Top 5 Risks of Coronavirus News in Your Business

Is coronavirus news impacting your business?

The TV in your business may be doing more harm than good for you, your visitors, and your employees given what’s happening around the world. Because of the fear and panic being caused by coverage, now more than ever businesses should be looking into cable TV replacements, or considering news alternatives for their TV solution. Listed below are 5 reasons why you, as a business owner, should be thinking about what’s on your TV right now.

Learn more about COVID-free TV!

1.) Coronavirus News Scares People

Coverage on the virus, however informative, is unsettling to people who are sitting down to eat at a restaurant, or are in a waiting room. When the whole country is on the edge of their seats watching others are in a panic on the TV, people start to notice every little cough, every sneeze, or anytime someone clears their throat; suddenly, they start to become anxious and uncomfortable.

Your business’ TV shouldn’t contribute to your visitors’ anxiety.

Awareness of COVID-19 is essential to preventing the spread of the virus; but at this point, just about everyone already knows the risk, and knows what to do in order to minimize their exposure. Yet in spite of that, people are still going out and visiting businesses for one reason or another. Whether they’re looking for comfort in food, or they have a scheduled appointment to keep; the last thing you want is your TV making life stressful for your visitors.

What’s the answer?

The best thing you can do for your visitors is to turn off the news; or better yet, find a cable TV replacement for your business.

2.) Corona Coverage Might Highlight A “Lack of Preparedness” in your Business

A friendly reminder to wash your hands, avoid touching your face, and always cover your mouth when coughing or sneezing!

The public’s responsibility when it comes to staying safe and healthy is fairly straightforward, but what about businesses? If you’re a business owner, or you manage a business, you’ve no doubt spent time these last few weeks corona-proofing your location to the best of your ability.

But is what you’re doing enough?

In truth, you could be taking every necessary precaution in order to combat the virus from wiping down counters every 2 minutes to offering free hand sanitizer; but out of nowhere, there’s a news story about how local businesses are disinfecting not only counters, but things like touchpads and doorknobs as well and have multiple sanitizer dispensers. Not only that, the story could show the lengths many businesses are going to communicate with visitors about good, healthy practices.

The last thing you want is for your business to seem like it isn’t doing enough because of a story on the news. Allowing your visitors to see these kinds of stories while they’re eating, or waiting, is a surefire way to discourage them.

3.) Coronavirus News Affects Your Employees

“Businesses left and right are closing amidst a growing number of confirmed cases the the local area…”

Visitors aren’t the only ones that are affected by coronavirus news on your TV. News coverage featuring buildings with CLOSED signs, images of dim, vacant restaurants, and interviews with workers expressing their fears about employment in the coming crisis are being shown on the TV; when those stories are being played in your business, it can be very stressful and concerning for your workers.

Seeing businesses closing on TV is harmful to worker morale.

Business, in general, is slow thanks to COVID-19. Couple that with the aforementioned news story, and your employees will wonder whether or not they’re going to be out of a job. As a result, productivity might suffer, workers might become less focused; which opens the doors to number of new problems. Consider putting something better on the TV and get rid of the coverage that’s harming your business.

4.) Bad News = Bad Vibes

Simply put, bad news creates a bad atmosphere. This has always been the case; graphic, or unsettling news stories ruin meals if you’re at a restaurant, and makes waiting uncomfortable if you’re in a medical office. However now, that same news channel is covering stories on a virus that’s spreading across the globe; you don’t want the bad vibes generated by coronavirus news to be associated with your business.

It’s time to do something. COVID-free TV is better for businesses.

The quick-fix is to simply change the channel; or better yet, shut off the TV, especially when the news is as risky for your business as it is right now. However neither option is a longterm solution. Changing the channel only changes the type of problem you have; you’re not in control of what comes on the TV. Shutting the TV off eliminates the risk, but you’re left with a blank screen that makes your business look like something is missing. Replacing cable with a custom TV network gives you control, and blocks out bad news coverage. Click here if you’re interested in learning more about a customized television for your business.

5.) Coronavirus News is Bad for Repeat Business

Visitors watching news coverage on the virus in your business might very well choose to stay home the next time they would have gone out. For many people, what they see on TV can lead them to lean towards “better safe than sorry.” Keeping your business open during the coronavirus outbreak is hard enough without your TV working against you.

Preparing Your Business for the Future

It doesn’t take a pandemic to see why cable TV is unfit for businesses.

