5 ways your business’ website can address COVID-19

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has seemingly altered life for the whole world in a matter of weeks (even though it feels like it was overnight). It is affecting nearly every business in America and around the world in some way. Addressing how this global health crisis is changing your business is important for your customers and for the general health and safety of the surrounding communities.

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Here are five things you can do to update your customers about how your business is addressing the coronavirus.

1. Notify your users early. Our recommendation is to add a banner to the top of your website directing users to your response. Making sure your users don’t have to search for your response to this crisis is important. If you have a newsletter or email list you can (and should) send an update to your customers.
2. Add a page specific to your coronavirus response. Adding a page to your website outlining how you are addressing the coronavirus will allow your customers to hear from you about what changes your business is making. You should also address your customers via social media where possible. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are good tools for sharing this information.
3. Clearly outline changes your business is making. Be as clear as possible about all of the changes your business is making to address the health and safety of your customers. If you are a restaurant, bar, or other retail you will want to outline precautions being taken by your staff to limit the spread of the virus in your community.
4. Make sure your order online, to-go, and gift cards are readily accessible. For business that are seeing the most direct negative impact it is important to make sure your customers know what services are available. Ordering online, to-go orders, and gift cards can dramatically help businesses that typically rely on foot traffic. Encouraging the sale of gift cards is a helpful way to drive income when physical sales are limited.
5. Update frequently. There is a never-ending news cycle related to COVID-19 that is causing businesses to need to continually react to new details. Keep your customers and users as informed as possible should your policy or business change based on new information.

We have a lot of clients, past and present, whose businesses are affected by the coronavirus. We (Flywheel) are not immune to its impact either. If you are a client of ours and would like to update your website, or provide materials to your customers, we are operating at a discounted rate for requests specific to this crisis. If you are not a client of ours and are in need of website or design related services, please contact us. We would love to talk with you about how we can help.

Be safe and look after each other.

— Matt, Corben & Flywheel Co.

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Co-founder & Lead Programmer

Matt Higgins

Matt is a co-founder, creative director, and programmer at Flywheel. He's made literally tens of people laugh in his lifetime and is always looking for the next problem to solve.