February 10th, 2020
It can happen. You are in the middle of an online sales campaign. All of a sudden, your website goes offline. How? Why? It could be any number of reasons. So, here are a few helpful suggestions on how to survive site downtime.
Plans Within Plans
You need to plan for all kinds of emergencies, including your website going offline. Do you have a backup? Do you even schedule backups to ensure you always have the latest backup on hand? Do you have recovery methods planned and in place? If not, then you have some homework to do! You need to make sure you take the necessary steps to ensure you have a backup of your website and database (even emails) to ensure you can recover with minimal downtime.
If your site is going to be down for a while, make sure you reach out to your customers to inform them. Communication is key!
Your Trusted Hosting Provider
Is the problem more than you can handle? Remember that your trusted hosting provider is there to help. Contact their support department immediately so that you can minimize your downtime.
Communication Is Key
Do you have helpful communication scripts ready for you and your staff to relay to your customers when they call or email? Don’t be caught stuttering a response. Make sure you have every detail planned so that your customers do not think you and your staff have no idea what is going on, let alone what to do to rectify the situation.
Since we are speaking communication, do you have more than one way for your customers to contact you aside from just ordering on your website? Social media chats can help. Speaking of which, do not forget to let your customers know on social media that your site is temporarily down and how your customers can communicate to you for new orders and tech support!
Lastly, always tell the truth. Being honest with your customers goes a long way. If your customers find out that you are untruthful, you could lose business.
Finances
Did you suffer financial loss? Make sure you plan for this. Make sure that you have funds stashed away for a rainy day, such as your website going offline. This way, you will recover quicker, and your business will not suffer significant losses.
Conclusion
Should your website go offline, make sure that you take the necessary steps to ensure that you have all the plans in place. Make daily or weekly backups to ensure that your website backup is up to date, consult your trusted hosting provider for support, make sure that your communication lines are open for your customers, and above all, be truthful to your customers.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this blog, feel free to contact us.