Acquiring customers for your business is no joke. As a business owner, you work hard day-in and day-out in order to create awareness about your brand and increase sales opportunities. What’s even more difficult is retaining your customers and making sure they keep coming back to you.
Another big challenge businesses face is keeping their employees happy and motivated at all times. As we all know that employees are the most important resource of a business, in order to get the most out of them, you need to take all important measures to have them striving to achieve the best. Their safety is one of them.
2020 has been a testing year for businesses. Many lost a lot of customers and employees due to the COVID-19 outbreak. As companies try to regain stability post the pandemic, the safety of people has become a major concern for businesses. If you are also running a business, here are top 5 tried and tested tips for you to keep your customers and employees protected:
- Keep Your Facility Clean – Keeping your facilities clean at all times is critical. In addition to routine cleaning and disinfecting of surfaces and equipment, professional and more frequent office cleaning services have become a norm. When choosing cleaning chemicals, select products including approved disinfectant labels with claims upon developing viral pathogens. These pathogens are expected to be more effective against viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for use of cleaning and disinfection products, pertaining to concentration, application, contact time, and PPE requirements.
- Create a Basic Prevention Plan – Employers are advised to create a basic prevention plan (in case you don’t have one already) for their workers and customers alike that focuses on infection control and maintaining good hygiene. Conducting only essential operations with a limited workforce or in multiple shifts, initially, is a good idea. Consider and address the level(s) of risk associated with your worksite. Ask workers to maintain social distancing and if somebody seems sick or shows symptoms of a disease, ask them to stay at home. The employees and customers visiting your facility should have easy access to hand soaps and alcohol-based sanitizers. Though people are already aware of it, promote safety practices, such as frequent hand washing and wearing masks.
- Keep Yourself Updated – Keep yourself updated with guidelines provided by agencies. Also, make sure you incorporate all those recommendations and resources in your workplace-specific plans. Industry-specific helpful guides for workplaces, as well as businesses have been issued by many clinic experts, including professionals dealing with infectious diseases, occupational health, nursing, and other related operations. Employers can refer to these guides to keep themselves—and those they serve—protected.
- Follow Employee/Consumer Behavior Patterns – The fear of COVID-19 outbreak has led to a significant change in employee/consumer behavior. If we talk about employees, absenteeism in workplaces has become a common phenomenon. Customers, on the other hand, are looking for contactless service options. In order to both protect your employees/customers, as well maintain stability in your business, follow these changing behavior patterns and frame your policies accordingly. Providing workers in inventory/restocking with an inventory management app (to reduce physical contact between humans and the objects) is a good way to boost confidence in them to work freely. Similarly, emphasizing on contactless buying/payment options and digital communication can help you protect/retain customers.
- Be Proactive – Instant identification and isolation of potentially-infected employees is a critical step in protecting other workers, your customers, visitors, and individuals at your worksite. Wherever appropriate, businesses should define policies and procedures for instantly recognizing and isolating people showing signs and/or symptoms of an infection, as well as train employees to act on them. If possible, send potentially-infected workers to a location away from their colleagues, customers, and other visitors. In case you do not have a dedicated isolation room at your facility or worksite, designated areas with closable doors can be used to serve as isolation rooms.
How to Protect Customer Information
As we know, customers have matured and they are hyperaware of the importance of their data. As a result, they are taking all important measures to ensure they are conscious of all the data a business is accumulating from them. In some parts of the world, companies are even legally restricted in terms of how they can trace their customers/users. Every business should know how to adjust the collection of customer data while also ensuring satisfying customer interactions.
- Implement Transparency
This is the first step for businesses to structure their marketing plans to put customers’ privacy first. “The key formula to high-grade customer service is establishing trust with consumers.” So, it is essential to provide transparency and options to opt-out. - Promote Privacy as a Commitment
An effective preservation tactic is to promote your strategy as a worth plan. Follow rules and never cut corners. It’s not worth jeopardizing customer trust. - Always Make Yourself Reachable and Available
Increase trust by providing customer access to you when they need it.
- Publish phone number.
- Put real people behind chats.
- Respond to emails quickly.
To reduce the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on their businesses, employers need to plan and act effectively. Lack of effective planning can result in a cascade of failures, putting your business at risk. We hope you found top 5 tips to protect customers & employees and how to protect customer information useful and would implement them as and when necessary.
