Businesses should be thinking about how they can have more two-way communication with customers when using digital resources, Garner said. Photo / Bevan Conley
Businesses should be thinking about how they can have more two-way communication with customers when using digital resources, Garner said. Photo / Bevan Conley
A small business shouldn't be using its digital platforms to put messages out to customers and expect them to succeed.
Whanganui Chamber of Commerce chief executive Helen Garner says small businesses need to have a better grasp of their digital platforms and how they can be used for more two-way communication with customers.
"People have a digital presence, they've got a website or a Facebook page, but they're not using it effectively to engage with their audience and their customers.
"There are some businesses that make it hard to do business with them. So how can we use technology to make it easy to do business with them?"
Garner and the chamber are offering a six-month digital training course, known as Digital Boost, for 16 small businesses in Whanganui, all funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
The chamber chief said she hoped the course would help get businesses out of the "industrial-age mindset" when it came to technology, "pushing messages out rather than creating pathways".
Helen Garner said she hoped the course would help get businesses out of the "industrial-age mindset" when it came to technology. Photo / Bevan Conley
"We don't get the cut-through and turn those online conversations into offline engagement, customers, sales and long-term relationships," she said.
A small business would communicate with different customers depending on the digital platform, such as Facebook, Twitter or their website, Garner said.
And recent lockdowns had proved digital communications were vital to keeping businesses ticking over.
"Covid times have taught us how you engage with your audience when you can't physically see them, when the physical connection is broken."
A report by Better For Business carried out in November 2021 found while most businesses across New Zealand were able to be found online, many had an inactive presence there.
There was more confidence and motivation from businesses to use digital tools, the report found, but also many had concerns about information security and not having the skills to manage business online.
To qualify for Digital Boost a business must be a sole trader or have less than 20 employees and not be already enrolled in an MBIE Business Boost programme.
Garner said the small business owners on the programme will work together in a cohort.
Sessions would include knowledge sharing, resource recommendations and assignments where new learning would be applied to businesses.
Registrations for the programme close on Saturday, June 25, and there's a portal for applying to the programme on the chamber's website.
