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How did you rate in the Covid-Care stakes?
Andy Hollis • May 20, 2020
In the grip of a pandemic that’s tipped the global economy on its head and caused societal disruption previously unseen in peacetime it’s been easy to throw up our hands and say it’s all too much.
Many of us have chosen to immerse ourselves in an omnibus of our favourite shows and hunker down with the kids (or a pet that’s never seen so much of us before) while we wait for the mess to get sorted.
That was an ok attitude for perhaps the first week of Lockdown while we were still coming to terms with the shock of the new, but eventually we have to look beyond the virus’ most pernicious effect: the way its debilitating economic consequences sap our energy to plan ahead.
At a time when our customers and prospects have probably also gone into hibernation the task of reigniting conversations lies with those of us who have the responsibility for building relationships and generating sales. COVID-19 has created a vacuum and it’s up to us to fill it.
We can’t wait for government decision making to sanction thinking about ‘business’ again, because business thinking has actually never stopped.
Even if your customers and prospects are only dwelling on their dwindling bank balances they are still actually thinking about ‘business’, they are just doing it at a more visceral level than most of have ever experienced before. They are thinking about survival, and existential threat, and for many people that numbs the ability to think effectively.
“Quite right,” you say. “My prospects and customers are so full of worry they’re never going to think about spending money at this time.” If that’s the case, don’t ask them to buy anything, just show them you care.
Now is the time to demonstrate your commitment to the people who normally provide your income, and at the same time keep channels of communication open and active.
I’ll give you some examples.
I have friends and clients in tourism who have been struck pretty hard by the pandemic, and for one of the businesses concerned COVID-19 has been particularly devastating. The pandemic has created a perfect storm for a customer list exclusively 60 years plus, and a portfolio consisting of overseas escorted tours. Cancelled trips, refunds and as yet no sign of international travel restrictions loosening up has generated significant financial hardship. The challenge this causes can’t be underestimated, but once everything possible has been done to address the money issues, there is still a vital requirement to maintain communications.
The customer and prospect lists that are lifeblood of an eventual recovery are made up of people who wanted to experience overseas cultures; it stands to reason that they care about what’s happening in Italy and China – they are interested. This is where the travel company concerned needs to show they care about more than selling trips. They should be sourcing news items from the countries they had planned on visiting, asking for local perspectives from their hoteliers in hard-hit Liguria, and bundling all this news up in regular communications to their databases. By showing that they care about the communities and that these destinations are more than items in an itinerary they demonstrate that they are the best people to accompany travellers who want to genuinely experience these cultures.
I have engineering clients who have also witnessed a falloff in trade, and the closure of their factories and facilities during Lockdown. For these businesses there may not have been the immediate catastrophic impact experienced by tourism operators, but the lag-time in rebuilding their order books could be just as serious. The companies they supply products, components and services to have essentially mothballed their plants and machinery, meaning further delays to new orders when Lockdown eventually lifts.
There’s an urgent need for my clients to get work in the door now, so they’re proactively
addressing this potential delay, by demonstrating that they care about the operational capability of their customers and prospects. They are reviewing service schedules and supplying their customers with updates and prompts so their production lines are ready to roll the minute the restrictions come off.
EDMs and open letters that tick off the benefits of using local manufacturers, rather than relying on overseas suppliers have struck a particular chord. Customers who have been badly exposed by shutdowns in Asia and Europe, and who are now facing significant delays in critical deliveries as backlogs are cleared are receptive to local alternatives. Our communications are highlighting these issues, but striking a caring stance by offering to step in and fill the gaps rather than ask for long-term contracts. The latter will come eventually, but first we need to show that we care.
Even politicians are using the halting start to the election campaign to reach out to voters by showing they care about what’s important to them. One MP I write for is sending out messaging to constituents, inviting them to submit wish lists, he’s also conducting an online survey so that he has informed and fine-tuned content when the face-to-face canvassing and townhall meetings begin in earnest.
