After the danger has passed, your first phone calls should be to your insurance provider and any financial institutions or other debtors you make regular payments to.
As a business owner, your employees, customers and suppliers will also be looking to you for answers. If you’ve planned well, you should already know what needs to be done and when you expect it to be complete. This will make it easier to communicate with your stakeholders.
Get connected
If your phone service is interrupted, organise your calls to be diverted so you don’t miss any important calls.
You should also consider alternative ways of communicating if local telecommunication systems are affected, such as setting up a web-based email account that you can access from anywhere – this can also be used as a forwarding address for all business emails.
Contact key people
There are a number of people you’ll need to communicate with as you guide your business toward recovery:
- Your insurance provider needs to receive your claim as soon as possible to ensure your payment is processed quickly.
- Your bank or building society needs to know your change in circumstances so they can discuss an alternative payment arrangement while your business recovers.
- Your employees need to know if their jobs are safe or when and where they can return to work.
- Your customers want to know when you’re back in operation. The faster you communicate this, the less time your customers will have to turn to a competitor. If possible, organise a targeted marketing effort, such as a social media campaign, to promote your business reopening.
- Your suppliers want to know if they still have your business. They may also be concerned about how they will deliver goods if access to your business is affected. Talk to them to arrange a postponement of deliveries or an alternative supply route until your circumstances change. If your suppliers are local and they have also been affected by the emergency, you may need to consider organising an alternative supplier.
