By now, you’ve heard all about the Coronavirus. Now officially a pandemic and the main, even sole story on every news bulletin across the globe.
Businesses large and small are having to make huge adjustments to try to continue under the circumstances, which is why we’ve put together the following advice to try to aid any business looking to come through the current global situation intact.
It’s vital, you stick to the advice of medical professionals and your governing bodies but the following will show you ways to minimize the impact on your revenue whilst keeping everybody as safe as possible.
The first thing you need is to fully understand which aspects of your business will be most affected. A lot of countries will go into lockdown, restricting people’s movement and many of your staff and customers will be told to self-isolate for periods ranging from 14 to 30 days. How does this affect the products or services you offer?
It’s important that you have this worked out as soon as possible and have thought of ways to minimize issues and maximize opportunities that may occur.
Can you deliver your product or offer your service remotely? Do your staff need to be in a specific location or in direct contact with customers? Find ways to make sure your business can run as normal at this unusual time.
Thanks to modern technology, remote working has never been more accessible. Almost every business across any industry can have large portions of its staff working from home. Allowing employees to self-isolate and continue working. This is great for them as they don’t have to worry about taking sick or losing income and great for your business as it still has the man-power to keep operating. However, it’s not without its challenges, especially for those businesses that haven’t employed the remote working model before.
For those that are new to having remote workers, here are three key things that you’ll need to have in place to keep on top of everything.
There are hundreds out there but Microsoft, Google, and Slack offer some of the best out there. Trello and Notion also deserve an honorable mention.
Project Management Systems allow you to invite team members to a shared workspace, where tasks can be created and progress shared. Documents can be viewed and amended by everyone meaning everyone is constantly in the loop.
This is twofold. First, you need to ensure that just because your staff is working remotely, your customer service isn’t suffering. This can be done using a tool like timetoreply – an email analytic and response time measurement system. Ensuring your customers (or potential customers) are still getting a fast and efficient response.
Second, you need to ensure you’re communicating with your staff and staff amongst themselves. In the absence of a meeting room, set up multi-way video calls through software like Zoom or Google Hangouts.
VPN In the case where your business has a shared drive full of necessary-for-work assets, a Virtual Private Network will enable your staff to log onto the businesses network through their own. This is done securely and with the use of digital security to ensure your data remains safe.
At an uncertain time like the one we’re currently facing, businesses that shed the most light on the situation are the ones that will come out on top. Earning consumer trust and therefore loyalty.
Nobody wants to be in the dark and the current spread of misinformation and general complete uncertainty is what’s leading to economic issues and panicked consumers. One way to combat this is to keep communication with your customers a top priority.
What is your business doing? How will that affect them? Now is the time to reassure customers that they’re still important. Create email campaigns explaining the situation and your business’s reaction to it and keep them feeling like an integral part of the situation – which they are.
Again, a tool like timetoreply can help with this. It’s likely your business will be fielding more questions than usual, make sure they’re receiving responses in a timely manner!
If you’re used to selling from a bricks and mortar store, showroom or even at events. Then now is a good time to think about how you could take this process online.
During lockdown or self-isolation customers can’t come to you but you can go to them via an online channel.
Online lead generation can take many forms, from setting up a conversion dedicated web page to social media or email campaigns. Think about upping your online advertising game.
When the leads do roll in, ensure you monitor campaign performance by keeping an eye on your website and email analytics and not letting any potential leads slip through the net.
Having unpredictable external factors affecting your business can be concerning and frustrating. Especially in the case where we don’t yet know what the full impact will end up being.
But, this doesn’t mean everything is doom and gloom for your business, as this article demonstrates; there are ways to continue functioning and give yourself the best chance of thriving at a difficult time. Setting yourself up well for the inevitable economic recovery that will follow.
Is supporting your newly remote teams’ productivity a concern for you? Try timetoreply’s email reply time tracking and analytics tool. No software to install, no change in workflow for your staff.
Just the insights you need to make sure you’re keeping your key customers happy and your team connected.
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