The COVID-19 pandemic is infecting hundreds of thousands of people and threatening to shut down millions of businesses. Many business owners are trying to stay open and service the customer while keeping their employees and customers safe. Other owners temporarily shut down and are thinking about how and when they can reopen.
As consultants to wholesale distributors, retailers, and ecommerce companies, we are working with a number of “essential” companies remaining operational, as well as retailers implementing local, store level-pick-with curbside pickup. Like you, our hope is to get through this and move on to the “new normal.”
We are not advocating violation of any directives or proclamations by health and safety agencies; by local, state or Federal government; by the Centers For Disease Control (CDC); or OSHA regulations in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. We all agree, your priority is employee and customer safety.
CDC and OSHA layout clear procedures for operations in this COVID-19 crisis. As we work with companies that are remaining open, we found that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has published some very clear guides for employee and facility safety.
The CDC is also publishing daily and weekly updates to keep you informed. Contrary to government’s typical long, jargon filled procedures, these are clear and can be a great resource to also write up your policy, procedures and training materials.
We recommend reading the CDC's guidelines, which cover topics such as:
We know keeping your employees and customers safe is of utmost importance.
Our recent blog post provides additional guidance on topics about your Supply Chain.
Your customers know these are difficult and trying times. That doesn’t mean they will be patient with slower or erratic operational performance. Each business needs to determine how they can perform and the service levels they can provide.
Two recent personal experiences grocery shopping using online order-curbside are the best examples (good and bad) we think:
With one large chain, we could not successfully cancel our order three days in advance of store pick- curbside pickup. The local store had no way to cancel the order. The national chat line failed to answer in a five-hour period. And the 800# said we’d be on hold for 254 minutes. As the local store started picking, we received an email and could cancel the order.
Some customer service lessons to learn from this experience include:
Many of our clients have massive product assortment. Tracking and potentially reordering all items throughout the Supply Chain may not be possible. As a possible inventory and sales strategy, we recommend taking care of the key items only – the 80/20 in your assortment.
Pareto’s Law, or 80/20 rule (i.e. 20% of the products gives you 80% of the sales), applies to many retail and ecommerce merchandise assortments. If Pareto’s Law doesn’t hold for your business, what key items are you going to keep in stock that maximizes sales?
Consider the following:
Being temporarily shut down is devastating. Managers need to answer what risk does operating during this time bring to your future operation and customer service? Staying operational means being in compliance with CDC and OSHA guidance and regulations, as well as adapting quickly to changing conditions. We pray that God will restore your families and business soon.