Marie and I spent the last few days celebrating Passover with my daughter, her husband and of course the two cutest grand children in the world. It was the first time we saw them since February of 2020.
I am scheduled for my second Covid shot very soon, and as we were driving my trusty SAAB to Pittsburgh from Maryland, it became a topic of conversation between Marie and I.
We stopped in Breezewood, kind of a travel plaza about 125 miles outside of Pittsburgh. As Marie filled up the car, I went inside to use the facilities and make a purchase…wearing a mask. I slowly noticed that not everybody was wearing a mask; not even some of the vendors. I did however see signs that said, “please wear masks.” I made my purchases, left, got back in the car and said to Marie, “You know, I’ll bet that at least 25% of the people in there weren’t wearing masks, some vendors weren’t either and lots of people seemed to just ignore it.” She was shocked and said, “that seems so strange when we hear that in some states, cases are going up.”
We arrived in Pitt, spent some wonderful time with the little girls, read them nighttime story books and nestled them to sleep. Afterward, we continued the covid 19 conversation with our daughter and her husband and they indicated that cases were rising in Allegheny County, where they lived, and they too noticed less people wearing masks. In fact, the school that my older granddaughter attended closed one or two days earlier for Easter vacation because of the rise of Covid cases.
The next day we went to the playground and then shopping and stopped for ice cream. Same thing. Some masks on and some people with no masks. While in the playground, we met some of my daughter’s friends and we asked one of them why she wasn’t wearing a mask? “Oh”, she said, “I got my two shots I don’t have to any more”. Another friend piped up and said “Of course you do. My husband is a doctor and he says that you should wear it for at least 14 days and even then, you could become a carrier and make other people sick.”
Needless to say, there was no consensus reached.
Which got me to thinking about bowling.
If a Doctor’s wife and her friend and a guy like me who reads a lot about this stuff can’t reach a consensus, what is our customer going to think?
Should he/she go bowling and bring the family? Is it safe? Will everybody wear a mask even though some of them are fully vaccinated?
What will your policy be over the summer? Will you follow the state and or county guidelines? And if you do, does your customer know what they are and if you are following them?
Given that some of our customers hate the idea of masks and have gotten verbally and sometimes physically abusive, what are we to do and what will we enforce so our summer customer knows exactly what we are doing?
There is just too much confusion about this and I think it is our job, in our communications to our customers and prospects, to let them know what we are doing to keep them safe and healthy. It’s not about us and what we want or what SOME of our customers want. It’s more about clarifying what the current policies are in your community and how you will be upholding them.
A confused customer is a non-customer. IMHO, please make sure this information is available in your promotional content and on your social media. It could avoid some issues down the road.
I know that there are some of you out there that will say “Why bring it up. It could cost me some bowlers?”
You may be right.
But I think being transparent in today’s world is a customer expectation that you have an obligation to fulfill; otherwise, they won’t ever trust again.
And that is never a good thing.
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