Covid-19 is wreaking havoc on businesses, especially small businesses. With the shutdowns and quarantines, we see demands falling. Covid-19’s impact on business is immense.
Covid-19's impact on small businesses
Small businesses are taking a huge hit. With people afraid to leave their homes, local businesses are facing a lot of issues. Larger companies may have the financial capacity to take a loss and keep going. But the likelihood of small, local businesses going strong through the coronavirus pandemic is much less.
Most of these businesses are depending on delivery as a way to survive this storm. Twitter is flooded with local businesses requesting their community to show some support and make a purchase. Even eateries that were opposed to home delivery are now depending on it as their means to keep going.
Pandemic effects on Hospitality, Travel & Tourism
Covid-19 has the largest impact on businesses in these sectors.
Hotels are deserted, airlines are offering huge discounts and tourism is pretty much non-existent in these uncertain times.
Most countries have imposed severe restrictions on international travel. Airlines across the globe are reducing their capacity. According to The Economist, Korean Air has cut down around 80% of their schedule. Cathay Pacific had lowered its capacity by 65% in March and April. They actually expect to lower it even further in May. Lufthansa is requesting financial assistance from European governments. Airlines across the world are laying off their employees or requesting them to take unpaid leave.
Hotels across the world are shutting down. Tourist sites are closed for the public. Entire countries are on lockdown.
Companies in these sectors are asking their governments to bail them out. The CEO of Hilton, Chris Nassetta, said that within a week he expects occupancy to be around 10-15% worldwide. He expects it to be much lower in areas with active covid-19 outbreaks.
The online shift
People have no intention of leaving their houses. Most are only leaving to purchase essential commodities. In this situation, they’re looking for delivery options for all non-essential commodities (and even the essentials, as far as possible). Stores cannot answer phone calls from multiple customers at the same time. Most of these calls are about routine orders that don’t actually need a human to address them. Many of these local businesses have started to go online.
These small, local businesses are looking for an affordable way to expedite their process. In essence, they need an economic means of automating this process. Here’s where Engati chatbots come in. They are affordable, easy to make & deploy and require absolutely no coding.
This would help local businesses as they start making the shift to E-commerce. Service-based businesses could also keep their customers feeling satisfied with the help of chatbots. They don’t need to force their employees to travel to the office. They can keep their employees safe while keeping their customers satisfied by investing in automation and chatbots.
The fortunate one
There are a few businesses that are actually getting any success during the pandemic. One of these is Zoom Video Communications. With companies embracing work from home options, video conferencing services are increasing in demand.
Even schools are using it to keep in touch with their students and to host online lectures. The founder of Zoom, Eric Yuan had his net worth increase by $2 billion so far in 2020.
Conclusion
Businesses need to practice and encourage social distancing and switch to digital means of doing things. It’s time for them to embrace automation to keep their business going while keeping their employees safe. Here’s an article that explains some precautions that should be taken to reduce covid-19’s impact on business.
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