Last March 24, Globe myBusiness with SGS Philippines Inc. tackled what hospitality and restaurant businesses should prioritize to recover and stay relevant this 2021. With the year’s fresh challenges, let our research, guidance, and tips help you revive customer confidence through safe and innovative measures.
If you missed the session, watch the full recap here.
Danica De Guzman, Operations Executive, SGS Philippines Inc.
Natalia Moran, Consultant Chef, Tasteless Food Group
Frances Caluya, Industry Marketing Manager, Globe myBusiness
HELPFUL PRODUCT INFORMATION:
It’s not too late to give your members and employees affordable 24/7 health assistance with KonsultaMD. Want to know more? Click here.
Send on-brand messages to your customers with M360. Click here to learn more.
Create an engaging rewards program for your customers with RUSH. Click here to learn more.
With the SGS Hygiene Monitored Program, you can outsource your business’s hygiene management to SGS, the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. Learn more here.
For professionals in the hospitality and restaurant industries, the pandemic has placed considerable hurdles in the way of keeping business going. COVID-19 safety measures such as physical distancing and travel restrictions have hindered businesses like hotels, resorts, and restaurants from reaching their customers and meeting their needs face-to-face.
Luckily, advancements in technology have helped bridge the gap between businesses and their customers. With everything migrating to digital spaces, hospitality businesses should follow suit in order to recover from any losses, and to find innovative new ways to connect to their clientele.
In our previous article, we discussed the areas of concern that hospitality businesses and restaurants should prioritize in the wake of the “new normal”, and how Globe myBusiness-powered technology might step in to help hotel and restaurant owners. In this article, we’re going to take a closer look at specific products from Globe myBusiness, their features, and find out how they can help hospitality and restaurant businesses recover.
Stay on-brand, even over SMS; M360 helps you better engage your customers by letting you send branded and bulk promo messages with ease, and customize your sender ID so they know it’s a legitimate message from you (and not an annoying scam).
You can use M360 to send automated transaction confirmations, important COVID-19 advisories, special promos, product reminders, and even feedback requests. You can do all this without having to turn your data on – all you need is your Globe number, then you’re ready to create a branded sender name and customized subscriber lists which you can send SMS messages to in real time.
These days, your customers have less chances of trying your product or service… so give them a reason to make the effort, and keep coming back! Create a loyalty program powered by Rush: it’s easy to customize and set up quickly, allowing you to design your own rewards system (including a custom-branded loyalty website and app).
Rush also shows you real-time customer data, so you can gain a deeper insight on how to improve not only your rewards system but also your current products and offers. You also get to save on costs with built-in options for SMS and EDM blasts through Rush Loyalty.
With all hospitals on heightened alert for contagion, your staff deserves a tangible assurance of care. KonsultaMD offers affordable 24/7 access to health assistance for as low as P1 per day, and consultations with licensed doctors that you can call anytime with no appointments necessary. You also get unlimited teleconsultations by using your Globe/TM number.
Providing this for your employees will help keep them feeling secure, consequently increasing their overall productivity at work, while helping protect your customers too.
Add a layer of quality checks to your operations, by meeting stringent SGS Certification standards. SGS, as the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company, can add value to your business by assuring your hygiene standards remain in compliance with global metrics.
The program includes regular food safety and hygiene audits, environmental monitoring, cleaning and disinfection practices, sampling and testing regime, a dedicated mark of compliance, and an SGS audit certificate referencing achievement of COVID-19 control requirements.
You’ll earn an SGS Certification once you complete the Program successfully. Display the Certification in your business premises, and your customers will be assured of your full compliance to global food safety standards – giving them the confidence to stay and dine.
With services like these and more, Globe myBusiness is ready to help your business bounce back. Purchase any Globe myBusiness product or upgrade your plans with us until June 30, 2021 to receive up to P23,000 worth of discounts on the SGS Hygiene Monitored program.
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Aside from an overall sense of normalcy and stability, there are two other things people crave most amidst the pandemic: travel and leisure. Sitting at a cafe with a friend, doing an in-city staycation with family, or going on an out-of-town adventure with the barkada – all these activities have been hindered by pandemic-led precautions.
Certainly, tourism and leisure hubs like hotels, restaurants, and resorts are feeling the crunch: faced with the challenge of meeting new safety standards and dealing with decreased foot traffic, they’ve nevertheless found ways to survive and even thrive in these times.
