Many customer-facing businesses have struggled significantly in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic. At the height of the COVID-19 virus outbreak, customer-facing businesses and stores were advised to close their doors.
This resulted in many organizations rapidly pivoting their business model to an online-first approach as they tried to survive the store closures. The general public was also advised to social distance and stay home as much as possible, minimizing their need to make unnecessary trips anywhere.
Now, as stores re-open and society begins to find some sense of normality, it is important to consider how you can continue ensuring your customer-facing business is a safe environment during (and following) COVID-19.
On a normal day, digital signage is great for advertising your business, sharing in-store information, and improving customer experience. Now, during the pandemic, digital signage can provide an additional layer of safety for your business visitors and customers.
Using digital signage to social distance
Digital signage can help a wide variety of businesses to provide a safe and secure operation during Coronavirus, or any other health pandemic that may impact business operations in the future. From department stores to real estate agencies, restaurants, and grocery stores – digital signage can be an effective solution for any customer-facing business looking to improve their health and safety measures while providing customers with exceptional service.
Below we have shared five innovative and effective ways digital signage can make your customer-facing business safe during COVID-19.
1) Remind customers of in-store COVID-19 guidelines
One of the easiest ways to use digital signage to make your business safe during COVID-19 is to use it to remind your business visitors or customers of in-store Coronavirus guidelines. You can use digital signage at your store or business entrance to let customers know how you will be making their visit a safe experience.
For example, you may want to use digital signage to tell visitors that you will be implementing a 6-foot distance rule or that you require all visitors to wear a mask throughout the duration of their visit.
Having digital signage at your store entrance means customers will be aware of your COVID-19 protocol before they enter your store which can help make their visit less stressful. Many digital signage solutions are portable enabling you to move them to high-traffic areas to increase the visibility of your message. Digital signage also reduces the need to have staff positioned on store entrances to relay the information to business visitors.
This can help reduce business costs by cutting down the number of required staff – as well as increasing business safety by minimizing contact between staff and visitors.
2) Create an immersive yet touch-free experience
Digital signage is more than just a display screen for brand messaging, promotions and adverts. You can also use digital signage to create an immersive yet touch-free experience for all your business visitors and customers. Advanced signage solutions enable you to transform the in-store experience of your customer-facing business.
By pairing your digital signage with QR or barcode reader software, you can use digital signage to provide contact-free customer service. You can use this to enable customers to collect orders placed online by scanning their QR code.
Alternatively, you could use digital signage with barcode reader software to enable business visitors to check-in for an appointment without having to register their attendance with a receptionist. This type of advanced digital signage solutions reduces the requirement for contact, helping to streamline the customer process whilst also creating a safe environment.
Other ways to use digital signage to create an immersive, touch-free experience for customers could include using voice recognition software to allow customers to communicate with staff, place orders via digital signage, or use their voice to request material to be displayed on the signage.
3) Share your support from afar
Sometimes, your customers just need to know that you are there to support them. 96% of customers say customer service is important in their choice of loyalty to a brand. This figure alone showcases how valuable customer service can be.
You can use digital signage as a way to let your business visitors know that you care by sharing an uplifting message of support and encouragement. This also adds a human element to your brand and lets your customers know that the people behind the business really do care.
It could also be beneficial to do this for your employees. By displaying digital signage in employee areas, you can use signage to provide employees with updates and messages thanking them for their hard work during these challenging times.
4) Tap into audience analytics and insights
One of the most powerful features of digital signage is that it can provide you with real-time customer analytics. Installing analytical software and technologies onto your digital signage solutions enables you to capture audience analytics and insights that can be used to improve the safety of your customer-facing business.
Digital signage solutions with tracking software can enable your customer-facing business to track the number of store visitors at any time. This can allow you to easily cap visitors and ensure that you do not have too many people in your store at any one time.
Innovative digital signage solutions could also have the ability to track if visitors are (or are not) wearing face masks. You could then use this technology to track when visitors are not adhering to your in-store COVID-19 procedures.
Through cameras instilled in digital signage, you can monitor how long someone interacts with your digital signage to determine the effectiveness of your displayed message. You can then use this information to improve the content displayed on your signage.
5) Inform customers of your business updates
As many businesses implemented changes following COVID-19, digital signage can be a great way to provide your customers with important business updates. During the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, over 85,000 businesses launched online stores. If you launched an online store to support your customer-facing business, you could use digital signage to let store visitors know that they can also shop with you online.
This is also a beneficial solution if you have decided to keep your physical location closed for the foreseeable future.
Using digital signage to inform customers of your decision and to let them know where to find you online can help transfer your in-store clients and customers to your online location. Similarly, if you have amended your business hours, you can use digital signage to easily and quickly let visitors know your new opening hours.
Keeping customers informed of your business updates and changes will minimize confusion and improve the customer experience.
During current times, customer health and safety has never been so important. Therefore, investing in digital signage can be an effective way to prioritize making your customer-facing business safe during COVID-19.
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