Does your company have a COVID-19 advisory notice on your website?

  1. Who needs an advisory notice.
  2. Why you should be posting your notice and policy.
  3. Examples of advisory notices and announcements.
  4. Where you should post your notice.

 

These are crazy times. People are scared, the stock market has tanked and there is no toilet paper anywhere.

But despite there being no tp, you still have to operate your business. However, some things will probably have to change for a few weeks to a few months. Some of these changes affect your customers and because of that, it’s a good idea to have a notice on your website and social media to keep them updated.

Who needs a COVID-19/Corona advisory notice?

COVID-19 affects different businesses in different ways. For instance, if you’re running a doctor’s office or clinic you may not be seeing certain patients for a set amount of time. You may be doing more conference calls when you would have had in-person meetings. Or you may not be shaking hands anymore.

There are a whole range of changes that you may be making to help keep your staff and customers safe and your business operating. If COVID-19 is affecting how you do business in any way perceivable by your clients you should post a notice or advisory statement.

Why you should be posting a notice.

Posting your notice lets people know you are on top of the situation and whether you are still operating or not. It keeps everyone on the same page.

No one likes to be surprised by a sudden change. So if how you do business has changed because of a crisis or emergency a notice keeps everyone in the loop and lets them know what to expect.

Examples of COVID-19 Notices.

These are just examples and range from huge corporate franchises to smaller businesses. Not all of them will be right for you, but can give you an idea of what needs to be covered by a notice.

Starbucks
Hubspot
AlixPartners
Appliance Repair Company

As you can see there are different types. From just letting everyone know it’s business as usual with some precautions taken to “We won’t touch you”.

The type of notice will depend on your situation but you should be letting people know:

  • Nothing has changed and you’re monitoring the situation
  • Who to contact with questions.
  • Changes in hours
  • Changes in staff locations “so don’t bother stopping by our office, everyone is at home”
  • Any changes in your procedures and processes
  • Delays or postponement of services
  • Discontinuations of services
  • Or anything else that may affect how your customers do business with you.

The reasoning behind any of the changes can also go along way toward putting people’s minds at ease and get ahead of questions people may have.

Where should you post your notice?

These notices don’t help anyone if no one sees them.

We recommend you put them up in the following places.

  1. Your website. Having a pop-up or bar at the top or bottom of your site linking to your post is a great way to make finding the post easy without disrupting your whole site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Email your customer list. Chances are no one is visiting your site every day. So an email is a great way to reach those people.

3. Post a link to your policy on your social media accounts. Just like everyone isn’t visiting your website every day, people aren’t looking for your email either. Posting to your social media accounts is another way to get people’s attention and let them know what’s going on.

There may be other places you could post your notice like a newsletter. The goal is to get the word out and avoid unnecessary disruptions. So post wherever it makes sense to you.

 

Wrapping Up

This post is not legal advice, health care advice, or human resource advice. Just observations we’ve made as both a customer of businesses affected by the Corona Virus and an agency taking care of companies being affected.

So we’re here to help however we can. If you need help posting a notice or advisory statement feel free to contact us with a copy of your notice and we’ll do our best to get it posted for you, or refer you to someone who can help you get your notice added to your site.

Kellee Carroll