The Covid-19 pandemic is a fast-moving situation. It’s essential that as your plans evolve, you communicate the details to your clients, prospects, and colleagues. They need to know how your business will continue to operate over the coming weeks and months.
Once you’ve put your plans in place, we recommend taking these 5 critical steps:
Step 1: Email existing clients
Send an email explaining:
- - Whether your physical office is staying open or whether you will be working remotely.
- - How people can contact you.
- - Your plans for meetings. You may decide to postpone meetings or change to video/telephone meetings?
Naturally, all your communications should be reassuring; explaining that it’s business as usual, that you’re there for your clients and that they shouldn’t panic or hesitate to contact you.
Step 2: Update your website
We highly recommend that you add information to your website explaining how your business plans to deal with the disruption. A pop-up works well for crisis communication as it ensures that the message will be read by website visitors.
We also recommend that you write a blog detailing your working arrangements. Do remember to keep this updated as things change.
Step 3: Update your Google ‘My Business’ listing
Your Google ‘My Business’ listing is an ideal place to communicate any changes you’re making. Update your contact details and add a post explaining how you are planning to work. This update will disappear from the main listing after seven days, so remember to renew it.
Step 4: Update your email signatures
Your email signature is the perfect place to add a quick note explaining the action you’re taking. You can also include a link to the relevant blog on your website.
Step 5: Use social media to communicate these changes
Clients are spending an increasing amount of time on social media to keep up with the Covid-19 developments, so this is another great way to communicate your changes.
We recommend making several posts on each of your preferred social media platforms, linking to the blog you created in Step 2.