In my case, this specifically relates to the destination weddings and events industry, which has been smashed, but of course there are a lot of other industries that have things like non refundable deposits from clients which are often already spent with vendors.
Right now, leaders and influential personalities in this space are telling people to only postpone, not cancel. It's not even possible to cancel with a full refund of deposits most of the time as it has already been given to vendors like hotels, florists etc. They can and have in a few cases refunded the deposit they collected for their own planning service though - it's itemised separately)
Obviously it's a touchy subject, and so far most of their clients have been understanding, but they still need to put something out addressing it as it's going to get even worse in the next week or two (most clients of theirs are from Australia, which hasn't yet taken it as seriously yet as other places IMO).
Would love to hear others opinions on this and how you may have dealt with it in your business, or what you think is going to be the best way of wording it as basically a press release.
I would imagine it should involve:
* Directly addressing their main concerns first up, and answering honestly (although I don't think these planners even know how bad it's going to get). Probably this is where deposits/refunds will be mentioned.
* Not acting too flippant about it, nor too doomsday and avoiding any sensational language. Acknowledging it's serious but reminding them that postponing means they are still going to have their event.
* Confirm that the business is healthy and there is no doubt that they will still be there for when things return to normal and business resumes as normal (which is true, they are big enough to weather it).
* Maybe ending with a positive spin of some kind.
* They want to talk about insurance etc but I think that's better left out of it?
Anyway, I think this is going to be something a lot of people are going to have to deal with, so hopefully some ideas in this thread help people. I'm not a copywriter or anything so open to any suggestions!
Right now, leaders and influential personalities in this space are telling people to only postpone, not cancel. It's not even possible to cancel with a full refund of deposits most of the time as it has already been given to vendors like hotels, florists etc. They can and have in a few cases refunded the deposit they collected for their own planning service though - it's itemised separately)
Obviously it's a touchy subject, and so far most of their clients have been understanding, but they still need to put something out addressing it as it's going to get even worse in the next week or two (most clients of theirs are from Australia, which hasn't yet taken it as seriously yet as other places IMO).
Would love to hear others opinions on this and how you may have dealt with it in your business, or what you think is going to be the best way of wording it as basically a press release.
I would imagine it should involve:
* Directly addressing their main concerns first up, and answering honestly (although I don't think these planners even know how bad it's going to get). Probably this is where deposits/refunds will be mentioned.
* Not acting too flippant about it, nor too doomsday and avoiding any sensational language. Acknowledging it's serious but reminding them that postponing means they are still going to have their event.
* Confirm that the business is healthy and there is no doubt that they will still be there for when things return to normal and business resumes as normal (which is true, they are big enough to weather it).
* Maybe ending with a positive spin of some kind.
* They want to talk about insurance etc but I think that's better left out of it?
Anyway, I think this is going to be something a lot of people are going to have to deal with, so hopefully some ideas in this thread help people. I'm not a copywriter or anything so open to any suggestions!
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