By | Hannah Boothe
Your business probably has not ever experienced anything like the COVID-19 pandemic. It has changed the way you do business, and you’ve had to be more creative than ever to make sure your company stays afloat.
But what happens after the COVID-19 pandemic has loosened its grip on your business? Do you just go back to working the way you used to work before the crisis hit?
Here are five ways to make sure your business runs smoothly after COVID-19.
1. Reach Out to Your Customers
Your customers should have still been regularly communicated to during the pandemic, but you need to make sure you do this even more after the crisis has ended. Your customers will be scrambling to get back to some type of normalcy again, and you need to make sure they do not forget to patronize your business.
Make sure you utilize emails, direct mail, phone calls, and social media. Do whatever you can to get in front of your customers and grab their attention. You might want to look into paid advertising, too. And if so, you should look at your options when it comes to online, radio, and TV advertising.
2. Talk with All of Your Business Partners
You also need to make sure all of your business partners are contacted and that nothing skips a beat with any of the services they provide for you. You likely had to mix up how you sent and received items, and you need to remind all of your carriers that they can go back to the previous methods of handling your needs.
And if you had to cease routine servicing and maintenance during the COVID-19 pandemic, then you also need to be sure those business partners know to resume their normal routines with you. Make sure all of your business partners know exactly how you want to move forward once the crisis has ended.
3. Consider Employee Wellness
Don’t forget that COVID-19 impacted your employees, too. Not only should you be cognizant of how their work has been impacted, but you also need to pay attention to how their personal life was impacted. More than ever, you need to stay on top of their wellness.
Make sure that each of your employees is feeling well and also make sure they have the resources in place to take care of any unmet needs. Utilize your leads and managers in the process and encourage all of your employees to be honest. Make sure you put forth the effort to help them get back to some type of normalcy. And make sure you are helping them address any remaining stress.
4. Focus on Training
During COVID-19 you and other staff that provide oversight likely did not have much face-to-face time with your employees. And since you didn’t have as much oversight as normal, you need to be certain your employees have not forgotten processes.
Once all the restrictions have been lifted, it is very important that you make training a priority. This will help ensure you all are following the procedures that work for your company. Make sure nobody has forgotten procedures or decided to skip certain steps you had put in place to get the productivity you need.
5. Beef Up Your IT
You likely had to rely on remote technology and your information technology (IT) like never before during COVID-19. And as a result, you possibly identified areas for improvement. Now might be the time you look into managed IT services providers.
These IT consultants can assist you in a variety of ways. They can ensure you have access to the data you need, and they can help you interpret it. They also help protect your data from criminals. And if you need to improve your telecommunications, your software, and your cloud capabilities, all of that can be improved, too.
After COVID-19, you are going to want to get back to business as usual as fast as possible. However, you must be certain to not overlook some key areas of your business that could impact how well you do after the global crisis has ended. Through one or more of the suggestions above, your business can run smoothly and also be stronger than ever.
