Seven ways to reassure your customers during Covid 19

Today I want to talk to you about seven ways to reassure your customers using digital media during Covid-19. 

Going out for a lot of people is causing a great deal of anxiety, especially those that have been shielding, they've been shielding now for over three months, so going out is really giving them anxiety. So you need to be using your social media channels to help relieve that anxiety and if you do that, if you touch points with them using social media and digital media in general, then you could well see that as a benefit on your bottom line. 

They will come to you rather than going to perhaps your competitors. 

So the seven ways are... 

Number one - Keep your social media channels up to date. 

That's things like facebook, instagram, pinterest (if you're on it), twitter and don't forget one digital channel - your website. 

I did a survey recently just randomly five pubs out of the yellow pages in my area and three out of five did not have up-to-date social media channels or up to date websites. 

Number two - Do a facebook or instagram live. 

This puts it straight out there, but don't do the usual thing, don't show somebody cleaning the table between customers, that's going to look too much like it's been set up. 

Perhaps think about, if you're doing food, going into the kitchen, show the chefs preparing a dish that will automatically show your social distancing and your covid compliance in the background. It will show the physical distancing between chefs. 

Or if you haven't got a kitchen where you can do that, consider doing something behind the bar. It might be you have a barista machine, so it might be a member of staff making a coffee and how it would then go from making the physical coffee to physically getting it to the customer. Again you would see all your social distancing efforts in the background but it wouldn't be front and center which would look far too much like it's set up. 

If you don't have a barista machine, have you got a drink, a cocktail you can get a member of staff to make up? 

Again it's something that doesn't look set up specifically to do with social distancing. 

Number Three - Produce a video that walks the customer through the customer journey. 

Show what the customer can expect from the moment they arrive to getting to the table, to how they order, etc. 

But use that digital asset not just on your social media channels, but put it on your website, put it front and center so it's the first thing people see, if they're anxious about going out again, they want to see that and want to make it easily found. 

Number four - create a pinned post on facebook. 

This can just be a list of all the things you've done and what the customer can expect. 

You pin it so that when they go onto your facebook page it is the first thing they see. 

Number five - reach out directly to customers. 

When you take a booking which we are encouraged to do, take the telephone number, take an email address, if they won't give you an email address fine you've got a phone number, you need that for track and trace anyway. 

So before they arrive, in the morning say, do a phone round of all your bookings, tell them what to expect. 

If you get voicemail, leave a voicemail, don't ignore them. 

Just one word of caution though, make sure that they haven't made the booking as a surprise, so if the wife's made the booking and they've told you it's a surprise, you might not want to leave that voicemail because if the husband gets it the surprise is spoiled. So just bear that in mind. 

Number six - send out direct or physical electronic mailings. 

If you've got a database, use that, reach out to them, send them targeted marketing, turn them out marketing that is designed for them. 

You might want to include an offer, at the moment why not shout about, if you've you've signed up for it, eat out to help out, tell them what you've got, tell them the menu you've got. 

Just reassure them. 

But again tell them about some of the processes you've put in place to keep them safe and try and relieve that anxiety they might have. 

Number seven - upload an instagram carousel post or an instagram story. 

But remember if you're doing a story it's going to be only there for 24 hours. 

So you need to also put it as a normal post. 

If you're going to do a carousel post, you can overlay text onto your graphic. 

If you don't have a graphics program, go and get one, you can use something like canva which is free, it's straightforward, you don't need any skills, I've used it in the past, it's a great little program for doing that. 

So in summary the seven ways are; 

1. Keep your social channels up to date including your website, 
2. Do an instagram and facebook live, 
3. Produce a video which walks the customer through their journey with you with all the extra procedures you put in place, 
4. Create a pinned post on facebook, 
5. Reach out to the customers directly by phone or by email (you can do that as part of your confirmation, make sure they're coming in, it would also reduce the no shows), 
6. Send out direct mail or electronic mail using your database of customers, and 
7. Upload a instagram carousel post.

So that’s seven ways you can help relieve the anxiety of people, especially those that have been on shielding and encourage them to come back out to your business. 

If you get those people out of the house and can fill all your available slots during the week, then that will help alleviate the losses you've made during shutdown. 

That's seven ways to reassure your customer using digital media during covid-19.