With the 5km radius imposed, our local communities have never been more reliant on local eateries and businesses. Take this time to show some humanity. It’s scary, but it’s life now. We need to be able to ensure we are building relationships with the people in our communities and asking the question, “are you okay!?” A genuine interest in your community can leave a mark on your customer.

Rewarding loyalty, paying it forward or simply gifting a local can really impact someone’s day. You would be surprised how many people are willing to purchase a coffee for another in need. Why not create a ‘pay-it-forward’ board which encourages people to purchase a coffee for themselves and a coffee for a stranger… ‘FREE coffee’ can be placed on a sticky note, so the community building activity is visible for all to see. Acts of kindness tend to encourage other acts of kindness in a chain reaction.

Parents are at home, kids are at home… it can get pretty boring. Ever tried working 8 hours a day while also trying to home-school a child? Normal is a thing of the past and we really need to acknowledge this. Why not create some interactive activities for local children – paint-your-own cookies stocked by Twenty One Days Later in Glenroy have flown off the shelves recently. We’ve also seen some pretty fancy restaurants such as Supernormal, Spice Temple and Tokyo Tina work with Providoor to provide fancy meals for you to cook at home – talk about pivoting! They provide instructions on how to cook all the dishes so you can surprise your family with a hatted meal from the comfort of your home.

If you haven’t yet considered working with delivery partners, it’s time you do. Uber Eats, Menulog, Door Dash and Deliveroo are great places to start! While people are trying to keep their spirits elevated, comfort food is booming and as such, delivery services are in high demand. Dinner is no longer the only meal customers are ordering… there’s something so bourgeois about ordering breakfast in the morning… bacon, eggs, bagels – bliss! Given we’re in a 5km radius lockdown, if you have the resources, providing FREE direct delivery can also incentivise customers to order from you while removing the third party fees imposed by delivery partners such as Uber Eats.

During this time, everyone could use a little extra self care. Many cafes and restaurants are providing limited edition care packages and brunch-boxes to promote scarcity value and a point of difference. It’s exciting for customers to try a little bit of everything as a sort of ‘sample pack’ as well as providing value as these boxes often come at a discounted rate (think KFC family dinner box…). It’s convenient, it’s adventurous, it’s fun to share with the whole family and there’s something to please everyone… even the fussy mini-humans. Oh, they’re also a great gift to send to family members and friends who can’t be visited during lockdown periods.