Across the world over the past couple of months, we have all experienced great change in our daily lives. As COVID became our new reality, we grappled with new measures attempting to flatten the curve. With those new state and locally mandated measures came a lot of confusion. But as we waded through the mud, we made decisions about how we could continue to support our clients and employees.
It became clear to Americans that in order to slow this virus, we would have to stop our normal day-to-day schedule. As a West Coast company, we had to look to three different state governments to advise us on if or how we could continue business. Of course, our Seattle location was the first to be impacted by the severity of the outbreak. And, it wasn't too long before we were trying to decipher each state's laws regarding the COVID shut downs.
Initially, Washington State told us we weren't essential, California came out with a narrow list of non-essential businesses, and Oregon put out guidelines that outlined how you could continue to operate. We were really struggling. If you take a quick glimpse of what Spade and Archer does (in its most simple definition: making home pretty for sale) it's hard to consider us “essential.” But after a lot of feedback from clients, that quickly changed. We realized our furniture was sitting in houses that were sold and needed to be moved. We had clients telling us that their sellers had to sell their homes, they didn't just “want to.” No one wants to sell their home at a time like this.
So, we got to work. We began dissecting state laws to try and figure out how we could conduct business safely for our employees and our clients. The first measure we took was to set a work from home schedule for our design staff, while our warehouse staff would stay in-house while keeping social distancing in place. We had to order masks, gloves and alcohol to ensure our safety. We put procedures in place for consultations and stages. But what really made an enormous difference for both us and our employees, was the new pricing model we started many months ago.
Instant Pricing was an idea we toyed with long before COVID. It was really serendipitous that we already had this in the works. Our new pricing model allows our clients to get a staging quote instantly from our website. Once they have their quote, we give them a call and see if they would like to schedule a site visit. We are now conducting site visits without any one else on site--again ensuring that our staff and clients can avoid exposure to one another. At site visits, our design staff wear masks and gloves, when they leave they spray down any surfaces they touched with alcohol. Once the site visit is complete, we provide you with a list of recommendations to prepare the home. The new system is intuitive and really helps speed the process along so our realtors and their clients can get their listing prepared quickly and efficiently.
Our staging services during this time are exactly the same as they have always been. We've always asked to be the only trade on site when we are staging! And we are asking the same now, not just because it benefits our process and keeps us on schedule, but because it protects our clients and our employees.
As we move through this challenging and ever-changing situation, we ask that our clients always provide us with feedback about our processes. We'd love to hear about any new procedures you've put in place as well! We are all learning and adapting to this situation. If Spade and Archer can improve, we want to.