Today saw the beginning of lockdown lifting, whilst we still must maintain our two metres social distancing, non-essential retail stores have now been allowed to open.
Many large retailers are opening their doors straight away, whilst others are slowly opening in the coming weeks after retraining and refitting their stores to suit the requirements of social distancing.
Some smaller retailers are also opening their doors, some are lucky enough to have space in their stores to meet guidelines, whilst others are operating via appointment only to ensure that they keep both staff and customers safe.
This change in lockdown rules could be considered the biggest step in getting back to ‘normal’. Whatever that can be nowadays.
If you run a brick and mortar store that is opening again or is considering opening again, it's important to keep your customers in mind. Whilst the UK Government is stating that its safe to return to high street shopping providing everyone follows the guidelines, there are still a huge number of individuals who believe otherwise.
The Search Engine Land has produced a great concise article which outlines how as lockdown begins to ease its important to consider your message.
You can read this article in full here: SearchEngineLand.com/whats-the-right-messaging-when-customers-are-divided-about-reopening-video
The general gist is that care is needed to ensure you and your business don’t polarise groups of people, whether they are in the ‘Let’s get back to business group’, the ‘Let’s stay home’ group, or somewhere in-between.
Listening to your customers will enable you to provide the right message on your website and social channels to advise them as to how your store will be opening. Listening to your customers will also help you explain how you will protect them in your store and what they can do to protect you and your team in return.
At the end of the day, every store is unique and so it's down to the individual store and their management to decide how best to apply the guidance, and to make the tough decision if it's not possible.
This same article also touches briefly on the future with Coronavirus. Will there be a second wave? And if so, then will lockdown be re-imposed as it has been in the last couple of months? Here at Nachos, we would never speculate on this, however, it does not hurt to be prepared.
Now is the time to ask yourself a question regarding your business and how it has been running in the past few months.
The question is….Does your business need restructuring, or additional resources, to help it to continue and grow in a lockdown world?
Did you find that there were elements of your business that couldn’t run due to not having an online alternative? Was there information that you couldn’t access due to it only appearing currently in a paper-based form? If so, then is there a way of moving the offline elements of your business online? This is where Digital Nachos can help.
We have years of experiencing in designing and building websites, databases, CRMs, project management systems and much more. We can help you and your business move online in a simple and effective manner to ensure that your business can continue online whatever happens.
To find out more information then simply contact the team today.
Stay safe.
All comments regarding Coronavirus (Covid-19) and restrictions on business operating in the UK are correct at the time the blog was posted. Please refer to current restrictions in your area to guide you in your response to Coronavirus.
Published: 15th Jun 2020