Click here to read Part 4: Focus on Developing a Pre-Hurricane, Active Hurricane, and Post-Hurricane Preparedness Plan for Employees
Keeping your customers fully informed about how a hurricane might impact their business is one of the most crucial portions of a Customer Communication Strategy. Failure to effectively communicate could lead to mistrust in the future.
Conducting an annual customer audit and updating your customer database prior to hurricane season will guarantee you are reaching the right point of contact. For example, a billing contact or business decision-maker on the account might not find updates from their data center provider as important as the Director of IT.
Key Questions to Ask Before Hurricane Season:
☑ Who will be responsible for communicating with leadership and sending communications to customers?
☑ Do you have an updated customer contact list?
☑ If social media accounts are relevant to your business and customer communications, does the right person or team have access they need and have posts been discussed?
☑ Management should pre-approve messages before or in the early stages of hurricane season to launch quickly.
☑ Set up your basic email and social media campaigns for the following cadence of messaging in the side panel on this page.
☑ Have a dormant website or blog page ready with a button easily accessible to your customers ready to go.
☑ Do you have someone on your team that can launch this button on the homepage?
☑ Do you have a customer support line? Do you have messaging or a script you would like to pass along?
Update Schedules
As early as June 1st:
► Update your customers via email or company newsletter that you are preparing for an active hurricane season.
If your office is on a hurricane’s path:
► Email your customers that you are monitoring the storm and will be sending updates.
► Prepare your website with a hurricane update page and button on your homepage directing customers there.
► Update your social media accounts.
Hurricane Watch has been issued:
► Send update via email and social media accounts.
► Launch website page for updates.
Hurricane Warning has been issued:
► Provide updates via email, website, and social media accounts.
Storm has cleared:
► Provide updates via email, website, and social media accounts.
Reopening Plan:
► Provide updates via email, website, and social media accounts.
A majority of the messaging can be created and approved with plenty of time and adjusted just before sending (dates, times, changes to the process, all other updates, etc .)
To Download our full Business Hurricane Preparedness Checklist: click here.
Is your business ready for Hurricane Season?
If you would like ColoHouse to help you assess your IT infrastructure or receive a free consultation from our team of experts, please email us at hurricane@colohouse.com.