Or perhaps it does? The impact of COVID-19’s coverage should be a wake-up call for business owners. Today it’s the coronavirus, tomorrow it’s the next nationwide, or worldwide catastrophe; neither of which is beneficial to your business. Take action against cable, and take control of your TV.

Top 5 Features You Need for the Best Medical Waiting Room TV

Shopping for the best waiting room TV service for your hospital, urgent care, or dentist office? This article lists the top 5 features any good waiting room TV experience should come with. However, if you’re short on time like many people in the healthcare industry and want to jump right into exploring options; we suggest you explore this full-featured option.

#1: The Best Waiting Room TV Service has the Best Content

Quality content is where most custom TV solutions fall flat. Cable TV has a plethora of channel choices, without great ways to control what actually plays (or doesn’t play) on your TV. Technology companies that provide a box and access to a small library of content have the opposite issue, only having access to a very limited set of content that continually repeats.

Throw a dart at a board covered in custom TV providers; 9 times out of 10 you’ll hit one that exclusively plays medical content. Or just as bad, one that likes to pretend they’re partners with major TV networks because they have the licensing rights to a few clips of popular talkshows. Those clips are thinly veiled advertisements to get viewers to watch the real shows when they get home, and don’t serve to do much for them while they are in your space. It isn’t proper waiting room entertainment, and neither are medical videos that go into graphic detail.

Visitors want to see videos that are fun and entertaining. Playlistslooping videos, and purely medical-related simply don’t cut it; not if your goal is to provide the most-comfortable patient experience possible. The best waiting room TV service is one that:

  1.  Comes with a large library of content
  2.  Doesn’t loop
  3.  Isn’t exclusively medical-related
  4.  Is full of rich, meaningful content your patients will enjoy watching.

#2: Customization

Whether you’re a hospital, urgent care, or dentist; your brand is unique, and so your waiting room TV ought to reflect that as well. The best waiting rooms services are tailored to your brand, and give you the ability to upload your own personal videos, and messaging, to be featured alongside the provided content.

A good custom TV network also lets you pick and choose what kinds of content shows up on your TV. It should allow users to block or remove videos that you or your visitors feel are unsettling, inappropriate, or not up to your office’s standards.

When you’re in control of your TV you’re able to make it all about your brand, get more milage out of your personal videos, and better act on visitor feeback.

#3: Easy-To-Use System

Managing a custom TV network can be a headache, that’s why finding a streaming TV service with an easy-to-use management system is important. Uploading a video or image shouldn’t be harder than clicking a button and uploading it. Likewise, selecting which videos to turn on/off should be as easy as selecting the video or category, and switching it on/off.

As simple as that sounds, you’d be surprised how many management systems are needlessly complicated, or require a computer science degree to navigate. These services are no good. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know for sure if the TV software you’re looking at will come with an easy-to-use system until you’re using it. Do yourself a favor and schedule a demo with whichever provider you’re considering, and ask questions about their management tools. Make sure you feel confident in your ability to use the system.

The mark of a good TV provider is one that will take the time to walk you through their service, so don’t hesitate to ask for a meeting.

#4: Social Media Integration

A rare gem of a feature. A waiting room TV service with the ability to integrate posts from your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts directly to your TV is harder to come by.It’s a powerful, worthwhile feature for those whose medical offices are active on social media– generating everything from social media followers, to repeat visits.

Don’t be fooled by TV software providers that boast this feature in the form of uploading screenshots of your social media pages to your TV. This is NOT social media integration. Or others that will interrupt TV programming to show your social media posts. There is nothing worse for your message than getting in between them and something they are engaged with.

Real social media integration is placed thoughtfully, shown in real-time, automatic, and safe; only drawing your most-recent posts, and only those posted by your staff, or social media manager.

If this feature piqued your interest, we recommend you checking out Social Media TV, which features live social media integration the way it’s meant to work.

#5: Strategy & Support

One might think that it goes without saying that a provider of any service should come with helpful strategies and customer support. Unfortunately, the world isn’t quite there yet.  There are so many technology companies that are coming up with TV solutions, but they neglect to provide their clients with the strategy and support needed to truly be successful.

When researching potential candidates for your waiting room TV service, be sure to understand their support structures; not only for any technical questions that may arise during use, but for strategic assistance in getting the most out of the platform you select.

So what does quality customer support look like? TV software providers that go the extra mile assign dedicated customer support managers to individual clients. It’s always easier to reach out to a person that knows your account as opposed to calling an 800 number or filling out an online support form. You want to aim to have a dedicated customer support representative who knows you, knows your brand, and is familiar with the goals of your practice.

