It has been very rough terrain for small businesses to navigate these past several weeks. Businesses everywhere have been forced (for the greater good) to close their doors in order to stop COVID-19 from spreading throughout their towns.
As important as it is to practice social distancing and remote working, it is even more important to ensure that your business can remain operational. With more and more people having to take their work online, there has never been a bigger need to take your business online.
So how to keep your business online during coronavirus season you may ask? Well, here are a couple options you can implement immediately to begin doing business online:
Accept Payments Online
Accepting payments online should be the first step you take in getting your business online. In order to keep your business sustainable, you need to be flexible in the way you receive payments from customers.
Thousands of business owners everyday are taking their businesses online by implementing online payments for their customers. Paypal, a popular online payment platform has single-handedly helped over 17 million businesses receive payments from their customers.
The best way to begin accepting payments from your customers is through setting up a payment portal on your website. This gives your customers an easy, secure way to pay for your goods or services.
Accept Bookings and Meetings from Clients Online
Offer services that require you to meet with a client? Allow your customers to be able to book a meeting with you online, and meet with you via video chat.
Popular online services such as google hangouts, skype and zoom are allowing businesses everywhere to take their meetings online easily and effectively. If you are a business that offers services which require face to face contact with clients then being able to meet online is an absolute must.
Customers need to be able to book an appointment with you and organizing this all through phone or email can be a nightmare. Implementing a booking system into your website is the easiest way to begin accepting appointments online.
Online booking tools such as calendly make it easy for businesses to coordinate their bookings with customers. Allow your customers to choose a date and time directly on your website to meet with you. A flexible booking calendar tool is an easy way to solve the question of how to keep your business online during coronavirus season.
Bringing It All Together
Coronavirus brings a significant challenge for businesses all across Canada, however this doesn’t mean business has to stop entirely for you. In order to keep your business online during Coronavirus season it will require innovation.
Accepting payments online will give your customers a way to pay for your goods and services online. This will allow you to continue operations if you are still able to provide your services online!
Integrating a booking system into your website is another great way to keep your customers engaged with your business during these times. If you are a service based business, this is a perfect tool to continue your operations.
