How to Communicate with Your Customers During the COVID-19 HARD TIMES

The worldwide panic of coronavirus is leaving big and small brands wondering what happens next and the best way to communicate with customers. Here are a few ways to win your customers’ trust during these crazy times:

Use Your Site

Creating a public update on your corporate blog describing how you are coping with the situation and how your brand is helping its customers is always a good idea. 

BigAnt shares some valuable tips on how to phrase your public messaging effectively:

Don’t pretend everything is normal – address the issue head on.

Don’t keep you marketing the same as before. Now is the time for some great karmic marketing messages. One of the car companies in Canada changed TV ads – to say “This is where we normally would show you our great new models, but instead we want to thank the doctors and nurses for……”

Another example is the new Budweiser commercial that is also thanking the doctors and nurses.

Build your local community. Offer shout outs to those that are supporting the local community or industries that support your industry.

Use humor carefully. We don’t want to be dark and depressing, but many have love ones that are sick or at risk. Tread carefully.

Avoid generalizations or statistics that change to often. Marketing Communication stays around for a while and needs to be specific and valuable enough, without becoming dated too soon.

Give hope. People will always remember how you make them feel and giving hope in times of crisis is a great way to create positive energy.

All in all, your messaging should make each of your customers feel they are not alone.

B2B SaaS companies should have a policy in place regarding what to do to try to counteract cancellations. Some businesses have lost part of all of their income and must cut expenses. This might be to waive fees for a particular period of time or grant extensions on time to pay. It is better to retain them as a customer you hope will recover soon than potentially lose their business forever.

Get in Touch

If you have their email and social accounts, put them to use — but only if you have something useful and relevant to say.

There was a flood of Covid-19 email updates recently which also resulted in lots of memes.