Top 5 Tips For Improving Your Hospital Waiting Room

Looking to spruce up your hospital waiting room? If you manage a hospital you probably want everything to look as nice as possible; that goes double for anywhere visitors are sitting for any length of time. This article will share the top 5 tips and tricks towards making your waiting room welcoming.

Tip #1: The Waiting Room TV

What waiting room feels complete without a TV for people to watch? TVs in waiting rooms is a tale as old as time, however simply having a TV is only half the battle. What you decide to put on it makes all the difference.

The waiting room TV options available to hospitals vary in terms of quality, and practicality. There’s the default standard cable/satellite service, which is a bad idea for all of the reasons listed in this article. But in short, cable is a missed opportunity, it allows competing hospitals to show up uninvited on the screen, and you can’t control what programming plays beyond choosing the channel.

Alternatively, there are patient education videos for medical offices. Yet they’re just as risky for the fact that most visitors find them boring, or in some cases; upsetting. However educational or informative they might be, the truth is that your patients most likely won’t see it that way.

Finally, there are custom TV networks, which are arguably the safest, and most cost-effective type of waiting room TV solution. It’s hard to beat a service that’s specifically designed to improve patient experience through fun and interesting videos. Utilizing a service that has videos that are fun, and interesting, is the trick though. For a head-start on where to begin looking, check out It’s Relevant TV.

Tip #2: Comfortable Furniture

Now, no one’s expecting a waiting room full of heated massage-chair recliners with built-in speakers. But some nice, well-maintained and intact chairs can go a long way when it comes to patient comfort. The bar for visitors’ expectations isn’t set very high in regards to what kind of seating they’re going to find in a hospital waiting room. Still – these are going to be chairs where either patients or relatives of patients might be expected to sit for a very long time. So it helps to invest in some furniture that won’t cause them to visit a chiropractor. Generating repeat business is important, however that’s not way to go about doing it.

Tip #3: Cleanliness!

Cleanliness. Hospitals are full of germs, sicknesses, and plenty of people anxious about catching them; so making sure that your hospital’s waiting rooms are spick-and-span is instrumental to your visitor’s comfort, and the overall state of the waiting room itself. Cleanliness is more than just vaccuming the floor, or mopping the slick surfaces with cleanser. Dust has a habit of gathering on surfaces such as lampshades, picture frames, or plastic plants that are easy to miss; but the perceptive, and scrutinizing visitors will notice the dust in these places in a heartbeat.

Next time you’re in your waiting room, run a finger over these places and see what, if anything, is being missed. If you don’t find any dust, treat your cleaning staff to something nice. Because you’ve got some folks working for you who are doing a good job!

Tip #4: Plants & Art

Plants, artwork, and other decorative accents turn a bland, or daunting waiting room into one that is aesthetically pleasing. A hospital waiting room doesn’t have to be on par with the Musée d’Orsay, but a piece of art here and there can make all the difference. It’s just a simple way to make the place your visitors will be waiting in feel more natural.

Artwork can be bought at any local gallery, thrift store, or flea market for reasonable prices. Likewise, you can find a number of plastic plants at just about any home improvement, or department store. But as with Tip #3 – don’t forget to dust them from time to time!

Tip #5: Music & Ambiance

Hospitals are a haven of sick people coughing, doctors being paged, and a host of other administration noises. These, and other typical hospital sounds, can be anxiety-inducing for some patients and a constant reminder of where they are. That’s why it’s important, or at least considerate, to invest in some kind of music, ambiance, or white-noise soution for your visitors’ comfort.

Whether it’s a radio speaker, a calming white noise generator, or even somthing as simple as a TV that’s not muted; a little sound can go a long way. If you do end up going the route of television- make sure it’s not too loud. Yelp is full of medical office reviews of patients complaining about noise levels being too high. Patients are tons more likely to post a bad experience online before they’d ever approach you, the hospital, about it.

Bonus Advice!

Play it safe with your TVs. The best thing any medical office can do for its waiting room is put something on the TV that will give the visitors something enjoyable to watch. Fun and interesting is the key. Visitors in waiting are always looking to kill time, so programming that helps pass the time is what you should be on the lookout for.

Look online for waiting room TV software for medical offices. There’s plenty of options to pick from. See what you can find, schedule some demos, and talk to some experts about how implementing a custom TV network for your hospital is a forward-thinking strategy.