Saving time
Stephen Jones, sales director for Northern Building Plastics, talks about the unprecedented demands on tradespeople and how NBP is helping customers save time.
Figures from the excellent Rated People Home Improvement Trends Report 2022 show us what many of us suspected, which is that we are living through unprecedented times for home improvement companies, and that the demands for services from the public have never been higher.
In 2021, nearly half of all UK residents made improvements to their homes, and the demand for tradespeople increased by 32%.
According to the report, 2022 is unlikely to see a significant slowdown. Much of it is about adding more square footage or making the original space more multifunctional. We can see this was a direct response to the changes people encountered after spending more time in the house, especially the pressures of home-working and home-schooling.
Dissatisfaction with the homes that people already live in is the normal driver for moving house. However, there’s been a severe lack of property coming onto the market, which meant that there’s more pressure to ‘improve not move!’
The report also highlighted the trend for more eco-upgrades and showed that more than half of those questioned were looking for savings from eco-purchases including solar, heat pumps and higher energy rated windows and doors. With energy bills continuing to rise, it’s likely that this figure will go up even further.
Interestingly, the report also stated that last year 61% of respondents had adapted their work to be more environmentally friendly. Not just in offering more eco-products and services, but also in the way they operate.
That’s true for us too. We can see customers are squeezed for time with the high demand for their work. Changes in jobs can happen right up to the last minute, and Covid has made it worse. If someone in a household has tested positive, the job has to be moved and another put in its place. This means that customers sometimes need fast turnaround times on products.
So, we have a range of services that save time for customers.
We offer next day delivery on products ordered on the website up to 10pm. To make this happen, we pick orders overnight, so the delivery vehicles are loaded up and ready for an early start. We also have a large fleet of vehicles which means more orders are delivered early in the morning when our customers need them.
Of course, if we are picking overnight, then the stock has to be available straight away. We have chosen a very different model to our competitors by having supersized depots. We have a huge product range, but we also have large stocks of individual items because we know that it’s the best way to serve customers.
Out of stock items cause tradespeople massive time issues, especially if they have to run around trying to source it from multiple trade counters or locations.
For commercial customers, the large stock holdings work perfectly too. We offer on site advice and can issue schedules within 48 hours. We have an automated call off order system that’s super responsive so we can deal with any last minute alterations, should they crop up.
What we have seen is that because of the reliability of our next day delivery service, less customers now visit the trade counter. They simply order what they want and it turns up when they want it.
We know that the combination of a wide product range, high stock levels, and next day delivery on 98% of orders, saves time for customers and they get more productive time on site.
From our three depots in Leeds, Bolton and Hinckley and a new one opening soon in the North East, we can offer our super service to more businesses. At Northern Building Plastics we respect our customers’ time, after all, as they say, time is money.