The year 2020 has been very challenging and chaotic. Every individual has faced problems for some of the other reasons during this pandemic. There are business organizations, industries, marketing, sales, and many fields that have been affected during the pandemic and the lockdown. Due to the pandemic that was faced in 2020 and currently facing in 2021, many rules have been inherited to protect ourselves from the pandemic. One such thumb rule one needs to follow to be safe is social distancing. Even during such hard times where no one must come in contact with each other, a business organization must make sure to support their customers. This is the time when everyone will be feeling low at some point, it would be a good choice to support your customers as they have been very fortunate to your respective businesses. Support and empathize with them and make sure to tell them that you would be of great help to them. The customers will be craving for the return of their comforts that they have lost during the pandemic and social distancing. So the main challenge here is, how do you all get connected to your customers and prospects and support them!? The different ways to support and get connected to your customers are discussed in this section.
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Personalizing the marketing
Since the pandemic has hit and people are staying far away from the world and are getting isolated, that does not mean the marketing people also need to stop what they were doing and give a break to the business. Now is the time they need to focus more on how to walk towards successful marketing.
Now is the time to concentrate and focus more on the customer’s requirements and the current trends. More research has to be done on what exactly the customers might need at this point in time. The marketing team must be able to understand their needs and support them through this pandemic situation.
The marketing team must be able to analyze every single detail of the customer’s requirements and then provide them with the required products. You can reach out to the customers using many marketing ideas during this situation. One such idea is making good use of social media. Social media is a very effective platform these days. Making good use of this platform will definitely help reach as many customers as possible. Hence, personalizing the marketing will definitely help connect and support the customers during this hard situation.
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Providing online ordering service
Since the pandemic has made things worse and more challenging for people around the world, your customers might also be facing certain issues regarding the same. They might be craving for some comforts but they would not be able to go out and get them due to the lockdown and social distancing. In times like this, business organizations must make sure to provide support to their customers. They need to make a list of what the customer exactly needs and understand their requirements and cravings. Once the requirements and needs of the customers have been understood, you need to make a platform that is easily available to them to make orders online. The best way to make sure that your products reach your customers is by providing an online ordering service. Make sure to provide platforms for the customers to order online which consists of products of their interest and provide delivery too. When this is done it gives high chances of reaching the customers in frequent intervals of time. This will keep the customers and the business organizations, industries, marketing team, and sales team connected. It will satisfy the customer’s cravings for certain comforts and will be a great way to support your customers. Hence, providing the online order service will definitely help reach out to many customers during the current situation.
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Providing delivery services or curbside pickups
During the pandemic, it might be difficult for the customers to go out and buy the things that they need especially because of the lockdown and social distancing. It would be a great idea if the business people come up with something that would help the customers satisfy their needs. The business organization must be capable of identifying the needs and cravings of the customers and prospects with regards to the products. Once the requirements of the customers are understood, the organization must be able to provide those needs in terms of online shopping through their platform. When the requirements of the customers are well organized and displayed to them, they will order online from their comfortable places and will be able to maintain the social distancing. Once the order is confirmed from the customer’s side, it is the responsibility of the organization to deliver the products to their homes or the place they desire. Delivery options that are provided from the company’s side can be very beneficial as they will continue to maintain the social distancing as well as satisfy their needs. This will definitely make the customers happy and will want to connect with your organization again in the future too. Hence, providing delivery options or curbside pickup options will help you all to satisfy the customer’s needs as well as maintain social distancing which is very important in the current situation.
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Communicating with your customers
With the current situation in mind, the customers, prospects, and buyers will be facing critical situations financially and would have been going through a lot of mental stress. None of them would be ready to buy your products nor will want to deal with the business dealings as before. The fear of the pandemic and the financial situation would be great in their minds. As a business, marketing and salespeople, you all must have an idea of how to convince the buyers, customers, and prospects. It is your responsibility to empathize with the customers and convince them that you all are ready to open the doors that were once closed due to the pandemic and social distancing. You must make sure to gain the trust of the people and let them realize that you are always there to support them.
Here are a few ways to communicate with the customers during this pandemic situation and social distancing.
- Live chats: The marketing agents and salespeople would have the capability to handle several chats at once. But that is not something that is possible with a call. Therefore, providing live chats will be quite helpful to the customers during the current situation. Chats can also help to analyze and improve the parts wherever required.
- Phone calls: A phone call would be another great choice during social distancing as it will connect the members to the customers faster and will create a great rapport. Phone calls not only provide great support to the customers but also provide a positive experience to the customer.
- E-mails: Text messages are a great idea to provide support to the agents, buyers, and customers who do not want to be pressured. It will be of great help to analyze, improve and maintain the social distance too.
- Contact Forms: When a customer, client, or prospect visits the company website, it would be good if the contact forms are easily available to them because they can get in touch with the members of the organization through the form and it will be of great help in the current situation.
- Chatbots: The customers might be facing certain problems regarding the goods and products provided by your organization. Chatbots will be of great help to solve the problems of those customers at an instant and help them relieve some stress. This will be helpful to avoid unhappy customers too.
- Social media messaging: Social media messaging such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Linked In and so on will definitely help reach the customers and clients much faster and will be able to provide a better customer experience. This mode of communication would be a great help to the customers who would want to wait for less time. This will be beneficial for future business deals too.
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Offering freebies and incentives
Providing freebies and incentives is another great idea to attract more customers and to stimulate your company’s revenue system. Freebies and incentives draw the attention of many clients and customers. They will be reminded of your company each time they see the products received as freebies from your company.
Below are some incentives you can offer:-
- Extra reward points
- Offer upgrade as a trial option
- Offer discounts
- Provide samples
After introducing CRM, one of the foremost keys to CRM achievement is sustaining motivation and a better strategy to encourage such level of motivation is to issue incentives to enable your team and end users to make aware that their participation and hard work are not only necessary, they will also be appreciated and rewarded.
Most of the analysis done by prestigious industry organizations illustrates that most of the CRM introduction may break down to connect preferences, which can lead to a significant loss of time, resources and credibility.
In order to generate and sustain motivation, multiple incentives should be an important element in your CRM planning and budgeting. Giveaways reward efforts, promote enthusiasm and enhance teamwork which can also be utilized to promote friendly competition to improve the firm or individuals to complete objectives or finish deadlines.
In this dynamic environment, it becomes impossible to avoid and is affecting all sectors of business. Most of the businesses are seeing out for the latest money creating ideas and how to enhance revenue so it may look strange to interact over the option of providing products and services away for free but amazingly freebies and money saving vouchers mostly gets all the hype.
Providing giveaways is mostly going to be invaluable to companies who are feared from recession in full swing. In modern times most of the consumers have gone on to purchase a product after opting out of a freebie first so maybe it’s not that a bad decision.
In order to sustain the downturn, companies must seek out a distinct way to not only view them through harder situations, but also to stabilize them for long-term development.
Conclusion
Social distancing is the biggest task to follow. Business organizations must be capable of supporting their customers and prospects in these hard times by making them realize that you are there for them and the doors of opportunities are open again even in the current situation. Hence, business people must be able to support their customers irrespective of any situation.
