Contributions to Profit Prepare Your Catalog Business for

Prepare Your Catalog Business for

By Jim Gilbert

As I sit here on a Sunday afternoon, the sky outside is black and Florida once again is weathering a storm. This one carries 60-plus miles per hour winds and torrential downpours, and the electricity is out in half of my town — and it's only April. By the time you read this column, the real hurricane season will be just weeks away.

Even if you don't live in a hurricane zone, consider the disaster preparedness checklist below, as disasters of all forms — earthquakes, terrorist attacks and power outages — can strike at a moment's notice. Natural disasters in other areas of the country also can affect your business.

Always Have a Plan B

Devise some measures you can take to assure your business's continuity during emergencies. One of my clients literally went out of business for an entire week during its heaviest mailing season due to a hurricane. All of its internal systems were in one place, from the call center to the Web site, so when the electricity went out, so did the business. By the time the next hurricane hit three weeks later, the company was better prepared by getting a backup call center ready.

Here are some ways to prepare:

1. Write a short disaster plan. Make sure all department heads are familiar with the plan. Get your vendors — especially your Internet and telephone service providers — involved (the ones who can help restore your business and communicate your status to customers). Publish a list of all emergency contact numbers for your key personnel and vendors. Include home and cell phone numbers, and home e-mail addresses as other ways of contact if the main communication channels go down.

2. Always back up your data and keep multiple copies of the data off site in different locations.

3. Find an external call center if yours is in one location. Depending on your budget, there are a number of approaches you can take:

- Simple and inexpensive. Pay for a small block of call-center time, with minimum customer service representative training, basically telling your customers when you'll be up and running again (and of course taking names and phone numbers for call-backs).

- Elaborate. Set up a redundant operating system externally, so your customers won't feel the effects. If you need to switch over in a hurry, you'll be ready.

Also, contact your telephone service provider to set up a way to forward your calls.

4. Prepare a splash screen for your Web site. There's nothing worse for your customers than trying to access a Web site and getting a generic message such as, "This Web site cannot be found." If you host your own site, be sure your Internet service provider can, at the very least, post a splash screen telling your customers when the site will be operational again and provide them with alternative contact information for your company.

5. After a natural disaster, cleanup takes time. Postal services can be interrupted (mail may not be able to reach its final destination or postal facilities may not be open) and your customers will focus on their recovery.

Partner with the U.S. Postal Service or your mailing house to ensure you don't mail to the affected areas until they're ready.

And finally, here are a couple of notes for mailers not located in primary disaster afflicted areas:

1. Stay in touch with vendors in affected areas, as they may not be able to meet their obligations.

2. If you use outside design, pre-media, printing and other vendors, make contact and see if they're still able to meet their timelines.

3. If you've already pulled the trigger on a particular mailing, ask your analysts to factor in potential lowered response rates in all reports and future plans.

Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing Inc., a catalog and direct marketing consultancy. Reach him at (561) 302-1719 or jimdirect@aol.com.