Travel platform Agoda.com’s What Matters 2021 survey found that global respondents placed the desire to travel freely as their number two priority (following the need to spend more time with family and loved ones).
The longing to be out and about is real. Business owners can safely satisfy their customers’ needs by putting up evidence-based safety measures, as well as creatively applying relevant hospitality trends like personalization (creating a unique messaging and services that recognize the needs of different individuals), digitalized guest experiences and contactless technology, and automation.
Technology makes it easier than ever to stay up-to-date with these evolving trends. New innovations and increasingly competitive prices have allowed professionals in the hospitality and restaurant industries to deploy digitalization, automation and contactless technology in the service of their customers – without compromising safety in the new normal.
Globe myBusiness is aware of how important technology is especially for the Hospitality and Restaurant Industry. Thus, you may consider the following tech solutions to help you ride on emerging trends, serve your customers better and recover.
Personalization and automation. Regularly communicating with your customers shows them that they are important to you. SMS is still an effective way to reach your customers, but it is crucial that in a sea of impersonal text promotions, yours stand out by adding a personal, branded touch to your message. This way, customers know it’s a legitimate message from your business (and not a scam). Today’s technology allows you to make each SMS message branded and relevant without having to compose each one from scratch – tools like M360 can help you personalize, automate, and brand your SMS blasts with ease.
Digitized guest experience and customer loyalty. The physical constraints set by the pandemic don’t have to hinder you from providing a memorable, loyalty-building customer experience. Keep customers coming back by adding incentives that build loyalty and recall, while keeping customers safe. With digital tools like Rush, for example, you can set up custom-branded promotions quickly and easily.
Operational efficiencies to reassure customers of their safety. The pandemic has also caused customer behavior towards dining out to change. A lot of consumers are still concerned about their safety when leaving the comforts of their homes. Upgrading your safety protocols can give both your employees and your customers added assurance. You can provide health and wellness assistance to your employees through solutions like KonsultaMD, which employees can access round the clock to make sure they report to work fit and healthy.
It is important to keep your customers safe too, so it’s also vital that you are able to evaluate your food safety protocols through services like the SGS Hygiene Monitored Program. Such audit systems are essential for hotels and restaurants whose customers want to be assured of their safety and security.
These are only some of the things that business owners in the hospitality and tourism industry have to keep in line during a pandemic, but you don’t have to face them alone.
Globe myBusiness, as your trusted and reliable digital solutions partner, can help you navigate the new normal by providing tourism businesses with the right technology you need, to keep your business up to date and up to speed as the times change.
Send on-brand messages to your customers with M360. Click here to learn more.
Create an engaging rewards program for your customers with RUSH. Click here to learn more.
Make your staff’s health a top priority with KONSULTAMD. Click here to learn more.
Find out what other tools can help your restaurant with a free digital consultation with our solutions experts. Schedule yours now.
UPDATE YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION:
Exclusive offers, event invites, and freebies await when you update your contact details! Get these and receive real-time notifications on your account when you update now: glbe.co/Get-Updates-GmBA
The spread of COVID-19 has definitely impacted business for the worse. With many stores shut down and customers having to stay at home indefinitely, small business owners nationwide are now anxious about how to keep their companies running.
How can you sustain your business during these troubled times? Here are some tips:
Thankfully, the government is taking measures to provide more leeway for small businesses. Loans, bills, rentals, and tax filings have all been moved to help small businesses balance expenses.
Government programs were set up to promote business recovery after COVID-19, examples are:
Department of Labor & Employment (DOLE) issued CAMP as a way to help workers through financial and employment assistance.
DOLE also rolled out TUPAD to provide emergency employment to displaced or seasonal workers for 10 to 30 days, depending on the nature of work, which will fall under social, economic, or agro-forestry community projects.
The Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) set ERF in place, with a PHP1 billion fund, as a loan facility to help micro, small, and medium enterprises affected by the ECQ.
The program by Department of Finance (DOF) distributes PHP5,000 to PHP8,000 to eligible workers employed by affected small businesses.
These initiatives are available to help you manage your cash flow and operations during this challenging time.
Private enterprises are doing their part in cushioning the damage of the pandemic as well. Companies such as Globe Telecom, Aboitiz Group Of Companies, Ayala Corporation, and Coca Cola Philippines to name a few have been providing their customers, many of them SMEs, with extended bill payment periods, donations and relevant solutions.
