Customer Support at the time of COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 is the worst crisis of our time as we observe social distancing protocols being imposed all around the world. While these measures are a step in effectively managing the COVID-19 pandemic, Hospitality and Retail businesses are confronting unprecedented worst-case scenarios and are scrambling to adapt to change.

In these uncertain situations, most of the businesses face questions they don’t have answers to. Being a restaurateur or a retail business owner, if you’re striving to comprehend the extent of the problem, the best strategy would be to remain honest and also keep yourself open to maintain credibility. Try to address the situation with compassion and slip into the customer’s shoes for a moment as you can understand the anxiety only then. It is possible that you can do it fine sometimes, and or will often get it wrong; however, it would be better to be as transparent as possible.

With the novel COVID-19 pandemic, we are observing this happening at every level: Head of the states have appointed their core teams to head up the national response. Most of the renowned universities have created task forces while intelligence teams have a standing pandemic leadership in place.

The best practice in any crisis and most specifically in a pandemic scenario is thoughtful planning. That is why, it would be better to talk to your staff members to find out any emergencies or crises that may occur. In this kind of situation, the contact center should be the first group being kept informed about the problems that arise. Meanwhile, having a playbook that contains various folks to contact and their specific roles will help to clear up any confusion once the situation is upon the company.

Since the current COVID-19 pandemic is kind of once in a lifetime event, which is why things may get confusing when the pressure is on. Besides, it's would be better to make sure that most of your staff members are aware of governance and statutory obligations. Only in this way, you can structure your prescribed course of action legal.

Decentralised communication as a routine strategy can be understandable and may even be desirable in complex and large organisations. That being said, it is also true that in an emergency or dynamic situation, an intense need is felt for a crisis-response team. That is why; creating a team for centralized communication will be the best practice to tackle the situation. Ideally, these kinds of teams must be small i.e., five to seven people and you should make sure to include a member of the leadership team who preferably should be someone from corporate communications, also an HR executive, and a pro in the area of concern.

Note: Only one way you manage your business through JeM POS in Current and future situation effect by COVID-19.   

The core task of this team should be to frequently monitor the scenario closely while it continues to evolve. This team should also be the major source of information about this situation and will give frequent updates to main constituencies.

Also, the team should be as transparent as possible and explain what they know, what they don’t and also the sources of information. One of the best practices is to be to the point as lengthy turgid communiqué written by medical experts or lawyers aren’t often readable or easily understandable.

Meanwhile, a point of sale system would also be of great help in these hard times as it will ideally be able to generate in-depth sales reports that are based on number of items, hours, employees, total sales and also total retail amount plus net profit percentage. The best part is that you will be able to comprehend about your overall sales performance.