My final example of using Covid-care thinking to maintain communication channels involves Smartrak, which is a home-grown kiwi innovator in vehicle tracking and lone worker safety. During the Lockdown, with many of the customer fleets Smartrak tracks and most prospect companies hunkered down, I’ve been able to proactively engage with audiences by delivering COVID-19 related communications. Topics have included the distancing regulations that mean a buddy system of pairing up workers to provide safety while undertaking off-site projects has been impractical. By showing how Smartraks’ personal safety devices can close the gap between the office and the workers in the field, Smartrak has shown it cares about the issue and is offering an alternative. Smartrak’s fleet management and vehicle booking solutions are also being represented to demonstrate their efficacy in supporting hygiene protocols.
Of course, this last example is very specific to this company, but when viewed alongside the others here, it does illustrate that there are proactive steps practically any company can take to ensure that it remains engaged with customers and prospects. The trick is to stop thinking sales and start building empathy.
Look at the business you want to speak to and put yourself in their shoes. It’s a big ask: to stop for a moment concentrating on your own very real issues. But breaking the stranglehold the pandemic has on proactive engagement demands a fresh approach where visualising the customer’s pain points is more than an abstract exercise. You are feeling the same pain they are, and you need to use that to your advantage. It’s unlikely that you will ever again be in a situation where you share so many difficulties with so many customers and prospects. Draw on that empathy, and show that you care enough to still talk, even though you’re unlikely to get a sale at the moment.
Seduced by the intoxicating prospect of endless pages, content builders populate their website with more navigation layers than a toddler’s rainbow cake; each segment vitally important, they’ve convinced themselves, in order to bring structure to the shoals of sentences and flocks of facts they are populating their Eden with. When tempted to add yet another section, to satisfy a request from HR that your values deserve showcasing, or to meet a demand from the C-suite that your company history needs more elbow room – stop. Ask yourself if you could sell your product or service better than a website that’s so chock full of stuff the essential message has got lost anyway. Your website isn’t meant to be a replacement for you, it is you. So share the messages through your website that you would share if you were face-to-face with your customer. If you weren’t in a position to book them a room for the night while you empty out the contents from the company cupboard, what would you say? If you are lucky, you’ve got ten minutes in person, and probably a quarter of that online to convince a prospect that you’ve got what they are looking for – don’t waste it. Chances are, you have some real gems on your website, and they’re not all necessarily on the landing page. Buried in Product Testing you’ve got a quote from a developer that reminds you why you love what your company sells, and in Our Team there’s a great anecdote about going the extra mile. Trouble is, they are in a queue of supposed must-tells that are the result of a checklist rather than a cogent content strategy. I’m conscious that I’ve used 334 words to get to this point, so I’ll practice what I preach and bullet-point the rest: •Look at what needs to be said on your website. What can you get rid of without hollowing out the website? •Never copy and paste from other documents; I guarantee that there’s lots of fat in that content that was perhaps necessary in its original guise but extraneous in your website. •Use the technology that’s available. One of my clients had a fairly complex offer to get across to prospects. This could have necessitated spreading the story across several pages, but I built a simple, inexpensive and effective video. The ‘elevator pitch’ is all there, no reading or excessive clicking required. •Downloads are good, they allow you to package up all the content that would otherwise get in the way of the juicy stuff. They can also imbue the subject matter with a level of importance that’s lost when they’re a grab-bag of miscellanea. If you present these downloads properly, with consistent design features and written-for-purpose introductions, they can be offered as items of genuine value. Collecting some of them up in an e-book is also a good idea. And, in addition to de-cluttering your website, downloads are also an excellent way to collect email addresses. •Don’t assume that editing tools like Hemmingway will do the job of reducing verbosity for you without also generating unintended consequences. If you rely on them too much you’re essentially delegating your first contact with a human to an algorithm. When these editing aids are used to create the finished content rather than as a reviewing tool they can end up producing content that’s so clipped and denuded of nuance it loses the resonance you originally intended.
