Brewers, bakers, and furniture makers: turning crisis into opportunity

JFK once said: "The Chinese use two brush strokes (危机) to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger—but recognize the opportunity."

It's a great quote, marred only slightly by Kennedy getting the etymology wrong. And it certainly resonates with us at Typeform when we look at how our community is adapting to the changing business landscape.

We've spoken to many of our customers lately about the current challenges they're facing and have been humbled by their resilience and creativity. The ingenuity they've shown in turning potentially business-threatening problems into new opportunities has been genuinely inspirational.

Here are some of the stories that have gripped us from customers who refuse to just cope.

1. The farm shop

The problem:

When the lockdown struck, the Schmahls were forced to shut down their farmer's market stall in the French Alps. It had been their family business for the past 35 years.

With their livelihood potentially suspended for months, things looked rotten for a family who'd made their living from sourcing local produce in the Chamonix Valley region and selling it at the local market. Then in stepped son, Florent, a digital marketer for Canadian startup, Shoelace, with the idea to take the business online.

The solution:

Florent built a solution to take his parent's market online. He created a typeform to collect orders for fruit and veg boxes, including a Payment block that would allow them to accept card payments via Stripe.

Florent created a workflow for fulfilling the orders. He set up an integration that automatically sends customer contact and delivery information from Typeform to Google Sheets. Then he connected Google Sheets to Sendinblue to enable the family to contact customers via email or SMS. Finally, he used Circuit to automatically find the best delivery routes based on the addresses in the Google Sheet.

Florent continues: "Right now the conversion rate of the typeform is at 10.6%. For the pace at which I executed this, it beats any smart landing page you could make."

2. The bakery

The problem:

Over the border in Spain, another good son pulled out his typeform skills to help his mother—and enabled a local business to sell online.

Bakeries are an important part of life in Spain, so for folks who couldn't get out to buy their daily loaf, things were pretty crummy. Pedro Codina's mother found herself in a high-risk group, which meant she was unable to get to her favorite store, Yellow Bakery, in Barcelona.

The solution:

Pedro, who works for no-code app development platform, Bravo Studio, set about making an Android app for the bakery, which would allow them to take orders online. Within 24 hours he'd built the application.

The solution is based around Bravo's platform, which takes Figma files and turns them into apps. Using the Typeform API he integrated a typeform with a Payment question to accept orders via Stripe.

It also slotted into a larger workflow. As Pedro put it: "I really liked that I was able to customize the design of the form itself so that it would seamlessly integrate with the design of the mobile app."

The result looks awesome and, more importantly, Pedro's mom can get her daily sourdough without leaving the house.

3. The brewery

The problem:

The hospitality industry has been hit hard by Covid-19. It's not just tough on businesses in the sector, it's also been hard to swallow for customers who miss sharing a drink with friends in their communities.

UK-based brewery and pub chain BrewDog decided to raise people's spirits—by offering to buy everyone a drink when bar doors reopen.

The solution:

BrewDog created a simple, elegant application typeform for people to sign up for the offer, then shared it out with their community. Word travels fast about an offer like this—so thousands of thirsty people now have a free pint with their name on it when all this is over thanks to the typeform.

At the end of the campaign, BrewDog will export the leads from the typeform and import them into segments in their CRM for future follow-ups.

"We've been using Typeform a lot," said Daz. "It's used for everything from email campaigns, to interactive beer quizzes, to getting feedback from BrewDog staff and our community."

Daz continued: "Typeform takes a potentially complex technical implementation and makes it drag-and-drop, click-of-a-button, ready-to-launch. So, for a fast-paced company like BrewDog, Typeform couldn't be a better partner for us. Honestly, it's probably the best tool we use."

4. The furniture store

The problem:

Office furniture is another industry where the landscape has been rearranged, as offices had to shut down and staff started working remotely. Now that some offices are planning their timelines to reopen, there will be new challenges to office design and employee interactions.

Premium office furniture company, Branch, wanted to find out how comfortable office workers feel about returning to work, and what their expectations are about the office of the future.

The solution:

Branch created a slick typeform survey which they sent to office workers across the US and Canada. The survey uses Multiple Choice and Opinion Scale questions to capture sentiment. It also includes an Email block to capture contact details if someone wants to get notified of the results.

"We've seen respondents go out of their way to tell us that they loved the Typeform survey format, and that it was by far the best experience they've had taking a survey," said Torin.

Branch will add the final data to a report, which they'll share with their network of partners, clients, and any publications that are interested in office working trends.

So, what have they learned so far from the survey?

"We've seen an overwhelming amount of folks say they prefer working from home rather than in the office," said Torin.

"Additionally," Torin added, "most folks wouldn't be comfortable returning to the office until Q3 2020, at the earliest. A majority of workers also expect that when they do return to work, they'll have new partitions or dividers between workstations—something we're already developing for clients at Branch.

What next?

• Find out how we're using Typeform internally to help us cope with the impact of Covid on our business.
• Check out the great Covid impact projects that not-for-profits in our community are running.
• Got a story about how you're using Typeform to help your business at this time? Let us know here and we may feature you here.