The COVID-19 crisis has impacted the small business world in ways no one ever could have expected. It’s crucial to stay agile with the business strategies and to stay well-linked to your customers while facing the COVID-19 shutdown. This will keep your proverbial doors open even after the crisis passes.
The advantages can be short-term and long-term, and it can help your business maintain a steady graph of income. For that, you have to keep your customers joyous and highly engaged with your brand.
Everything is not going to happen b its own, and if you really want your business to sustain and thrive, then your smartness as a business owner needs to be at the peak! You need to generate quick and impactful ideas, and that’s something challenging!
No worries, we’ll help you in cementing your relations with your customers, and our tricks will 100% help you out!
We’d request you don’t just read this post, but do make a “To-do” list right after. Besides that, if you become lethargic in implementing strategies, your rival will easily dominate you!
Better don’t let that happen, and let’s take the right actions now!
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Maintain a Strong Connection with Customers During Shutdowns
Especially during such a ruthless, disturbing, stressful time; it’s crucial for clients to feel that assistance is being provided even after methodology being shifted. Despite social distancing, you can still maintain connectivity through social media.
It’s true that with all of us stuck in our homes, the amount of time invested in social media has increased insanely. Hence, it’s a golden opportunity for your company to capitalize and broaden its reach. Take advantage of social media and maintain brotherhood with clients through opening discussions and sharing experiences.
Crucial inclusions:
We know that your business isn’t open to receiving clientele, if you customers with entertaining and valuable content, it will whet their hunger for when your business’ doors do finally reopen. Looking for some content ideas? You can include any of the following:
- Share relaxation techniques, wellness tips, or product/service recommendations in case you’re selling online.
- Suggest thematic activities that your clients’ families can enjoy together.
- Ask questions or create highly engaging polls for your customers.
- Post answers to frequently asked questions and offer expert advice besides discussing the same if needed.
- Share links to free resources.
- Create weekly live videos, such as “Fun Fact Friday” or “Hot Tip Tuesday,” or convert FAQs into informative videos that can highly engage.
Several business owners are already dominating their podcast and blog games. However, it’s crucial to recreate some content reflecting the ongoing situation—coping with COVID-19.
Provide content that, in some way or the other, helps your customers to stay safe and enhance their day-to-day lives, especially since several individuals are feeling hungry for relevant and fresh information.
Besides staying linked through your social media platforms, invest time and effort in your blog or podcast, and share what safety measures your business is going to undertake currently and in the near future.
Focus on your expertise and provide ideas on enhancing home life. This may include DIY treatments or tutorials, how-to guides on services and techniques, creating a meditation space, etc.
You can even get down form your lane and share something that isn’t actually linked anyway to your business but is very interesting.
Develop a Local Connection
All major businesses of the world have developed by firstly performing this step!
Building upon connections with your local community is crucial during both the good and challenging times, but strengthening these relationships is a hundred times more essential now.
Providing assistance to the vulnerable within your community highly helps in boosting the morale of those seeking help, but also provides a meaningful and substantial network and support for your business.
If you aren’t a member of any at-risk community, you may look forward to volunteer on behalf of your business. Dig down social media and seek out local support groups or start a group for those who need you. Focus on local priorities and discover who is in need and what’s lacking within your community.
You can solidify your local business within social channels, with the active support of them. Try offering free advice in your fields of expertise, or find a personal niche concerning n how to contribute, no matter if it’s not exactly themed with your business. Everything that comes under help is positive, and this will highly help in developing a client base in the future!
Anticipate Changing Needs as per the Circumstances
Developing the correct message and foreseeing the requirement of customers can be tough, mostly when faced with an ultra-fast shifting situation. Always act according to the flow. Simultaneously, be empathetic and attentive as you anticipate the needs and wishes of your clientele. It’s crucial to not just be reactive but also highly proactive to your customer behavior and sentiment.
Before COVID-19 arrives, a few consumers may have consolidated a deep relationship with a certain company’s brand, while some others may have grown trust issues. As per their reactions, businesses can utilize the current opportunity to rise to the chance and strengthen strong relationships or targets to repair damaged trust. We’re providing a few tips to monitor the pulse of your market:
- When issues or mistakes take place, face the problem head-on, and alert your customers. Don’t skip offering apologies. Include a refund of a discount if needed.
- Offer video chat or live chat for real-time support or assistance to prevent your customers from feeling neglected.
- Respond to honesty and avoid providing short-term solutions that harm customer loyalty and trust.
- Use social media and monitor all customer health concerns or required discussions that are relevant to your business.
- Be proactive and request your customers for feedback about issues or weaknesses.
Highly focus on supportive of their issues and being customer-centric during and after this crisis, rather than just considering the current solutions.
Uncover and Invent Long-Term Opportunities
You need to be highly tactical in surviving this crisis, as the crisis has done businesses to think on their feet. If you’re able to invent perfect long-term opportunities, then certainly you can ensure long survival.
Fires are cropping up daily, and we’re majorly supposed to make changes to our business planning accordingly, and regularly, you might be considering less about the future. However, you can’t be criticized if you’re working as per the conditions, but if you’re able to pull out some time for the long-term planning, then it’s gonna be the cherry on the cake!
You can learn to invest time in learning new skills or new language to develop a whole new client base after lockdown. Besides that, you can also enroll employees in online courses and broaden potential services offered. You can call some deep discussion sessions with your employees or colleagues regarding how to proactively create a robust plan to discover opportunities in the near future.
Besides that, you need to be sharp at understanding consumer consumption patterns and shifting to develop new income streams to meet those changes. Connect to people at home, and be imaginative and creative!
You can list down everything that comes to your mind. Narrow down those ideas to solutions that resolve issues, not just what the customers are facing currently, but also what issues are expected to be faced by them in the upcoming time.
Look Towards the Future
Considering the near future is crucial for each and every business right now. Imagining what’s to come is challenging for all of us, but we can at least lay some solid groundwork in anticipation of situations getting normal.
If your customers have has canceled appointments or reservations, offer options on re-booking. Get your email list of customers ready, whom you can contact after the situation getting back to normal. Add some value, provide discounts and perks for re-booking, as that can highly work to make them rejoin you/your service.
Offer discounts on vouchers, bundles, prepayments, or gift certificates for future services. We’d recommend you to be careful to offer just what can be honored down the road, and avoid being extravagant.
List down your customers who frequently share your updates or social media posts. You can manually track these shares and even invest in tools for measuring social media engagement besides offering free merchandise or discounts and motivate involvement.
If there are any activities that were postponed because of this crisis, just transform them into a pre-order occasion for customers.
Despite the unknown right ahead before us, focus on being adaptive in business, marketing, and career paths is crucial. Given these points, investing huge effort into coming out on the opposite side of COVID-19 with growth and flexibility will put your business ahead with a necessary advantage.
You need to keep a tight grip over your client base, and for that, you need to be very active. Just a few right steps and your business go-cart will never go down of the track!
It’s the customers who can make or break any business. Hence, it’s compulsory to look after their needs, comfort, satisfaction, etc. If you’ve got something out of the box that can help in customer retention, then do share with us down there!
