Coronavirus Emergency: 3 ways SO Connect can help your business
Since COVID-19 has been officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, its disruptive impact has been felt severely across the global economy. The speed with which the outbreak has transformed daily life is virtually unprecedented. Companies try to operate under increasingly challenging conditions and making it to the other side will involve equal measures of communication, collaboration and creativity.
In Europe and the US, governments are imposing new restrictions to stop the spread of the virus and “flatten the curve.” But social distancing, working from home (WFH) and general uncertainty have already started to take a significant toll on economic activity. The outbreak begins to impact small businesses, but won’t spare enterprises either, as B2B investment slows dramatically across the globe.
What can and should businesses do to address the crisis? If taking steps to ensure the safety of your employees and customers is critical, what is also important is – staying connected with your customers. As you know, at SO Connect we are passionate about connection. Here are 3 ways our suite of products can help you communicate with your customers throughout these difficult times. And if you need help with anything else, please contact our support team.
Update your business listings
In this challenging time with a lot of uncertainty, the one thing we can control is delivering timely and truthful company information.
Businesses all over the world are changing their operations in response to COVID-19. If you’re making changes, it’s important that this is reflected in your business listings across the internet.
If you have enabled SO Connect Listings, you can conveniently update critical information like your business hours, phone number, etc across your 50+ business listings with a click of a button. Find how to add Special Opening Hours in our Knowledge base.
Use the messaging tool to communicate
It may be tough for you to communicate with your customers’ in-person or over the phone. Instead, you can use emails to keep in touch.
SO Connect Messaging tool can help you stay in touch with your customers. You can send email campaigns to customers to update them about your business. Are you shutting down in-store sales or activities, but still have e-commerce, take-out or delivery capabilities? Let people know how to access your products or services during the temporary closure or “lockdown” period.
If you have enabled SO Connect WIFI Marketing, just follow these simple steps and set up your Messaging campaign.
Show some love to your reviews
The web is cluttered with reviews companies haven’t responded to. Many times already we have stressed the importance of responding to customer reviews: this is a good time to make sure all your reviews have a thoughtful response.
If you have enabled SO Connect Reviews, this process comes very easy to you. In the dashboard, the reviews appear already divided by answered and unanswered. Write some template responses and go over your unanswered reviews. If you have troubles dealing with a bad review, check our guide on how to respond to negative reviews.
This is also a good moment to get a deeper understanding of your reviews. SO Connect Reviews provides you with a dashboard that lets you analyze your reviews by topic, and monitor your customers’ sentiment about their experiences. This way, you can identify trends and patterns in your customer reviews and gain valuable insights to build a more customer-centric business.
In these challenging times it is also crucial to think long term, to figure out how to come out of this crisis stronger than before. Because that’s for sure, we’re going to get out of it.
We all find ourselves disoriented by the fear and uncertainty that the virus is causing – but it’s important not to despair. Businesses that are focused and creative and genuinely seek to support their customer communities will thrive the challenge of Coronavirus. Together, we can make it. Stay safe and healthy!
