The heart is a vital organ. Physically or emotionally, its’ importance is infinite and at most times life-changing. While at times it can be broken, its’ strength in recovering and thriving at a faster beat makes it paramount to good health, happiness and longevity. A person’s’good heart’ is predominantly thought of as the reason for his or her kindness, compassion and thoughtfulness. The heart is an essential organ. Especially during a pandemic.
Since the beginning of the crisis, businesses who themselves have been detrimentally affected by the economic downturn, are racking their brains trying to figure out how to communicate and help their customers not only navigate the crisis, but prepare for and thrive during post-Coronavirus times. It’s a delicate balance of doing as much as you can to make a difference in peoples’ lives without harming your own business, and also ensuring that your business’s offerings of support are authentic and heartfelt. At the crux of the matter, it always has to come from the heart.
As referenced in Ted Waldron and James Wetherbee’s article ‘Ensure That Your Customer Relationships Outlast Coronavirus’, the HEART framework describes the five main strategies to help organizations navigate pandemics and maintain their bonds with consumers. They are :
Humanize your company
Educate about change
Assure stability
Revolutionize offerings
Tackle the future
At Cognibox, since the crisis began, we have been doing everything in our power to flatten the COVID-19 curve and assist businesses implement controls to prevent the outbreak from spreading in the workplace. We also want to contribute to the continuity of essential activities and help businesses respond more effectively to this current pandemic. In reviewing Waldron and Wetherbe’s article, we couldn’t agree with them more. As an organization that works in health and safety, we have always felt that our mission and privilege has been to help in any way that we can, first and foremost. For us at Cognibox, we have always put authenticity, education, support, innovation and forward-thinking front and center. The key to everything is to remember to be grateful and to practice what you preach. In this vein, we have created multiple COVID-19 related resources that are free of charge.
Humanize your company
Over the last month, we have been very conscious of the potentially financially destructive effects that this pandemic can have on our consumers and our main focus has been to reassure you of our understanding and preparedness for the situation and our willingness to adapt to your needs. We have always prided Cognibox technology as being a flexible solution tailored to each client, and in these dire times, creativity and malleability are imperative. We also strongly believe that this approach must be carried out internally. We are aware of the potentially detrimental mental and emotional effects that this crisis can cause our employees, and to ensure the security and comfort of our team, we are in constant communication with them to reassure that all is well and that they are supported while working from home. We have provided them with multiple resources for moral and emotional support to deal with anxiety and we have been delivering physical resources such as ergonomic chairs and screens to them to mirror the comfort that they experience while working in the Cognibox office. Our CEO places much importance on a strong mind and body to help manage this pandemic, and daily exercise routines are suggested to help increase the production of endorphins.
Educate about change
In addition to flexibility and understanding, we have always striven to be a forthcoming company that communicates and educates our consumers on all corporate updates. Since the crisis began, Cognibox has set forth a pre-developed business continuity plan and we have been communicating it to you every step of the way. We quickly implemented a company-wide work-from-home plan that allows us to protect our company and offer you support. In addition, we have been consistently working with the team to ensure that they are adapting well to this new reality through constant communication and updates. Our goal is to keep them engaged and reassured during this pandemic.
Assure stability
Part of our mission to be outright and forthcoming is to assure our clients of our stability. Cognibox is accessible 24/7 through the cloud and each member of the company is available to assist. Information accessibility is vital and the company was built around stability so that we can ensure consistency.
Revolutionize offerings
As a technology company, innovation is paramount to success. This is not only relevant for the implementation of new technologies, but also of adapting offerings to social and economic changes and crises. During these difficult times, we are offering multiple free resources to help companies survive, prepare and thrive well into the future. We have created a free online training on COVID-19, an online screening for employees’ and contractors’ risk of propagating the virus, a prequalification questionnaire adapted to COVID-19 that addresses your pandemic business continuity plan and a business continuity plan template and guideline for contractors. Each of these resources can be found in our resource center (click here to visit the Cognibox Covid-19 Resource Center). In addition to these resources, we will also be offering flexible subscription renewal payment terms for contractors to help them weather this crisis.
Tackle the future
Along with innovation, being a forward-thinking company is a two-pronged responsibility. In order to be able to exceed your needs and help you thrive well into the future; we are very conscious of taking the necessary steps to ensure our stability and a healthy financial future. We take ownership by revising our business continuity plan every day and fine-tuning it to this ever-evolving pandemic. We will remain fully operational throughout this crisis regardless of its duration and we are consistently developing new initiatives to provide even greater value to you and your contractors. It is also important for us that our employees are prepared and looking forward to the future. In this vein, we have organized training plans to help them broaden their role-specific competencies or expand their knowledge on health and safety. We have also decided to embrace these slower times to develop and execute projects that we have not had the time to do. This gives us the chance to improve both the lives of our consumers and our employees. We have even had the chance to organize a hackathon to challenge our employees to develop new solutions.
In order to bring solace and hope to not only our consumers, but also any organization that is struggling during these times, we’ve been adapting our resources to ensure that our expertise and technologies are accessible to any company free of charge. Please feel free to share this information with any organization of your choosing and do not hesitate to contact us with any recommendations at covid19@cognibox.com.
