Come on, brave ones, keep breathing!
It would be super easy to write a speech just like the ones we hear in every news bulletin and virtual chat since we've been almost confined. 'COVID-19 is a horror, we're going to die like flies, the authorities haven't acted in time, the economy will collapse, and we'll never hug or kiss again'
It would be super easy to write a speech just like the ones we hear at every news bulletin and every virtual talk show since we've been almost confined.
"COVID-19 is a horror, we're going to die like flies, the authorities haven't acted in time, the economy will collapse and we'll never hug, kiss, toast, go to the movies, a concert, or anything again..."
Well, look, NO, absolutely not! COVID-19 is not going to put an end to our passions and everyday things, nor to hugs and kisses, nor to the aperitif, nor to watching football in bars, nor to the joy of living. That said, it is clearly showing us that we are very, very vulnerable and that we have to reshape our way of life, including our way of working, of course.
Before putting forward our ideas on how to "reshape" work, we would like to pay tribute. First, to those who have died, because they died undeservedly and without eating pangolins or bats. Second, to those who are fighting for their lives—come on, brave ones, breathe, please, breathe! Third, to those who work covering their mouths, eyes and hands as best they can, while uncovering, with courage and dedication, the best of themselves as professionals and as people. For the latter, I think COVID-19 is telling us: "You pay them peanuts and now you clap for them and push and encourage them, but tomorrow they'll earn the same peanuts and there'll be no applause—you figure it out."
COVID-19 has a voice, or can't we hear it?
Ideas that come to mind for our sector, automobile distribution and repair, in these times of lockdown:
Online sales are a wonderful place to interact with the customer while they're confined at home. When they're released and head out into the street jumping for joy, when they're on a break from work, when they're out walking and using their smartphone, when they sit on the sofa with their partner, or whenever they feel like it. Let's make the most of it, let's break down the barriers of laziness and fight digital clumsiness! We have to work as if lockdown were going to happen many more times.
We need to grow in social communication, in technological resources and in people who can hold a conference call as naturally as brushing their teeth, with ease and closeness.
Let's set up our spaces to welcome the customer we already know, to treat them as if it were a meeting with an acquaintance. As a friend-customer, or customer-friend, depending on the level of closeness we achieve.
Let's deliver cars as if it were the day before COVID-20, or 21. Let's make that moment the wow moment, the moment of joy.
One thing: we've already changed the spatial context of dealerships a lot with these ideas, haven't we? Come on, think—what would the tables and chairs, the armchairs, the floors or the lights look like? Come on, come on, think—you have plenty of time until the lockdown is lifted.
Let's continue...
Workshops: If we already know the customer so well and so deeply that we can interact with them with the same passion with which we clap at 8:00 PM every day: shouldn't we turn the visit to the workshop into a close, empathetic, calm, smiling experience with no "walls" in between? Or do we keep going almost as before COVID-19, giving them a hard time when we beg them to buy from us? Do we bow and scrape to them, only to then, occasionally and not all of us, treat them like a pharmacist treats that person with a look of dread and sorrow who, on a day like today, March 24, shows up at a pharmacy asking: "Do you have masks and rosemary alcohol?" Just look at how we should change the contact before the workshop appointment, the welcome at the workshop, the context of the space and everything else.
COVID-19 is also teaching dealership customers to feel vulnerable, to appreciate a positive word, a word of encouragement, and to share with everyone that we're far from omnipotent and look at the mess a pangolin or a bat, however cooked, can cause.
Long live the moment when those of us who return, return! Long live the passion with which we will work to be better people, better professionals and better with ourselves! I won't say long live the damn COVID-19, but we will keep the taste it leaves us with.
