Ever since the pandemic started, people have been made to follow stay-at-home orders to avoid catching the virus and succumbing to the disease. With stay-at-home orders came the mandate that all service-based businesses need to enhance their safety protocols to guarantee the safety of their employees and their clients and customers. Despite the boredom and the long hours of doing nothing, staying at home is better compared to risking your and your family’s safety by frequently venturing outdoors. However, what happens when appliances and systems in your home start to malfunction and fall apart? Should you go outside to buy all the necessary tools you will need to do the repairs yourself, or should you call in professional help?
The answer lies in how urgent and serious your needs are. If you have knowledge and experience about basic home repairs and maintenance, you can attempt to repair them yourself. However, if you are not confident about your skills, knowledge, and experience, you might want to call in professional services to do the repairs for you. After all, you wouldn’t want to compromise the repair process and end up destroying your home services or appliances by attempting to fix them yourself.
The same is true for food delivery services and logistics services. These are essential services that need to remain operational despite the pandemic. Before you call on service-based businesses, you need to ensure that they have enhanced their safety and sanitation protocols. Bringing people inside your home or coming into close contact with other people, even for purchases and receiving packages, can expose you and your family to health risks and the coronavirus. Below are how the pandemic has affected different service-based businesses and what they have done to cope with the changes.
Home Repair and Home Maintenance Services
Before the pandemic, these services are available almost 24 hours, 7 days a week. Many people require immediate assistance in terms of home maintenance and home repairs that could happen at any time of the day. Therefore, these businesses have made their services available to their clients and customers every day. In addition to this, people did not hesitate to call home repair and home maintenance services because there were no risks present. Businesses like these would not be allowed to operate without permits and licenses, guaranteeing that they are trustworthy and reliable.
When the pandemic started, these businesses started to get fewer calls from clients and customers. The government’s imposition of a skeletal workforce and social distancing measures have forced most home maintenance and repair businesses to reduce the number of employees that can work in an office or establishment. In addition to these, the government has also asked these businesses to refine their sanitation and safety protocols. For example, reliable electricians and plumbers now have to wear personal protective equipment when they visit homes for repair and maintenance calls. They also have to adhere to sanitation protocols such as thoroughly disinfecting themselves before entering their clients’ homes. Although this may be too tedious and costly for service-based businesses, it is better than having businesses close for good.
Food Delivery Services
Food delivery services have also faced stricter mandates, especially in terms of sanitation procedures and protocols. Employees are now required to practice a more meticulous process of sanitizing themselves before getting in contact with the food they will prepare for their customers. Delivery services have also faced stricter protocols since all delivery personnel is now required to sanitize the packaging of the food they deliver before handing them to customers. These protocols and procedures have affected delivery times which has taken a toll on food delivery businesses’ efficiency.
Logistics Services
For logistics services, the biggest manifestation of the impacts of the pandemic is the imposition of stricter quarantine measures which have caused delays in the delivery process of packages. Although the packages themselves are not quarantined, logistics employees and personnel are now required to adhere to temperature checks, credential checks, and sanitation procedures before they are allowed to proceed to their destinations. As a result, logistics businesses face many customer complaints because packages take too long to arrive at their designated locations. However, logistics companies have no choice but to adhere to stricter protocols. If not, they face the prospect of being asked to cease their operations.
How the Pandemic Affects Businesses
The pandemic has caused a lot of inconveniences for different businesses around the world. The imposition of stricter safety and sanitation protocols has made businesses deal with more processes and procedures that affect the efficiency of the services they offer. Furthermore, businesses have also faced setbacks at the beginning of the pandemic because there were fewer customers and clients compared to before the pandemic started and after stricter safety and sanitation protocols were implemented. Despite the major changes in the services offered by different businesses, such changes are preferred over being asked to close their businesses due to the failure of complying with government mandates.