Schmidt’s Norwich branch thrives during pandemic

Schmidt Norwich has managed to continue to record positive performance during the pandemic.

While the kitchen franchise may not be achieving as many sales as it would without the challenges of the Covid-19 outbreak, it has discovered some unexpected benefits of the pandemic.

Scott Hardy, who became Director of Schmidt Norwich back in May 2019, explained,

“We’ve learned some things from this [situation] that might be useful after the pandemic, particularly for future customers who might not be able to come into our showroom. We’ve been able to talk to our existing customers face-to-face via Zoom or Teams, give them virtual tours of our showroom and show them our designs by sharing our software.”

Before the pandemic, the Norwich-based franchise unit had never used video call software to interact with customers, but now it has been able to adopt a different way of working.

Scott added,

“We can still do home visits and measuring and show them physical samples, so customers still get the Schmidt experience – or as much of it as they can without visiting our showroom. We’re pretty much taking Schmidt to them!”

Thanks to the changes Scott made, Schmidt Norwich has been able to attract lots of leads and build up a pipeline of new business. This is a significant achievement, even though it’s still only working at around 75-percent of its usual capacity.

Scott is grateful for the government’s financial support, including the furlough programme, grants and business rates holidays, and happy with the high-quality product he can offer customers.

He added,

“We’ve actually over-achieved compared with what I would have expected, and as soon as we’re allowed to open up our showroom again, there will be a massive rush and it wouldn’t surprise me if our business exceeds our targets, despite the pandemic.”