By Rob Misheloff, President of Smarter Finance USA 

Lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic have put a major crunch on all businesses, sometimes directly, and sometimes indirectly.

Directly, lockdowns have forced many non-essential businesses to either suspend services completely or adopt a delivery/online-only/curbside pickup model.

Indirectly, it’s hard to quantify how customer behavior is going to change, not only immediately, but for the future.

As restrictions are lifted, many businesses are beginning to plan how to safely reopen. While it’s tempting to try and get back to serving customers as soon as possible, that may not be the safest or the wisest action in the current climate. Unprecedented means just that; there is no roadmap for dealing with this scenario. That means you should do as much research as you can, follow the guidelines outlined by the government, and keep yourself from jumping into anything too quickly. Once you’ve done that, you can start taking a measured set of steps to restart your operations.

What Your Business Needs To Know

As a business owner, it’s essential that you educate yourself in a variety of ways while putting together your reopening plan. Part of this is compliance. Depending on where you are based, not just nationally, but even at the state level, there may be very different restrictions on how you can operate your business. For example, there may be regulations on how many people can be in your establishment at a given time, what services you can provide, and how customers should conduct themselves (social distancing, wearing masks, etc.). You need to not only know the regulations but how they change.

Equally important is being sure to follow news stories about COVID-19 and preventative measures. Because this is a new virus, we’re still learning about how to best minimize the risk of transmission. As a public business, you need to follow these stories as they evolve so you can adjust your practices accordingly.

Lastly, you need to do a self-inventory of your business and its operations. Even as the pandemic recedes, with no vaccine in sight, customer behavior will be different. The things they buy might change as well as the ways they buy them. For example, customers may request curbside pickup options when they wouldn’t have before. You should look at industry resources (trade journals, major publications, etc.) in your niche so you can keep up to date on consumer trends.

With all these measures, you can start putting together a list of practices for your employees/staff. There’s a component of personal responsibility for everyone, but you want to make sure that you are supplying the necessary guidance. This includes things like making sure employees don’t come into work if they feel sick: It’s a very American mentality to “push through” illness to work, but that’s a paradigm that needs to shift to keep everyone safe.

What Your Business Needs To Install

For businesses that are going to fully open to serve the public again or have people in close proximity (retail businesses, offices, entertainment, restaurants, etc.) social distancing equipment is going to be paramount.

Why?

Ultimately, despite your best practices for staff and plan, people are still going to make sanitary mistakes, and there is no way to make sure that your customers are being mindful as your team. Furthermore, COVID-19 can be spread by asymptomatic carriers, meaning a lot of people with the virus are interacting with the public so the best way to keep people safe is the proper equipment.

In terms of equipment, there are many tiers. Personal protective equipment (PPE) is probably what you’ve heard the most about in mainstream discourse. This includes the basics like masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer.

To be clear, you should absolutely have enough for every worker to have their own supply. Having some to provide to customers is also a good idea. However, it’s more the second tier of equipment that we want to focus on; these are more permanent, larger-scale additions that may remain commonplace even after a COVID-19 cure or vaccine. These include things like:

Glass/plexiglass barriers: Mounted over shared surfaces or things like food, these keep particles people expel while breathing from getting on a surface multiple people will touch.

Infrared thermometers: One practice we are already seeing is taking the temperature of people before letting them enter a business. A fever is a COVID-19 symptom, so at least this keeps people who are experiencing that symptom from entering. Infrared thermometers allow temperatures to be taken without added contact.

Occupancy sensors: Many municipalities are putting restrictions on how many people can be inside a given business at one time. This helps you keep track of people without having to manually count them.

Cubicles/room dividers: Novelties like open offices are probably going to be put on the backburner in the new normal. Using cubicles or room dividers to mandate social distancing will be essential in offices or call centers, where multiple people are working in a given space.

Turnstiles/racks/seating: We put all of these together because they serve a similar purpose—forcing people to stay a distance apart while doing things like waiting in line. For example, turnstiles and racks are natural barriers keeping people apart until they are guided otherwise by your staff. Added seating will keep people from naturally gravitating to stand near each other while waiting.

Of course, it’s a task to buy some or all of this equipment when your business is likely already under financial strain. So, with this in mind, it’s essential that you look into options to finance your social distancing equipment.

This is also going to impact your business strategy in different ways. For example, do you have all your documents in order to establish a solid credit history for your business? If not, you want to start taking those steps now to increase your chance of successfully borrowing funds for equipment. It may also be worth looking into leasing social distancing equipment. This has a smaller cost of entry (though possibly larger in the long run) if you want to get equipment and open operations as soon as possible.

Making more investments in your business after a long period of reduced income, or possibly no income at all, is a tall order. However, it’s also a necessary one. Without these steps, you potentially run the risk of falling out of compliance with local regulations. This not only means potential fines, it could also tarnish your brand’s reputation. A lot of customers are going to be reevaluating the businesses that they patronize moving forward as things start to open up. Now is the perfect time for you to potentially capture some of that new market, as well as reconnect with old customers. However, you need to have the planning and measures in place that will help them feel confident in their choice to support you.