Many Rivers has 38 local business coaches throughout Australia. We asked them their top 10 tips to protect your business in uncertain times.
Contact your customers
Businesses, business communities, customers, communities, and families all have one thing in common. They are all made up of people.
In uncertain times people need to come together to support each other. You and your customers have a relationship and now’s the time to invest in staying connected.
Sustaining a relationship with your customers will help you sustain your business.
Keeping connected with your customers, communicating your current and future business situation and maintaining relationships is key for business protection during these uncertain times.
Ideas for operating businesses
If you are still operating you can contact your customers and;
- Let them know it’s business as usual, or business ‘unusual’ if you’ve had to make changes in any way.
- Reach out and ask your customers what you could do differently so you can continue to service them. They may have innovative and new ideas that you can implement and you may help them to solve a problem they’re experiencing.
Ideas for businesses on pause
If you have decided to pause your business you can contact your customers and:
- Tell them what’s happening, and how you plan to keep in contact with them to let them know your plans for reigniting the business.
- Develop a communication plan for keeping customers engaged. The goal here is to maintain business relationships for the future so that you stay firmly top of mind with your important customers.
Gordon Rowlings, Many Rivers business coach in Roma QLD suggests: “Be empathetic with your customers as they may want to support you but don’t have the financial capacity to do so.”
Staying connected
The types of activities you could do now to stay connected to your customers includes:
- Pick up the phone and call. Nothing beats a one on one conversation. It shows you care about your customer and you may very well help to solve a problem they’re experiencing right now. Therefore plan what you want to tell them and use the opportunity to ask questions and get feedback.
- Use social media (Facebook and Instagram). Communicate what’s going on in a thoughtful post with a photo. Follow up by sharing your behind the scenes self-isolation business activities. You can use this opportunity to educate your customers about your work through your social media stories and posts. Start by asking them to support you by liking, loving, commenting and sharing during the weeks or months ahead. Follow up with interesting content that adds value to your customers, such as ‘at home how to’ videos, sharing tips and tricks, or even providing entertainment while they’re in their own lock down situation. Giving away information and knowledge won’t stop customers from using your services in the future. Now’s the time for sharing and caring, and this will keep them engaged and coming back for more!
- Send email – send out email info newsletters or even surveys asking your customers for feedback and ideas. This is a great time to learn how to use email services such as Mail Chimp or SurveyMonkey to connect with your customers. Just be mindful that you don’t send too many emails and become spam (unwanted email). Make sure the communications you send out are providing real value to your customers.
- Try something new. Take things one step further in your communications and offer to video call customers through platforms such as Facetime, Skype or WhatsApp. We are all going to be missing human contact as self-isolation continues, so keep your communications genuine and helpful as opposed to a desperate hard sell. You may very well create long lasting connections and wonderful business advocates by going that step further.
Maintaining contact with your customers is important, even more so now in these uncertain times. If you are an existing Many Rivers client and have questions about maintaining contact with your customers, please get in touch with your business coach, they are here to help. You can click here to read a summary of the top tips to protect your business.
For new clients, Many Rivers is here to help people start small businesses and grow existing businesses. We are here to support you the whole way. Please take the Small Business Self Assessment and see if we are right for you.
