic and a lot of this is out of any of our control. So how do we, as business owners, make the most of a bad situation?
- How can you help?
- Think about what your business offers and how you can offer assistance or help through what you offer. I’ve seen a lot of gyms offering online classes through live steaming or ways to exercise at home without a gym or equipment. As a marketing company, we’re looking at ways to help businesses communicate their situations and communicate ways they can help at this time. I’m offering as much free advice and assistance as possible in strategy, operations, and running ads to distribute messaging. We should all be looking at how we can help each other with our skill sets that we use daily to run our businesses.
- What can you offer?
- What does your business offer and how can you adjust your service/offering to keep some revenue coming in during a time of reduced sales? Local restaurants and retailers should consider selling gift cards to redeem via carryout or once the dine-in ban is lifted that help to pay the hourly staff. Gyms should consider reaching out customers/clients to offer sending workout routines and live-stream classes in exchange for not pausing their memberships. Consumer services should expand on content to distribute to help keep clients/customers informed on how they can help. Insurance services should do the same.
Let us know in the comments below what the impact has been to your business, what steps you’re taking to help, and any way that Flywheel and our team can help you or your business.
