March 14, 2020

COVID-19 Communication #2

Jon Flora
President & Chief Executive Officer

Since my first note to you this past Wednesday, it has been a busy week that is worthy of a quick follow-up.

After our State’s emergency declarations Wednesday morning that required all gatherings of 250 or more people to be canceled, Washington’s Governor has since announced the closure of all schools, including colleges and universities, in the State of Washington. For our member employees with school-age children, this will certainly cause disruption of lives.

Additionally, a number of restaurants have closed for the foreseeable future. One example, noted Seattle Chef Tom Douglas has closed 12 of his 13 restaurants laying off 800 employees for at least two months. ( Seattle Times ). I have been in two restaurants in the last two days that were virtual ghost towns. (Yes, I left a good tip!)

We have concerns about the downstream impact of business closures on our members for even a short time. Here at NACM BCS, we have fielded a number of calls from members and customers with similar concerns. Notable takeaways from those exchanges include:

  • All of our Trade Group meetings for March will be conducted online via GoToMeeting. Additional details will be sent shortly to participants in our Groups Program.
  • After the experiences of the Great Recession, when a number of our members faced serious challenges, we have continually advised our constituents to follow best practices by regularly pulling credit reports and addressing problems with Accounts Receivable early before too much time has passed. It appears that most of you have done well in this regard and, hopefully, are better prepared to weather this storm than a decade ago.
  • That said, we expect the coming weeks may be hard for some of our members and customers. If you have needs or concerns for which we might offer assistance, please feel free to contact your Account Executive directly (see below) or call our main number at 206-728-6333. We are prepared to lighten your work load by helping you pull credit reports and our Collections team stands ready to assist.
  • Several of you have asked if National Credit Congress is happening in June. That’s a long way off and our national organization is still planning to go forward with it. Please click on the following link for more information from them: nacm.org.
  • As noted earlier, all of our monthly online webinars will continue as scheduled. Please refer to the current schedule on our website.  We encourage you to engage with us during this time.

Otherwise, we are open for business as usual and are actively serving our members. We have, in fact, been quite business the last several days working with customers on solutions for them.  This is clearly a very dynamic and serious event for our community and nation. We will continue to make adjustments as necessary.  If you have any questions, free welcome to contact us anytime at: 800-423-5710 or info@nacmbcs.org.

Thank you for your time. We continue to extend our best wishes to you, your families and professional colleagues.

Best regards,