Many businesses and companies were either forced to close during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic or decided to close voluntarily to ensure the safety of their employees and patrons. With restrictions being lifted, slowly and methodically, it has come time for some of these businesses to consider their plans for re-opening safely and having their employees return to work.
To this end, businesses must reconnect with each of their suppliers and partners to ensure they are able to support their needs upon re-opening. These needs could include warehouse replenishment, IT services, maintenance and security services, and the like. Before a business can re-open, it is important to determine at what capacity level these suppliers are able to provide the necessary services, and if necessary, source alternative suppliers on a temporary basis.
Suppliers and partners may be in various states of readiness as a result of the ongoing pandemic. Some may be fully operational and able to fulfill their commitments. Others may be unable to meet requirements due to staffing shortages or closure of their own.
Is there an easy way for businesses to reach out and assess the capacity of all their various suppliers while still leaving time to focus on their other recovery planning tasks, such as reaching out to employees and notifying the public?
With the help of an automation solution, the recovery support requests for businesses can be done using an automated survey smart flow, which will contact all suppliers and partners at once to determine their current capacity levels.
How, you ask?
First off, by using an automation solution with a built-in CRM, businesses are able to add and manage the contact information for all partners and suppliers. Gone are the days of the traditional Rolodex – digital contact management helps ensure information remains up to date and accurate.
Using this stored supplier contact information, businesses can have an online survey send at a specified time, asking these suppliers what their current capacity is; whether they have returned to normal operations yet; and if not, whether they will still be able to support their needs. Responses received from this survey will be stored in easy-to-read reports that the businesses can view to determine where supplier support may be lacking when developing their recovery plan for re-opening.
What’s more, a second follow-up survey can be sent automatically to any suppliers or partners who neglected to respond the first time to make sure that businesses are able to collect the data they need for their recovery plans. The automation platform can utilize and apply decision logic to determine whether the contact replied to the survey or not within the specified time frame and automatically send the follow-up survey if not. No manual intervention required.
Confirming access to a supply chain is crucial if any business hopes to have success when they re-open. If there are any missing links in the chain there will undoubtedly be setbacks and headaches when trying to resume to normal operations – or as normal as they can be, considering.
An automated smart flow can help facilitate the work that needs to be done by a business in the planning stages of the recovery process. The ability to send automated surveys and receive responses via one central solution can greatly improve organization and efficiency during this process and ensure that a business is fully stocked and prepared when they receive the green light to re-open their doors, with all the information and contacts they need right at their fingertips.
Alternatively, should a business not wish to create the automated survey smart flow, instead preferring to speak directly with their partners and suppliers, they are able to do so easily using an instant teleconference solution. Such a solution would allow a business to use contact data stored in the CRM to initiate a teleconference call with suppliers and manage it through an online interface. This is a great option to consider in the event a negotiation is required.
Want to learn more about how to manage business recovery support requests using automation? Click the button below to book a demo of SimplyCast’s all-in-one emergency communication and management solution.
