Since my last blog, more countries have gone into near complete lockdown; The UK, Germany, France and Austria are just some of the countries that decided to enter tougher restrictions.

With all these restrictions happening all around us a new set of vocabulary has emerged; ‘social distancing’, ‘lockdown’, ‘cocooning’, ‘flattening the curve’, ‘zoom meetings’. These are just some phrases that are now used as everyday words. Another phrase used, especially amongst the business community, is ‘click and collect’. The latest trend among dealers in Ireland is to facilitate online ordering, where the customer can arrive at the premises to receive their order or, if the customer is living outside 5km of where they live, the dealer can arrange to deliver the product themselves or by using a courier service. This online ordering facility (or click and collect) is working reasonably well and can mean the difference between surviving or not. Premises are still open for business but are limiting the number of people that can be inside at any one time.

I shudder to think what life would be like for our industry had the coronavirus happened twenty or thirty years ago. Technology has definitely saved the livlihood of many businesses during this crisis. I frequently visit dealer websites to see what they have on offer or what is happening. I have noticed that some dealers do not have up to date information on their site. There is a trend instead to put up the latest news on their social media links, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - deal of the day; the arrival of a new machine to their premises; the lucrative sale of a large order to a big client or a video of a machine being delivered to a customer are some of the items that appear on dealers’ App links. It seems that this is the way dealers prefer to get their message out, and they post something new almost every day. It is a very inexpensive way of marketing ones business. Quite often messages appear on how a dealer helped a local community group by sponsoring an event the community group organised. This is good PR for the business and wins over more support.

This nicely leads me on to the Service Dealer Digital Toolkit which is available for Service Dealer Ireland readers. This is a 10 chapter toolkit that helps users with practical tips and advice, from setting up a Facebook or Twitter page, to generating content with which to attract and connect to customers. It will help users to understand what makes an interesting and successful post, how dealers can use digital marketing to increase the number of individuals that follow their dealership’s sites and much more. The Toolkit can be accessed, after registering free here You should try it out and see for yourself.

Going back to our lockdown situation, the good news in Ireland is that the number of daily positive cases reported for coronavirus is starting to fall. The HSE would like the number of cases to be reduced even further, to less than one hundred per day. Hopefully, we should get to that stage if everyone plays their part in observing the guidelines. By December the 2nd we should be at that stage and be back to Level 3 restrictions or less, which can only be better for business leading up to Christmas