Our study aims to address this gap and expand this area of research through assessing the research question:  What makes SME managers attentive to export promotion services during an unexpected global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic? The present study offers a complementary angle on the export promotion use during a global crisis. It concentrates on the neglected roles of SMEs’ managers and owner-managers’ attention toward export promotion services, by expanding the centrality of communication in making changes to the firm’s attention structures. Our study aims to underline the importance of setting up and updating effective and modern communication channels in order to create a positive and more institutionalized interaction between EPS providers and SMEs, taking into account the major communication changes in international business during a global pandemic, which imposed new communication mechanisms.