If necessity is the mother of invention, then customer service must be the mother of intention. Since the news of the pandemic started sweeping through the country, there have been countless stories of new ideas, new technologies, adaptations, flexibilities and more across all types of industries.
Applying these attempts to retail services, especially home decorating ones, has been challenging but these are challenging times, said Christine Brown, Sales Manager and Custom Drapery Designer at Blinds of All Kinds.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then customer service must be the mother of intention. Since the news of the pandemic started sweeping through the country, there have been countless stories of new ideas, new technologies, adaptations, flexibilities and more across all types of industries.
Applying these attempts to retail services, especially home decorating ones, has been challenging but these are challenging times, said Christine Brown, Sales Manager and Custom Drapery Designer at Blinds of All Kinds.
Since 1983, Blinds of All Kinds has had a prominent walk-in showroom on Highway 1 in Rockledge that has welcomed DIY and professional home decorators to rooms full of custom drapes, shutters, blinds, Roman shades, designer fabrics, wallpaper and more.
Showroom service is still offered, safely, on a socially-distanced basis. Under quarantine guidelines the company is limiting showroom consults to two people at a time, with all employees wearing masks and customers offered masks for personal use at their appointment start time.
Keeping Up with the Times
In further response to the pandemic, and in direct response to customer inquiries, Blinds of All Kinds has embarked on a new type of service: virtual consultations for clients sheltering at home.
“We use Facetime and Google Duo to have our initial client interaction, which includes review of project scope, questions and a tour around a client’s site project (such as windows or doors for drapes, blinds or shutters),” she said.
From there, Christine and her team write up “ballpark” recommendations based on that consultation and client-provided measurements. Next, a consultant from the team is dispatched to the business or home to measure the project, collect a deposit and, once ready, schedule an installation date.
Since the consult is done in real time, with a real person who knows the business side of things as well as the design side of things, a connection is made that does not always happen with an online sales platform, for example.
Customers do not have to come into direct contact with the installer and can advise specific requests for safety and distancing, Brown said.
So far, despite some appointment and installation cancellations due to the pandemic, Brown says the company is still managing to pay its employees and juggling a fairly busy work schedule.
Staff is also keeping busy with a coronavirus response project after Blinds of All Kinds entered into a partnership to produce covers for the N95 safety masks used by healthcare and construction workers. (see Space Coast Business story in pp 32-33)
Consumer Safety is No. 1 Priority
Brown is confident that the virtual appointments will continue into the future, even when travel restrictions relax enough to allow businesses to fully open up again.
Especially for older customers or homebound ones, this is a game changer that allows Blinds of All Kinds to compete more effectively against big box retailers and establish a more local, personal connection.
Showrooms are hard to beat, though, due to the ability to see and touch fabrics and envision particular products in your space. To that end, Blinds of All Kinds is exploring options for developing a virtual show space that can offer clients options for viewing products in detail both texturally and mechanically, such as with their automated and smart blinds.
“We are using technology to help our clients now in this unexpected situation,” she said, “and we know our industry needs more of a virtual presence, so we are considering something like [a virtual showroom] for down the road.”
To learn more about Blinds of All Kinds, visit online at ww.blindsofallkinds.com or call (321) 632-2821 to schedule a live or virtual consultation.
Shawna Lucas
Shawna Lucas (formerly Kelsch) has lived and worked in Brevard county for the past 20 years, serving in a variety of jobs and community service roles. She’s a former food and news reporter for Florida today, and was owner/operator of a marketing company that assisted clients and partners such as the Florida Healthcare Coalition, Blue Cross & Blue Shield Foundation for Florida, The Brevard Health Alliance, and Florida Tech to identify and solve pressing community health issues. She has she has dual bachelors degrees in Journalism and Sociology from the University of Miami, and was an inaugural fellow at the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.
