How are Your Services Impacted?
First and foremost, you need to sit down with your team to determine how your services are
impacted. Can you still do business? How are you going to do that now? Do you need to put
new processes or software in place to keep serving your customers?
Whatever your respective plan of action is following this meeting, be sure to document
everything and make it easily available for the entire team. You might push this through
e-mail or post it on your intranet if you have one. Just be sure the team always has the
most current version of the document when they need it.
Also, be sure to communicate that this is a “working document.” Everything is subject to
change. None of us know what’s going to happen next, and you might even find that some of
your processes may require improvements.
Update Your Website
Now that you and your team know how your own business is impacted and what that means to
you. It’s time to figure out how your customers are impacted. Put together a
customer-friendly version of the action plan that you just drafted.
The best way to communicate this message is to put it on your website. It’s best and
important enough for this message to have its own page on your website. The example below
might be how the URL may look for you. This makes it easy for you, your team, your
customers, and search engines to all know, remember, and communicate/share this message with
others. Keep the URL short and self-explanatory.
https://example.com/corvid19
Ours is: https://upendoventures.com/corvid19
Be sure to start this page with some sort of message that communicates to customers and
prospects that this is also a “working document.” They should return to this page for any
updates related to any potential changes in service.
Place a Banner Message on the Homepage
You’ve already checked off two of the most important checkboxes in this process. Now that
you have a dedicated page on your website to communicate, make it easy for your visitors to
find it. Most people coming to your website won’t know to look for your CORVID-19 message.
Place some sort of banner prominently on your homepage that links to this message. It may
even be an unobtrusive pop-up, similar to a newsletter pop-up you might have had or
interacted with before.
Tell Your Customers & Prospects
Your existing customers and prospects have a lot going on right now. They’re all doing their
own version of this entire thing with their own company and loved ones. They aren’t
necessarily thinking about proactive looking for how your business is reacting to this
health crisis.
Prepare and send a newsletter to your subscriber list. If
you’re on any social media
channels, push this message through those channels as well. It’s okay to do it a few times.
Not everyone will see it the first time.
Depending on your business, you may even consider doing a
webinar to have an open Q&A session
with your customers.
If you’re using a CRM, have your sales team communicate this
message directly. This is an
important reason to have another touchpoint with your prospects.
If you have a brick and mortar location, post a sign with at
least some of the message and
the URL.
If you have claimed your business on websites like Google
Business and Yelp – update your
listings, as necessary.
Educate Your Team on Working Remote
Finally, you and your team may find yourselves working from home more and more right now. You
probably have heard all different forms of people that talk about how working remotely is or
is not a productivity impediment for various types of workers. This is why we previously
wrote about and posted a video on how you and your team can be more productive while
working
from home.
Take this time to educate your team on your expectations and processes that your company has
to ensure that everything continues to run smoothly.
Depending on the size of your team or company, you may want to consider a daily or weekly
on-camera meeting to keep everyone communicating in as much of an in-person manner as
possible.
In Closing...
Please be safe. Take care of yourselves, your teams, and your loved ones. There’s no doubt
that we’ll get through this and we’re going to be better and stronger on the other side.
We hope this article has helped you in some way. Please continue to spread the Upendo with
those around you!