Staying Ahead in the New “Normal” World

Just one year ago in the weeks leading to Christmas, there was little if any mention of the virus that was beginning to take its toll of the population of Wuhan, the largest city in Central China, with more than 9 million people. By early February news of the spread of the disease in China was reaching our shores but with just a couple of hundred cases reported outside China, few were alarmed; it was something that affected other people, a long way from Britain.

On March 23^rd Britain was placed in lockdown and our world had changed forever.

Since then, Covid-19 has dominated not just our existence in the UK, but almost every country on the planet. But humans have an extraordinary instinct to not only survive, but to adapt and even prosper under the most extraordinary conditions. Amidst the growing crisis and confined to home, many in the UK took the opportunity to chill out and settle into an enforced holiday, and many of us adapted well. And despite the window and door industry being forced to shut up shop by the very nature of being unable to enter other people’s homes, many of those in the front line, home improvement installations firms, responded as they usually do when they have time on their hands: they caught up with the housekeeping.

“Our busiest period each year is usually after the Christmas festivities,” explained Rhonda Ridge, creator of the market leading AdminBase installer management programme. “In the days following Boxing Day, the emails start coming in as installers ready their businesses for a return to work and when they have the time to carry out the things that they may have been putting off for weeks when they were busy fitting windows and doors.

“And the same happened during the coronavirus lockdown,” continued Rhonda. “We were all a little shell-shocked for those first few weeks, but after people had settled they began to look at how to get on with their lives. And that included installers, who had no idea when they would get back to work but who had the opportunity to plan for when they could open their business again. So many of them looked at how they could become more efficient, sell more windows and doors and conservatories but also to manage surveying, installation, sign off and even money collection and marketing. And just like in the New Year break, our phones started ringing off the hooks.”

The upshot for AdminBase is the strongest sales ever in the company’s 23 year history: “The enquiries that we received during lockdown developed exponentially into sales of AdminBase systems, to the point in which we have enjoyed a 10% increase in overall revenue this year, despite the lockdown,” said Rhonda. And this has continued, spurred on by the extraordinary surge in sales of new windows, doors and conservatories since May and which shows no signs of relenting: “We have also experienced a significant increase in new users from our existing customers, which, with new AdminBase customers, resulted in a 17% increase in September compared to August, itself a record month. It’s extraordinary,” says Rhonda.

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There is no sign of this demand letting up, she says: “Visits to our website are at record levels, including views of the explainer video that we created and launched in July. And because our demonstrations and installations have been carried out online for years anyway, we are very used to managing both safely and effectively, so we have been installing AdminBase uninterrupted by any restrictions,” she added.

The extraordinary sales success of AdminBase is remarkable. But equally so is the evidence that this demonstrates the resilience of installers who are not resting on their laurels but improving and adapting to the most challenging environment that anyone running such a business has experienced.

And for all of our sakes, we can only hope that the headlines a further year on from now will also have few, if any, mentions of Coronavirus.