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Back-to-Business Recovery Playbook

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Recovery Plan during COVID-19

Like many other recovery plans, crafting a recovery plan for post-COVID-19 is a daunting task for many small-to-medium businesses. At Brand Catalyser, we helped numerous businesses to be ready for the next phase of their business calendars. Ranging from skincare, education, real estate to many more, each recovery has its own specific needs and input. 

However, somethings don’t have to be different for the sake of being different – and a basic checklist on a business recovery plan is one of them. 

We understand small businesses may have limited resources and information from large-scale consultancies may have complex frameworks too hard to understand. Which is why we are giving out our Recovery Playbook to the public for free to help businesses who wish to craft their post-COVID-19 action plans quickly and most importantly – with zero to no cost.

 Here are the four actions we recommend businesses to commit in their recovery plan:

 

Step 1: ASSESS

Making rational decision based on unprecedented business situation requires time and effective internal communication. Re-look at your current model and structure. Identify possible improvements and scalable areas based on your current capacity.

Is Your Team Ready?

Businesses which have gone through organisation restructure will need to evaluate current capacity whether they are fit for operating at previous scale.

Scaling back up may take time and multiple parties. Hence, the quicker and earlier the decision is made, the easier it is to avoid operation bottlenecks.

Is Your Vendor Ready?

You might be ready for an immediate bounce back in full-scale but your suppliers might be otherwise.

Have a look at the parties involved in the supply chain if they are ready to operate.

Step 2: ADJUST

You have made some quick responses and immediate reactions during the crisis. With new regulations being introduced and the crisis unfolding in an unpredictable manner, businesses were forced to stay flexible and navigate in the dark. But now it’s time to shift gear and move away from short-sighted resolutions. Start redefining or restoring projects back into the pipeline whilst ensuring contingency plans are (as always) included.

Predict & Prepare

Plenty of marketing campaigns have been delayed and key dates are shifted. However, restoring all of them in the same fashion might not be intuitive or responsive enough for any sudden changes. Make sure your campaigns take into account of possible restrictions, and allow shortening of campaign duration if necessary.

Meeting Needs

For most businesses during COVID-19, digital transformation is not an option but a must to stay open for business. Now it’s not only the time to pick up calls, replying messages or even checking emails from your customers, it’s also the time to adjust your team structure and workflow (or even products) to meet the needs of the ‘new market’. 

STEP 3: ASSURE

Being transparent and honest with your customers does not create a dent on your brand credibility – in fact, it does exactly the opposite. Businesses who hate to admit difficulties and mishaps are keeping their customers in the blind. And this can further jeopardise a business-customer relationship with very little chance for direct interaction. With most interactions going virtual, businesses need to know their words and actions carry stronger impact now more than ever.

Let Actions Speak

There’s only so much you can do to comfort your customers.  More often than not, it’s the actions which are lacking when it comes to assuring them – not the words.

Introduce your strategy on what measures have been taken to make the buying or consumption process easier or safer. If you’re placing some new house rules, make sure you tell them exactly what is expected when they visit. 

Policy of Honesty

We may be guilty of being clueless and making some rushed decisions which might have caused some inconvenience to our customers. The remedy is to let them know you’re facing tough times under unprecedented uncertainty, too. Grow together with your customer, not hide from them.

STEP 4: ADOPT

There’s plenty of news, tactics and outrageous ideas out there, but which one is the right fit for your business? Choosing the right models for innovation is a tough choice to make, just as much as eliminating the old ones.

But things don’t have to be so difficult. Here’s a group you can always rely upon – your customers.

No Room to Wait

There’s opportunities everywhere. Not just for you but your customers, too. As financial analyst would say: “There’s just as much risks as opportunities out there.” And as much as the finance department hates us, they probably got a point, after all. Market volatility is the catalyst to bring the most change. And it’s up to us to leverage it, or escape from it.

Forward-Looking Data

There’s no room to second-guess what your customers like or don’t like. From website, eCommerce to social media, data is attainable everywhere. And the best thing is that it takes assumptions away when it comes to making decisions. So craft your next plan with data, and a little bit of instinct.

For more information on business, marketing, culture and brand, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/brandcatalyser/ or email us at [email protected]

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