Supporting your customers during lockdown

9th April 2020 - Last modified 15th November 2023

#2 in our blog series: Marketing Communications During the COVID Crisis. 

As the COVID-19 crisis develops, individuals and companies are adapting to the “new normal”. In the UK at least, businesses have spent the first week or two working out how they can function with the restrictions in place.

At Alto we continue to think about how our clients can communicate with their customers, generate leads – and also how they can make the most of the fact that staff and customers/prospects may not be able to go work. Here we look at some ways that you can support your customers during lockdown.

Many scientists around the globe are having to stay at home, and this might go on for a number of months. During this period they will also need to maintain their scientific expertise, which is an opportunity for life science companies to be supportive and establish, maintain and develop trust with their audiences.

Online training

Enforced time away from the lab is an opportunity for scientists to refresh their knowledge, discover new/different/more efficient protocols, assays or ways of doing routine work, or simply to save researchers getting “rusty” while not in the lab every day! To support this, life science companies should consider online training on techniques or products, which can be developed as part of a Continuing Professional Development programme.

Aspects of the training programmes to consider might include:

• Comprehensive, bespoke training modules (longer development time) versus technique/subject refreshers where scientists can test their knowledge eg multiple choice questions through eg SurveyMonkey or similar. This approach would have shorter development times.

• Gamification to make the training both informative and enjoyable. This could take the form of a multiple-choice quiz for example, fostering a spirit of competitiveness with leaderboards etc, and greater involvement with your target audiences. Again, there are a range of options to suit different requirements/budgets, from customisable third party platforms such as gamify, through to creating a completely bespoke application.

• Depending on the type of training/refresher module, it may be better to develop it for the PC/laptop or as a phone app.

• As well as text, content might include:

o Images, video and animations

o Downloads and links to further resources

o Request for hints

• Accompanying printed workbooks as a hard copy reminder/reference when back in the lab

• Certification as a reward for completion (with industry related CPD points)

Hints and Tips

Many companies already have a useful resource of short “Hints and Tips” for helping researchers in their work, often written as blogs for the company website. These can be re-purposed as an educational “refresher” series for scientists in lockdown, and new content like this – and FAQs – can be developed to further support your customers.

A fresh look at…
Most scientists have their ways of working, and when they are busy in the lab it can be hard to get them to rethink how they work. With the current COVID-19 crisis, it is likely that many of your customers – at least those that aren’t heavily involved in the diagnosis or treatment of the virus – are looking at different ways to work. If your product(s) uses new technology or requires a different approach, then this is a great time to get your target audiences to think about it.

Even generic, technique-based online training offers plenty of branding opportunities for your company/products, and importantly, any resources developed to support your customers and prospects during the COVID-19 crisis will be just as relevant when life returns to normal. These assets will continue to work for your brand long after COVID-19.

Virtual user group meetings

User group meetings are excellent for constructive feedback and helping to spread the word about your products. With social distancing and travel bans, physical meetings are impossible, however virtual user group meetings are extremely viable and you can continue to get feedback from customers, hear views/needs to inform future product development and help with any issues

With five PhDs in our team, Alto Marketing is the ideal partner to develop training content as well as devise training plans. Contact us now to discuss the development and promotion of branded online training resources.