Red, Orange, Green…
The COVID-19 Protection Framework – navigating your business communications.
Information correct as of 29.11.2021This afternoon we find out the traffic light colour for the regions outside of Auckland, the same day we have had confirmation of the first Covid-19 case in Nelson Tasman. As expected, Covid-19 has arrived, and it is decision time for businesses and facilities.
At all levels of the new COVID-19 Protection Framework, businesses, retail, and public facilities will generally be able to remain open for vaccinated (or exempt) people, with restrictions on those who are not vaccinated. For the most up-to-date information, visit covid19.govt.nz, or business.govt.nz/covid-19/.
Whatever you decide to do, communication with your clients or customers will be important.
Below we cover some considerations for navigating communication with clients, customers and your workers. We also list a few business resources and provide some communication examples to help you wrap your head around communications about the framework.
Navigating communications
What you say now, can have a massive impact on your reputation, regardless of who you talk to.
Below are some pointers for informing customers/clients about your position on the framework, and how it impacts them.
Engage with your workers in a compassionate and understanding way. How you engage with workers over your decision and the mandates, will not only impact their relationship with you, but also what they have to say about your business in the community. We recommend you seek advice from employer relations experts on how to engage with your workers.
Inform clients and customers before they get to your door. If they are vaccinated they may feel safer to enter and more likely to venture out to see you. Equally, if they are unvaccinated and get to your door to see they are not welcome, this could be alienating and detrimental to their brand experience with you.
Give all clients and customers options to engage with you. If they can’t come to you, how do you provide people with the tools to still engage with you? Is this online shopping, video conferencing, online chat options, or social media? There are many options, so keep them open. This may also help those who choose to stay less active in the community, to continue to engage with you, from home.
Provide timely and relevant information relevant to your clients or customers. Don’t overwhelm people with too much information - people will be getting information from many sources. Think about all your channels - your website, Google My Business listing, social media, emails, and so on. And, make sure you keep them all updated. Also, consider what you are saying in all marketing and advertising - do any messages need updating?
Consider the order of information. We recommend you start with the why and then talk about what you are doing, so people are positioned with understanding before giving instruction. Consider using photos too, to explain content - not everyone is a great reader.
Engage your customers in your journey, even if you already know what your decision will be. If it is appropriate for your business, this is a good way to get clients to feel like they have been listened to. MiGym in Nelson offers a great example of how you can involve clients with customer-centric communication. They clearly communicate their position across both scenarios and ask to hear clients’ preferences with a simple survey.
Customer-centric communications
AirNZ recently sent out communications about changes they were putting in place. They didn’t consult customers, but they carefully crafted their message to be customer-centric and to address the unmet needs of many - while being supportive and understanding.
Titled: Getting you travel-ready for a safe summer, they used clever plays on words to communicate that their objective was to get “Kiwis” back to doing the things they love.
They congratulated us for doing “an incredible job at keeping everyone safe.” And then went on to talk about what they would be doing, “taking a step further to keep you safe this summer.”
They clearly laid out their reasoning - centered around the customer, not the business: ”it is important to protect our vulnerable communities, those with weakened immune systems, and for the elderly in our rest homes and our wee tamariki at home.” All in a conversational and relatable tone.
The tone of the narrative is important; re-read your content and think how you would feel receiving it.
Be ready
Have a plan in place - as we are likely to be in a state of change for some time.
Localised lockdowns will still be an option. What does that look like for your business? Where is your client base - do you need to be ready to mobilise brand engagement with only a local ‘at home’ audience? Are you ready to hit the ground running with learnings from the last lockdown?
We may also move between light colours often- how will this impact how you operate? Create a framework so your staff know what to expect. Detail operational changes and client communications requirements. Have your client communication ready to go.
Customers wanting to enter a business that is requiring the My Vaccine Pass are obligated to provide their My Vaccine Pass to be scanned when asked. Know how you will manage someone who comes in and is not vaccinated. Have protocols in place so staff feel confident about dealing with this situation, or know who to revert to.
Know how you will manage vaccine proof on entry to your business, enforce it and resource it. There is a free verifier app called NZ Pass Verifier available on the App Store and Google Play, for companies to use to scan and verify a My Vaccine Pass. If you have opted to require My Vaccine Pass in order to operate, you will need to verify each customer’s My Vaccine Pass using this app. Find out more here.
When you are ready to check your customers' My Vaccine Pass with the NZ Pass Verifier app, you can display these posters (as shown below) to let everyone know.
Kia ora — Vaccine pass required for entry — version 1 [PDF, 115 KB]
Kia ora — Vaccine pass required for entry — version 2 [PDF, 86 KB]