Penn Stone’s COVID-19 Response for Contractor Customers
Read more about Penn Stone’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, important changes to our contractor customer service procedures, and suggestions on how to manage this successfully in your businesses.
Our First Priority: Employee Health
Our priority over the past two weeks has been the health of our employees, their families, and Penn Stone customers, and we remain focused on this first and foremost. Our goal is to maintain a healthy staff, and to support any member of our team if they are worried about their health or are diagnosed with COVID-19. Early last week we established enhanced procedures for cleaning and sanitizing our counter, showroom and office, and we implemented personnel policies to assure Penn Stone employees that they can stay home if they are sick or quarantined without disruption to their pay. We have also developed plans for select employees to work from home and will implement that when necessary.
Customer Service Changes
Beginning this week, our focus will expand to ensure that we continue to support our customers during this uncertain time. As you may know, Governor Wolf made an announcement today encouraging many businesses in Pennsylvania to close for two weeks. At Penn Stone, we feel fortunate that the nature of our contractor customers’ work is such that they should not be at great risk of exposure to COVID-19. We also feel strongly that construction is an essential and thriving sector of the economy and that it’s important for us to support that activity, especially at this critical time of year.
We will do this with modifications to our customer service procedures. Details may change in the upcoming days, but here’s what we have planned at this time:
- Our customer service counter, indoor showroom, and retail store will not be open for walk-in customers. Our gate will be open during normal business hours but our counter and showroom doors will be locked.
- For deliveries, please place those orders over the phone or via email.
- For yard pickup, you will have four options:
- Call in advance at 717.397.5264
- Email in advance to orders@pennstone.com or directly to a member of our team
- Call upon arrival at 717.397.5264
- Enter through our gate and proceed directly to the yard for loading. Our yard attendant will assist you, and will document your order and report it to the customer service team for invoicing.
- For product inquiries and research, please call the office at 717.397.5264
- For customers with charge accounts, invoices will be processed normally.
- For customers who pay at the time of purchase, we will encourage credit card payments whenever possible, and we now have the ability to securely retain those payment details for use with future invoices. Cash payments will be accepted when necessary.
- Our outdoor showroom will remain available during normal business hours.
- If you have customers who need to visit our showroom or outdoor display to make final selections for upcoming work, we will service those customers by appointment. Please ask them to call our office to schedule a time to meet with one of our Design Advisors, Amy Bitar or Linda Valentino.
Penn Stone Vendor Update
We are also closely monitoring our vendors’ status and policies. At this time, nearly all vendors remain open with no changes to production or loading. However, we are concerned that our supply chains could be disrupted, and we are advising customers to plan well in advance for jobsite deliveries and to provide information about upcoming projects as early as possible. With this information, we will work to accumulate these orders in our yard in case it becomes difficult or impossible to purchase those materials in the future.
What can you do in your business?
Finally, we encourage our customers to be smart, sensible and generous with their personnel policies at this time. The best way for Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and the United States to successfully overcome this crisis is to encourage sick people to stay home from work and avoid infecting others, and to minimize person-to-person contact in general. Please do everything you can in your business to educate your employees about the coronavirus and COVID-19, advise them on proper workplace hygiene, and ensure that they are not taking unnecessary risks that could affect others in your company or your customers. Simple things like following proper hand-washing techniques, maintaining safe distances from others, and avoiding groups can make a big difference.
The links below also offer valuable information and advice for business owners during this crisis:
The Lancaster Chamber of Commerce has excellent information and valuable links at this page: CLICK HERE
The Centers for Disease Control has a page featuring Guidance for Businesses and Employers: CLICK HERE
