Will you serve Unvaccinated Customers?

It is expected on 11 October that businesses can open (within certain restrictions) to serve fully vaccinated customers.

On 1 December, it is expected that businesses can serve unvaccinated customers, if they choose too.

This brings a key decision that every business owner will need to make.

Will you serve Unvaccinated Customers?

I want to leave aside the issues of how you enforce and police this (which in my opinion this will be a nightmare and a recipe for disaster for many businesses) and just deal with the direct impact of your business.

By refusing to serve unvaccinated customers, you are straight away reducing your potential customer base by 10% to 20% for those who are not fully vaccinated.  And then if you add in those people who are fully vaccinated but pro-choice, suddenly, your customer base could be reduced by 20 to 30% or more.

Let’s use the example of Best and Less who recently announced they will only serve fully vaccinated customers.  The immediate back lash was strong and people are even ringing up Best and Less to find out when their closing down sale will start.  Do you want that reaction for your business?

Now you could argue that 70% to 80% of what you had before is better than 100% of the nothing you have today.

But is it really the case? Think about what that losing 20% to 30% of your potential customer base does to revenue and how your cost base will look once all the support measures are taken away.  Can your business survive long term on 70% to 80% of the revenue you used to have?

And it could be worse for hospitality businesses.

Let’s say an extended family of 10 has two unvaccinated family members and they want a pre-christmas get together.  They can’t go to your venue if only serves fully vaccinated people.  It’s not the 2 people you miss out on, it is all 10.

Let’s take another example of a wedding venue.  What happens if one of the bridal party are unvaccinated.  Will they hold the wedding at your venue and shut out say the mother of the bride, or a bridesmaid because they are unvaccinated?  Chances are, you will lose the lot.

So how would you cope revenue wise if the revenue drop was 50% or more and there was no government support?

What to Do?

At the end of the day, it is your business and you can make decisions over whom you serve (as long as you don’t beach any law such as discrimination etc).

But just make sure you are not making an emotional decision to ban unvaccinated customers.

Make sure you are making a decision that is best for your business for the long term.

If you want help to improve your your businesses chances of being one of the businesses that last more than 3 years, contact me below.

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