COVID-19: Thoughts and Resources for Meal Delivery Businesses
Our team is thinking about all the effects that COVID-19 will have on our friends, family, communities and customers.
Our team is thinking about all the effects that COVID-19 will have on our friends, family, communities and customers.
We sent a note earlier today encouraging vendors to open up communication with their customers about COVID-19. Reposting it here as well:
Quite a few of you have already sent notes out to your customers. For those of you who have not, we think openly communicating with your customers is a very smart strategy. For those of you that have, we’d encourage you to continue to support your community with updates and constant communication throughout the next few weeks as we navigate COVID-19.
We’ve compiled a quick list of resources and ideas for communicating with customers. Some thoughts on important messages to convey in all of your communications:
- Provide Reassurance: We think it’s a great idea to reassure your customers of the health and safety measures that your team is taking. Telling them about your production facilities, as well as stating out the strict food safety (and human safety) guidelines you are following in your facilities is a great place to start.
- Implement a no-contact delivery option: We suggest implementing a no-contact delivery option if possible. This means leaving deliveries on front porch steps and trying to provide safe, limited contact in-store pick-ups. This will help to protect both your customers as well as your employees.
We’ve seen a few great examples of newsletters that explain the above while keeping a calm tone toward your customers. Below are a few examples we recommend as resources for crafting a note to your own customers:
- Door Dash
- Sakara Life (national meal prep company)
- Local Meel (Bottle vendor)
- Planted Table (Bottle vendor)
We also wanted to provide you all with a list of trusted resources so we can all stay up to date on national and global developments:
Lastly, please ask any employees who feel even remotely sick to stay home. You have probably heard that social distancing is essential to combating the quick and unpredictable spread of this virus. We understand kitchens are not able to work remotely, but if you can work from home even 50% of the time, we highly recommend this.
Please let us know if we can be a resource to you as we all navigate the uncertainty of COVID-19.
