Relationships and communication
Eric Collins of Jackloc explains how window restrictors are faring in the current situation.
Luckily the team at Jackloc are well at present and safe at home, although we have placed some of our team on furlough leave due to a number of our markets closing under government guidelines.
We have set up a WhatsApp group to keep everyone engaged and involved with business and social activities, which is working well. As we have e-commerce on our website we are servicing orders from that avenue and remain open to support the home and hardware sector.
As all of our products are manufactured in the UK we are lucky that we are not exposed to overseas supply chains. We always carry a healthy stock of finished goods that has helped us ensure 100% availability during these difficult times.
In terms of business growth, we know that businesses we work with are heavily impacted, so we’re focusing on maintaining relationships at the moment and to be there for them as required. We’ve increased our communication to share regular updates on business progress and are using the time to update our sales support materials.
We want to share positive news both about the situation and also our business, so we’re making efforts to do that. Just weeks before the lockdown we completed our new website and were given the incredible accolade by the Masterlocksmiths Association of being the first and only window restrictor to be awarded Sold Secure status, so we’ve been busy sharing that news with our customers.
Actually, on the day that the lockdown went into force, we were told that we had won Gold for Best Home Safety Product by Made for Mums reviewers, which we haven’t really been able to shout about until now.
We are finding that there’s a greater need for home safety products in the current environment. The country is in a unique situation where families are all at home together, parents are still having to work, and the weather has been nicer – all factors that build up to home safety being more important than ever.
Parents need peace of mind more than ever that their children can play safely and that windows can be opened, while being more aware of the risk that accidents may have on the NHS.
We have been working on a nursery product range, called Tot-lock by Jackloc, which was due to launch later in the year, but we’ve been able to bring this forward to help families in this time. The products are ready and we’re just having to work around the packaging element slightly due to speed, but we wanted to help families and reduce the stress on the NHS so are proud that we were able to get the product sorted earlier.
We invest in marketing and have chosen to continue doing so at this time. It’s more important than ever to share information on what home safety products are still available at this time. Regrettably, only yesterday I read of a very sad case of a child suffering serious injuries falling from a window in Croydon so we are working with partners such as the Child Accident Prevention Trust and RoSPA to promote why window safety is so important in the home.