The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way we work and live, and in this widespread public health crisis, we must do our best to adapt to these many changes and adopt further preventive measures to ensure that everyone around us is safe and sound. The pandemic has completely upended many lives, but businesses large or small can do things that will help their employees, customers and their community until this challenging time passes.
Establish a Flexible Work Arrangement
With COVID-19 spreading rapidly, business owners should prioritise their employees and customers’ health. Allowing employees to work remotely or implementing a flexible work arrangement is one of the best ways to prevent human-to-human transmission.
The outbreak should not stop businesses from delivering top quality service for their clients. There are tools and apps business owners can utilise so team members can stay in touch and complete their deliverables. Reduce meetings and travel to keep the exposure to the virus to a minimum. Communication between and among teams and clients can be conducted via phone and video conferencing.
Be Informed & Inform
Business owners should still work hard to maintain good relationships with their customers. Communicate with customers appropriately. Share the steps you’re taking to mitigate risk and let them know the steps your business is bringing in helping the community.
Even as COVID-19 is spreading, you can still use your respective GMB profiles to disseminate information about your business and what you’re doing to prevent illness from going around your community. Here are some tips to help you use your profiles to effectively communicate with your customers during this time:
- Use your GMB Profile to inform your customers how your business is treating employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 or have resorted to home quarantine.
- Talk about the steps you’re taking in order to control the virus from spreading around your company and keeping both customers and employees safe. This may include employing a skeletal force, reducing operating hours or keeping only select locations open while temporarily closing others until further notice. You may adjust your GMB Profiles accordingly.
- Use the Q&A section of your GMB Profiles to provide more information about your operations. Invite users to ask questions regarding your business’ status – answer relevant questions honestly. Important update: As of March 21, Google My Business has put a hold on some of its features, including Q&A due to the COVID-19 situation. You can read more about it here.
- If you’re a store packing in the essentials, it’s best to inform your customers whether or not you have stocks of medical supplies, food and beverage products and other items and when you’ll be stocking missing products.
- Create Google Posts that can be linked to reliable online sources for updates regarding the products or services you offer. This is especially important for medicines and other essential goods.
Customers who see that businesses are treating all their stakeholders well may more than likely remember them and trust them more, even after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Take Precaution
It is possible that your business is feeling the effects of the measures mandated by the Australian government – perhaps you’ve moved to reducing operating hours or employing a skeletal workforce while others can work from home. This is not the time to panic, but take heed of the following precautions:
- Make sure that you have enough disinfectants, such as alcohol and hand soap in your toilets, within your establishments. It is crucial that we all practice public hygiene, more so that ever.
- Practice social distancing – if your store is open and allows customers to enter, you may limit the number of people queueing to prevent the spread of the disease.
- Encourage your staff to stay at home, or if they’re already sick, have them go to the hospital and be tested for COVID-19. If they do not feel the symptoms but are otherwise under the weather, you may tell them to seek medical attention immediately.
- Discourage your older employees from going outside as much as possible.
Empowering Businesses, Continued
We at DigitalMaas are still working hard to provide excellent digital marketing strategies to maintain good relationships with our partners and their customers.
Our creative team at DigitalMaas will continue to share blog articles to inform our clients on how to maintain excellent relationships with their customers. Through our DigitalMaas platform, business owners can manage their GMB profiles effectively. Get access to the leading digital marketing platform for free.
DigitalMaas will continue to support their clients even as COVID-19 is challenging the way we work. COVID-19 will not stop us from delivering top quality service for our clients. Operations continue to improve our digital marketing platform, provide customer service and work on any of the campaigns we have started. Events we have planned may be cancelled or postponed but we won’t put a halt to serving you.
Clients who would want to contact us may do so by going to our website and accessing our help chat or emailing us at support@digitalmaas.com. Our Customer Support Team are available to address your concerns during business hours.
