In light of the recent events and restrictions surrounding COVID-19, we here at Tin Sheets have been putting our heads together to find ways to help you survive this difficult time and come up with solutions to help you thrive once the restrictions and quarantines have been lifted.
As current small business and former winery owners, we can only imagine the stress you are feeling as a result of the current restrictions and closures and the uncertainty of your path moving forward. Please know that we are here to support you during this time in any way we can. If you need deferred or reduced payments, help crafting an email to your customers, website edits, or have any other needs, please contact us. After all, without you, we certainly wouldn’t be here either.
Additionally, we would like to offer some suggestions that you might consider to be sure that your customers know you are available and still offering their favorite products and services.
- Create an internal strategy for how you are going to manage the quarantine timeframe, whether it be for a week, two weeks, a month, or longer.
- Craft a message to convey your plans to your customers. Be open, honest, and transparent.
- Add a button, link, or message (or all three) to your website homepage and social media outlets about how you, as a company, are prioritizing the situation and why you want your customers to know.
- Check your media and marketing messages (including automated ones) to be sure that your messages are current.
- Schedule, sell, and host virtual tastings/product presentations
- Host a daily scheduled online presentation to talk about your products, either actively or passively, using a call-in service like Zoom or UberConference, a media outlet like YouTube, or a social media platform like Instagram.
- Wineries could consider creating a bundled product that contains wine and a “Virtual Tasting”, a scheduled digital face-to-face with your clients and a tasting host or winemaker. Include the virtual tasting in the cost of the wine.
- Realize that your client base is going to primarily be stuck at home with potentially little else to do and the more entertainment you can provide for them, the more they will engage with you.
- Take a hard look at your shipping rates
- Even if customers can’t come into your business to purchase your products, show them that they are still easily attainable by offering significantly discounted shipping or even offer shipping included.
- Use the downtime to evaluate your customer journey. Nothing is more enticing to a customer than to have a great reason to visit and see what new things you’ve cooked up.
- Evaluate what you do in the customer facing side of your work. Can it be more focused on customer experience than it is? Can you focus less on the things that aren’t contributing to making the experience better?
- Look at the possibilities of making a new product that is outside of your wheelhouse.
We hope that some of these suggestions can provide guidance to help navigate some of the stormy waters right now, and we want to reiterate that we are here to help. Please feel free to reach out via e-mail ([email protected]) or phone (970.343.4747).
At the very least, we’ve included a photo of our very proud newly certified Canine Good Citizen.
Kind Regards,
Jay & Jennifer Christianson, Founders
and Saxby, Chief Canine Officer