More lockdowns are being announced each day due to COVID-19. As the situation evolves, business owners are exploring ways to stay in touch with customers until shops can reopen. In fast-moving and uncertain situations, it’s important that you be available to answer your customer’s questions, communicate your business’s status and provide support to your community. It may mean you try entirely new ways to reach your customers, such as SMS texting or web chat. Here are some tools to get you started.
[Read more: How to Stay Connected to Your Customers During the Coronavirus Outbreak]
Podium Webchat
Live chat with your customers using a web chat tool like Podium. Podium integrates with your website to allow your team to answer questions, schedule appointments and sell your product or service in 1:1 conversations with customers. The Podium widget can be customized to include an avatar, greeting and away message for any queries that come in after normal business hours. It’s a great personal touch to add to your e-store: Research from Forrester found that customers who engage in a live chat conversation with a business are 2.8x more likely to complete a purchase. Keep your employees busy while interacting with customers from a distance.
Alternatives to Podium:
Sprout Social
Many customers automatically resort to social media channels to stay in touch with businesses. Your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram pages are the default place where customers will go to find out if you’re open, selling or accepting returns. Make sure you’re proactively managing your social channels with a tool like Sprout Social. With Sprout Social, your team can simultaneously respond to comments, direct messages and posts that your company has been tagged in to keep up with any questions and concerns. As you experiment with different marketing messages, you can tag and track campaigns, post types, subject matters and any other content you may want to test.
Alternatives to Sprout Social:
We could all use a little entertainment right now, which is why recording a video is one of the best ways to communicate with your customers.
Coronavirus Guide for Small Businesses
CO— is working to bring you the best resources and information to help you navigate this challenging time. Read on for our complete coronavirus coverage.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an extremely popular email marketing platform, and a great way to stay in touch with your customers. Their easy-to-customize templates can help you build an appealing newsletter with relevant information, business updates and entertaining content. Email is one of the best ways to reach someone, too. A study by McKinsey found that email marketing is 40 times more effective at reaching your target consumer than Twitter or Facebook. While your store is closed, use your newsletter to share content that entertains people or keeps them engaged with your brand. For instance, a cafe might share a new recipe each week, while a bookstore might curate a list of recommendations of nonfiction, thriller and children’s books. Mailchimp is equipped to help you build something that generates a high open rate.
Alternatives to Mailchimp:
TextMagic
Along with email, SMS messaging is another highly effective form of communication. If you have your customer’s phone numbers on record, reach out to them with urgent updates through text message. Research from Gartner reports that while emails are opened about 20% of the time, SMS messages are opened up to 98% of the time.
Look for an SMS service that doesn’t spam your customers, but instead provides truly two-way communication, meaning your customers can write back to any message you send, and you'd be able to reply directly. TextMagic is one tool that’s easy to set up and won’t cost you a bundle.
Alternatives to TextMagic:
Clipchamp
We could all use a little entertainment right now, which is why recording a video is one of the best ways to communicate with your customers. Clipchamp makes it easy to record something straight from your computer’s built-in camera with no additional hardware necessary. Personal trainers can film a fitness class and send it out to their email list; hardware stores can film their employees working on home improvement projects. Solicit ideas from your customers through social media. Clipchamp has a native editing tooland can directly upload your file to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook or Google Drive.
Alternatives to Clipchamp:
For more resources from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
- Check out the U.S. Chamber's Small Business Loan Guide.
- To help you manage your business through the coronavirus crisis, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has created a toolkit for businesses and a customizable flyer for businesses to communicate their coronavirus efforts to customers.
- For more information pertaining to your specific location, you can find your local Chamber of Commerce here.
CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.
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CO—is committed to helping you start, run and grow your small business. Learn more about the benefits of small business membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, here.
