Since March, most of enterprises had to confront the following challenges:

1) Adaptation to the new ways of production management. When at least a half of your production team has to stay at home, getting back to usual production routine is not an option. So many processes to rethink and rearrange, so little time before the deadline…While it’s not an impossible task, many businesses that are used to solving problems and managing processes via human-to-human collaboration need a while to adjust to digital communication.

2) Interrupted communication with customers. In the USA, F2F meetings drive the sales. It’s an ultimate trust-shaping step before the work begins. Therefore, lots of company CEOs are left unsure whether they will be able to provide their potential clients with the same transparency as they used to – and whether their potential clients will be ready to accept this. This is the time for them to re-evaluate the importance of F2F-appointments and find the best digital alternatives.

3) Drop in sales performance. As the outbreak progressed, more and more potential buyers put their sales communications on hold out of concerns for their financial integrity. Of course, it resulted in a big impact on sales and profit.

Is there a way to completely negate all the side effects of outbreak and get your work back on track? Of course, there is but it will definitely take a while. For some companies it will be a slow process, for others, it will be almost intuitive. Everything depends on how much they rely on digital technology and its ability to uphold their workflow.

Right now, nearly all industries are switching from brainstorming in meeting rooms and problem-solving in offices to Skype conferences and collaborating via various digital platforms. The access to multiple digital tools allows many businesses to find a way around the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak and all the difficulties it entails.

We at Pibox try our best to help the music community adapt to the change. In fact, it’s not very different from what we usually do because our main product was developed for letting multiple composers, musicians, producers and managers collaborate on a track regardless of the distance. So, it’s currently being used by music studios and individual composers for keeping new music compositions coming without creating a health-hazard situation for any of the participants.

We’re also used to working with clients from different parts of the globe (which makes F2F meetings quite unlikely), so there are some tips I’d like to share with anyone who wants to digitize their business communication and workflow.

1) Digitize your assets

If you sell products or services, what does your online buying process look like? How many loops do your potential buyers have to go through before they make a purchase? Do they have to open multiple tabs in order to buy a product or subscribe to a service? Does your website look appealing enough to convince your audience to buy from you? Can your website be found through search engines?

During the time when your target audience is particularly reliant on online services, you must ensure that your online features are as convenient as your offline service. Take a good look at your website. Make sure that it’s very easy to navigate through and that it doesn’t turn something as simple as buying a subscription into an obstacle course. See that every update your company goes through is displayed at your website – if you don’t sell a particular product or service anymore, then remove it from your existing product/services list.

If your website needs a design update, do it ASAP. Otherwise, your potential customers will believe that you abandoned your website long ago.

Focus your web development efforts on creating a logical, user-friendly interface that would cover every important aspect of your cooperation with your clients. This will define your company’s success in the nearest future.

2) Avoid using too many tools

We developed Pibox to help creators and music studios do something about the multitude of tools and communication channels they have to fumble through in order to finalize their work on the project. Imagine opening your mailbox to download a music file, then opening your messenger to talk to your team, then opening another messenger to talk to the composer, then opening a program for listening to music file, writing out each time stamp in a separate document to point out the areas for improvement, then converting the edited file and opening your email to send it back to the composer with the list of edits attached…

That is as headache-inducing as it sounds. This is why Pibox replaces all these tools, messengers and file managers, providing a centralized platform for communicating, exchanging information, track editing and finalizing data. It allowed our clients to manage their time more efficiently and save their money on subscribing to multiple platforms.

I believe that maintaining all-in-one approach to work communication and project management is essential for any company, regardless of the situation. When half of your office works from home, you have to remember that they share their home with their family and house duties, so you must ensure that they can learn nuts and bolts of their tasks as soon as they log in. Therefore, my suggestion is to either choose a very specific set of tools and messengers or go for Trello or a similar platform that would let you keep your communication, tasks and progress tracking in one place.

Try to follow these simple steps to maximize your productivity.

3) Meet your customers halfways

The best way to address your potential buyers’ concerns is to meet them halfways. Your goal here is to show them that you got their back. There is a point in making small gestures that would show them that you care and that your goal is to help them.

For example, we at Pibox made our Premium subscription free for the entire month, in order to let our potential clients explore our features and assets freely. It allowed them to see whether Pibox suited their production needs, evaluate its usability, test it together with the composers and production teams and make an ultimate conclusion on using our product further. In addition, we gave up to 70% discount on the most popular price packages.

We believe that letting your potential buyers get a taste of your product before they make the ultimate decision is as relevant as ever. Nowadays, users are very careful about their investments. They want a 100% guarantee that no dollar is spent in vain. So, if you try to sell them a service without letting them see how it works, you’re quite likely to be treated with suspicion and, ultimately, rejected .