It’s time for a heartfelt (and admittedly random) question from the team at Modern Homes: how many weeks does it take to get a decent quality dishwasher?
Make a prediction; write it down. We’ll come back to this later.
Like so many people and businesses, we’ve all had a tough year and a half. Times are still tough, and they will be for a while, but we’re deeply grateful for your continued support and patience during this whirlwind of world-changing events.
Only a person with a functioning crystal ball could have predicted how the COVID-19 pandemic would take over our lives, and we certainly had no idea how it would impact our business.
It’s time for a simple request, from the bottom of our hearts.
We’re asking for your empathy
It’s no secret that we’ve been battling factors outside of our control during the pandemic and Brexit. And we have done everything in our power to make your home miracles happen.
We’re sorry to say that, despite our best efforts, we haven’t been able to deliver as quickly as we could pre-pandemic. We’re also not afraid to admit that it could get even worse.
We’re not alone. Over half of retailers believe that the “horrific” supply chain problems we have been experiencing will only get worse. In a way, we’re one of the lucky businesses; many firms are struggling to even stay afloat because of these challenges.
Empathy can only arise from knowledge, so we thought we’d provide an inside look into some of the challenges we have been facing, as well as the steps we’ve been taking to deliver as quickly and accurately as possible while preventing future hold-ups.
The challenges our industry is experiencing
Oh, for a magic wand. The following are the key challenges the Modern Homes team is running into on almost a daily basis.
- Steel imports: The supply chain between India and Germany has been experiencing historic slowdowns. No one saw this coming.
- Lorry shortages: Even when we do have the materials, we don’t always have the personnel needed to meet the building, install, and transport demands. The UK is running short of more than 100,000 drivers across all industries, and it’s causing significant supply chain issues, as you’ll have heard.
- Product supply issues: Some products are unavailable but we’re not necessarily being informed when we place orders.
- Social distancing and COIVD-19 protocols: Fitters can’t work together in close proximity the way they used to be able to in order to keep each other safe, so things happen more slowly.
- Delays, delays, delays: If you order right now, your installation likely won’t happen until April of next year because of the perfect storm of these events.
Rest assured, we’re working hard to mitigate the above issues, but many of them remain out of our control.
There are, however, green shoots of recovery, and we’re making our own efforts, too.
What we’re doing about it
We could sulk and weep about the above challenges – or we could pick ourselves up, dust down, and get to work.
Which is exactly what we’ve been doing. These are the efforts we’re making to return the Modern Homes service to what it was pre-Pandemic.
- We’ll never pass transportation surcharges on to customers. Our customers shouldn’t have to suffer at the hands of an industry (or, world!) in crisis.
- We’re changing products and items if we need to. We want to make sure we can deliver everything our customers need. We’re asking for your flexibility here when certain items can’t be sourced – you may need to choose something similar that is available instead.
- We’re keeping everyone informed at every stage of the purchase and design process. You’ll be the first to know if anything changes.
- We’ll immediately admit and fix any rare mistakes that take place as a result of these abnormal operating conditions. We aren’t afraid to say when we’ve slipped up and we’re known for our honesty and ability to fix things.
Good things are always worth waiting for
Modern Homes clients expect the best, and we hate the thought of our customers going for a cheaper, quicker option that will probably need redoing in a year’s time.
The one-man-band might be able to promise you a job done by next week, but the quality of that job probably won’t be up to your expectations. They may disappear afterwards, leaving you with no one to turn to when the lower quality products they use inevitably fail.
We know that spending months and months cooped up at home makes people want to remodel their houses more than ever before. Whether it be improving what already exists or adding something on, it seems like the perfect time to make a change.
But, at the moment, that’s not going to happen overnight.
We’re a business, but we’re also people, just like you. We, therefore, request your kindness and understanding during this time. Thankfully, the vast majority of our customers have been utterly lovely, but a select few have not, which is disappointing. We just hope that our words today will resonate with anyone who feels frustrated enough to direct their rage our way.
Remember your answer to that question we asked earlier? To build, deliver, and install a dishwasher in today’s world, can take… 18 weeks.
That’s a long time. But as anyone who owns a quality dishwasher will tell you – it’s worth the wait.
If you’d like to chat to the Modern Homes team, we’re here for you and happy to discuss anything mentioned in this blog. Just get in touch today.