My Back To Business Strategy

By Claire Brewerton, Managing Director of the Virtual Business Centre which celebrates 21 years in business this year. Claire and her team offer a range of services based around telephony including, an answering and reception service, outsourced customer service or complaints handling service, booking service and much more.

Summarise how Covid-19 has affected you? 

Our business has been open throughout to support our clients but it has been a steep learning curve for everyone to understand how to work and run their business within Covid19 parameters. 

We have seen a change in the way our clients have worked, some have completely suspended their business due to a slow down in their sectors of industry whilst others have been busier than ever as a result of Covid19 because of their business sectors. 

For us communication is so important that we have had to determine new methods of keeping in contact with staff to ensure everyone is fully briefed about our clients' requirements.

What has been your plan to continue?  

We have invested in all the equipment to support our staff to work from home and have had to look at ways of safeguarding our staff at the point we all return to the office. We are doing this on a rota basis over the coming weeks until the situation around the pandemic is a lot clearer. 

How has business changed for you over the last few months? 

We feel very fortunate that we have continued to be fully operational throughout this time – we have embraced technology like Microsoft Teams and Zoom to continue to be able to communicate with staff and clients.

As lockdown eases what measures have you put in place to get back to business? 

We have never not been back to business, apart from re locating our staff to work from home we have continued to operate as usual. 

We are very fortunate to be in this position, we find that generally businesses have become more reliant on phone calls and less on face to face contact.

We have had to undertake risk assessments to ensure when the office does reopen we will follow strict COVID 19 guidelines and ensue our staff are safe in the office environment.  

What has been the most challenging aspect of all of this? 

We have found it quite hard to keep on top of all the developments resulting from Covid19 – we have been in utered waters so undertaking all the operational and logistics of setting up our network for staff to work safely and securely from home has been intensive to us as a family business.

However it has also future proofed our business because we are sure that  COVID19 is going to continue for a while and we have the ability to continue to support our staff to work from home as and when it proves necessary. 

What has been the most positive aspect? 

Seeing our team pull together to keep everything running smoothly, I always knew they were a great team but this proved it and we've grown closer over these last few months.  We can't wait to have them back in the office when it is safe to do so. (I even put their faces on their screens so I can look at them!). 

Has it made you consider how you feel about other businesses/suppliers/customers/clients for good or otherwise? Ie will you make different choices? 

I am aware of so many companies that are unlikely to come out of this positively and it worries me that the economy will suffer for a number of years. 

Some businesses have not acted as morally or as ethically as I had anticipated and this will affect our buying choices in the future.

How important is this phrase to you – ‘buy local, supply local’? 

Our local community is very important to us, we try and utilise the services of businesses in our area, and it has been a pleasure to be able to support our local community in running a local help line for the vulnerable.

Moving forward it is going to be crucial in continuing to support our local trades because that is the only way we can rebuild the economy. Even though we offer services to businesses and brands nationwide, we still will be proactive in our own community. 

What are your top tips at this time?  

1. Look carefully at your business structure whilst you are in this time, Make sure you follow all the Covid 19 guidelines.

2. Keep in close contact with your clients, some of them may be having a tough time.

3. Each day take a moment to feel happy for what you have and what you have achieved in a difficult time.

Your parting thought? 

Always plan for the worst, hope for the best and celebrate what you have right now.

For more information visit www.virtualbusinesscentre.com