“We remain steadfast in our commitment to stand with you at this difficult time. Together, as a nation, we shall overcome this crisis,” says Ernest Cu, Globe Telecom President and CEO.
It’s reassuring to know that entrepreneurs can turn to fellow businesses for aid, especially in times of crisis.
If there’s any single takeaway from this whole experience, it’s that digitization is now absolutely necessary. Businesses that have digitized are able to continue operations online despite the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ). Brick-and-mortar stores have diverted their sales to their e-commerce stores. Thanks to cloud storage, online payment platforms, and logistics providers, they’re able to manage their business from the safety of their homes.
If you’ve never invested in digitization before, now’s the perfect time to take advantage of technology – open an online store, create an app, use productivity software, video conferencing platforms and other online solutions. Google Workspace (previously known as G Suite), for example, allows teams to collaborate even when they’re not physically together through Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive, and Hangouts. Many of these have free trials and other perks so you can make sure they are worthwhile investments before buying.
After all, we don’t know how long this quarantine will last. And these tools will remain useful even after quarantine is lifted. Use this opportunity to make the move to go digital so you’re better prepared for the next potential disruption.
While business has slowed down, you can use this time to pause and re-frame your strategies. This pandemic is forcing everyone to stay home, and that among other things has a huge impact on the way people behave.
More people are doing their shopping online — but what they’re buying is starkly different from before. According to Nielsen, online sales for hand sanitizers in Southeast Asia jumped from 6% in 2019 to 60% in February 2020. More people are buying their groceries and other personal care products online for the first time, and claim they will do so again in the next year.
Meanwhile, online communities are proliferating. Facebook Groups like Let’s Eat Pare, Best of the Best Manila, Who’s Your Pupper, Senpai? serve as channels for self-isolating Filipinos to come together and chat about something they all have in common.
Even physical communities like villages and subdivisions are coming together online. Local village Facebook and Viber groups serve as a channel for neighbors to sell their products and services to each other without breaking quarantine boundaries.
These active and tight-knit communities can be powerful avenues to conduct consumer behavior studies so you can better understand the demands of a highly connected audience.
This ECQ sheds light on what consumers see as essential goods and services. Things like soap, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper have always been household staples, but now more than ever they are considered essential.
Entertainment, electronics, and even beauty items are also becoming indispensable in battling the monotony of staying at home. This is an opportunity for your business to position its brand as a need in a whole new light.
NAVCO, for example, is a local distributor of tech products like Anker, Garmin, and Eufy. They positioned their gadgets as technology that can spread joy despite the quarantine. In effect, this helped increase their sales.
“You need to have a goal. For [our business], it’s to be a source of good, hope, and joy [during the crisis]. Pivot your services, content, and positioning towards tools against the crisis. Show your availability. And don’t do hard sell. Just be there,” says Ryan Tan, NAVCO Managing Director.
Alternatively, you can also pivot your business to become more relevant during these times. San Miguel Corporation’s Ramon Ang, for example, turned his breweries into labs for producing rubbing alcohol to be donated to hospitals and villages across the country.
Many local clothing companies, like fashion designers Rajo Laurel, Patty Ang, and Puey Quinones, have also begun producing masks and PPE suits for frontliners.
Especially in this time of crisis, it’s important that you let your customers know that you are always there for them. A brand is more than just a business – it’s something that can fulfill new demands or untapped needs. So don’t be afraid to tweak your position to remain relevant during this time.
While this pandemic is certainly not a good thing, it’s teaching us that the world is changing at a rapid pace and the internet is becoming more than just a commodity. It is entirely necessary for businesses to take their work online. Use the tools at your disposal to make the most out of business.
Globe myBusiness can help you. Schedule a FREE digital consultation with our solution experts to learn about products, services, and solutions for business recovery to prepare you for any crisis.
HELPFUL PRODUCT INFORMATION:
Enjoy seamless collaboration and communication with your team even when crises keep you apart with Google Workspace (previously known as G Suite). Learn more here.
Microsoft 365 is your complete office suite for every business need, giving full access to Office applications you need to run your venture. More information here.
Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars. Sign up to learn more here.
Send important announcements branded with your company name to employees and customers with M360. More information here.
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