If the recent past has taught us anything, commercial businesses must have a plan in place to continue operations throughout a crisis. The nature of the crisis can be a pandemic, natural disaster, or something on a smaller scale. Regardless of the type of crisis, you should know how to resume operations and ensure your employees can serve your customers safely and efficiently.
Create an Email List
You should assume it will be difficult to contact your customers to let them know how the crisis has affected your business. They will want to know if your business is still in operation, what changes have been made to the business, and whether or not you’re maintaining normal operating hours. By collecting customer email addresses at checkout, you’ll generate a list of contacts that you can mass email as needed. You can also send email newsletters that notify your customers about upcoming events, sales, and new products.
Don’t Try the Business as Usual Approach
While your business is suffering, you shouldn’t assume your customers aren’t also feeling the effects of the crisis. Ignoring the situation in your marketing materials can seem insensitive and can hurt your business. Instead, acknowledge the experiences of your customers. Showing genuine empathy towards your community will be appreciated, and you’ll find that consumers will be more open to supporting your business in return.
Communicate With Your Employees
You should create a disaster response plan for your business and regularly run through it with your employees. When there is a crisis, follow through with this plan and communicate with your employees throughout the recovery. Take an interest in how the crisis has impacted them. You should also seek their insight into how to keep the business operational throughout that difficult time.
You should also keep an eye on what other businesses are doing in response to any crisis that occurs. Your business may have to make similar changes, or you may have to adopt permanent changes that will help you better protect your customers from the devastation caused by similar future events. By thinking about the future in this way, you can keep your business operating through challenging times.