How Has the Pandemic Affected Your Business? 

How has the pandemic affected your business?  Without question, the pandemic has affected all businesses in some way. While many businesses have suffered tremendously, there are a few that, by exploiting changes forced on them by the pandemic, have benefited. At NHTunes we’re in the business of music lessons. While there have been many pandemic-related challenges presented this past year, we’ve been able to utilize the changes necessary to continue operating throughout the pandemic to better position our business post pandemic (think “making lemonade out of lemons”).

The pandemic forced us to close our physical studio space in the spring. We were able to retain about 70% of our students by moving to online lessons (our instructors did a tremendous job of getting up to speed with Zoom and tackling the adjustments needed for online teaching). We reopened our space mid summer, and while many students came back to in-studio lessons, about 40% remained (and still remain) online.

Our instructors have become quite adept at online teaching, making the experience as productive and comfortable as in-studio lessons. This allows us to pursue new business opportunities.

In addition to conducting business during the pandemic, moving forward the online option for lessons allows us to:

• Widen our geographic reach
  •  With a good website and functional SEO, we’ve put a focus on advertising outside of our normal service area. We currently have music students as far away as Chicago. This is a tremendous opportunity for our business to acquire new students! Many folks have gotten comfortable with online learning, and it’s apparent this option is here to stay post-pandemic.
• Operate on snow days
  • In the past, when we closed for a snow day we would need to schedule make-up lessons. This was extremely disruptive for both the students and the studio, and often resulted in financial loss. Now, we simply use our online option to continue ‘business as usual’ when our physical location is closed.
• Better service our customers
  • There are many times where, for a variety of reasons, it’s more convenient for customers who are normally in-studio to have their lesson at home.We’re happy to be able to ease their burden and provide them with this service. Being able to quickly react to the needs of our customers has become an valuable strategic advantage for NHTunes.

While the pandemic has challenged our business like it has many others, it hasn’t been all bad. When we’re asked, “how has the pandemic affected your business?”, we can say that, with work and diligence, it’s short term negative effect was turned into a long term positive impact on our business.