Resources to help Interior Designers through Coronavirus

Seeking Financial Support

While our main concerns are health-related, financial wellbeing is also a crucial consideration. Whether you are an employee or an employer, a business owner or self-employed, we advise everyone to check the Government website regularly for all official guidance and updates on available opportunities for government assistance and financial support options. Through the Business Support scheme, the Government is helping businesses and their employees through a package of measures during this period of disruption.

Click here for further guidance

Leverage the Digital Environment to Serve Customers

Use your online channels of communication to keep clients informed

With the situation developing rapidly, it’s important to keep your customers and clients up to date. Actively share any new or key information about how your business or operations have been effected through email, your website and social media pages to ensure clients are in the know about any measures you’ve implemented which may impact them; whether you need to notify them of premises closures, new procedures for handling customer queries or expected delays in product deliveries and logistics. You can also ‘pin’ important posts to the top of your Facebook page so they appear first whilst you continue communications so this information is not lost in your feed when clients come looking for answers. Staying connected with your customers in real time through Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp for business will also be a valuable tool for keeping your audience informed. Facebook for Business are offering a host specific advice, toolkits and courses to help you navigate your social media platforms and communications throughout this challenging time.

Shift your services online where possible!

With enforcement to restrict movement and new social distancing measures in place, meeting in person is simply not an option. So whether you provide design consultations online, host a virtual showroom tour or live stream to your audience, you need to get creative with the internet for conducting your business services and operations where possible.

For in-progress technical design work and presentations, integrated cloud-based technology workflows allow you to store project data and share visualisations with clients (and colleagues) throughout the design process from start to finish – wherever in the world they are. Vectorworks design software also introduced an immersive panorama feature for viewing interiors. Through a shareable web link with a file size compatible with social media, you can invite the client to experience the rendering with you in an interactive, 360-degree model.

Utilise tools to help you work from home effectively

In a time where an unprecedented number of us are confined to our homes and adjusting to a new way of work-from-home life, streamlining your efficiency will be essential. Read our helpful tips for working from home in self-isolation. Whether you need collaborative project management tools such as Trello to keep the whole team in the loop when it comes to tracking project developments, or want to set up meetings whilst remote working with applications like Microsoft Teams which includes a handy ‘record’ feature so those who cannot join can watch later or search the automatically generated transcript for important information; there are plenty of tools to help. Video conferencing tools in particular have become increasingly popular as an essential means for helping us stay connected, so if you haven’t already got to grips with the technology, platforms like Zoom offer online tutorials to help you get going! For further advice on communicating with remote teams during coronavirus, why not tune in for live webinar training or check out LinkedIn Learning for courses on remote working.

Staying inspired, whilst staying at home

A key issue we are sure many designers are facing during this time is the ability to stay inspired. With travel being one of the most quoted means for our Accredited Interior Designers when it comes to getting inspiration, it’s important to find new ways to seek that all important inspo whilst ‘travelling’ consists of walking between rooms, or taking your one-day permitted exercise outside.