There is a lot of information circulating on the coronavirus. This is not a replacement for that information. It is meant for our small community of clients and their top leaders. My hope is that we can share with you what we are learning from other businesses like yours, how they are responding, and what they are experiencing. Mass media is totally disconnected from the world of real small business owners, and little of the information they provide is helpful in making decisions.
With that in mind…
Over communicate:
This begins with our leadership team. All of us should be adjusting our priorities for this quarter and next. That means the execution will have to follow suite. And execution won’t happen without coordinated communication and effort on your team. This is no time to abandon your weekly operations meetings to put out fires.You should be doing just the opposite. Most clients are adding a separate mid-week meeting specifically for addressing issues related to coronavirus and new information that has become available since the last meeting.
EVERYONE in your company needs to know what the leadership team is doing in response. If you want them focused on the job at hand you need to reassure them that YOU are worrying about the details AND sweating the big picture. As long as they know you are on it they will be more at peace. A simple email blast detailing the latest of what you know and what you are doing will go a long way.
Empathize with customers:
If your business involves home visits rewrite call scripts to acknowledge customer’s anxiety, inform them of precautionary measures you have in place and ask if there is anything else you can do to put them at ease. Telling them they shouldn’t be worried is not an option. Meet them where they are. If you have elderly customers ask if there is anything you can do for them, pickup for them, bring to them on your way to a service call.
Prepare for months and hope for weeks:
The Continental European approach seems to be tending toward slowing the transmission rate to give the healthcare system as much time to work as possible. This probably won’t impact the total number of people who get the virus, but it will spread them out over a longer period of time. The UK’s approach seems to be more geared to weather a worse storm over a shorter period of time. It was unclear where the US was headed, but recent guidance from CDC recommending the cancellation of any event with 50 or more people for the next EIGHT WEEKS, the White House is recommending people avoid gatherings of ten or more people, and six San Fransisco area counties have mandated shelter in place.
Get as much done now as you possibly can. Production work should take precedence over administrative chores. There will be time to sweep the warehouse floor later.
Those of you in the service sector may have remote work options. We work remotely with almost all of our client teams and we can help you with systems and tools if you need it. In terms of meetings and communication visit axiomstrategic.com/tech for one such resource. At a bare minimum your leadership team should be setup to work outside the office.
We are seeing lots of great opportunities for businesses to serve employees during this time including :
Kids watching kids with high schoolers of some employees watching middle school and elementary kids of other employees while school is out.
Accepting donations from other employees who have excess staples (water, canned foods, toiletries) and stocking internal food banks to put employees minds at ease.
Remote work arrangements for employees who need to be with their older parents providing care and peace of mind.
Simply making the rounds and asking how employees are feeling and what we can do to relieve any anxiety they might be experiencing.
Other service opportunities we are seeing:
Assemble call lists of elderly customers with the anticipation that there will be slow times in coming weeks to reach out to them and perform periodic check-ins, if for no other reason than to give them someone to talk to.
Add an option to auto-attendants asking callers if there is anything else we can do to help them through this time, even if hit has nothing to do with our business.
Let us know what you are experiencing. It helps us paint a better, more complete picture for all of our clients. We will continue to send updates, ideas and insights as things develop. And call if you have questions or a specific situation you need to talk about before our next scheduled meeting.