Business Update: COVID19

Business Update - 04/01/21.

Following the recent government announcement of a new national lockdown, our dedicated team will continue to handcraft and dispatch your online orders as per usual. As a small manufacturing business (following all current social distancing and work place guidance) we feel lucky to be able to continue to continue to craft our collection of steam bent designs for you in these testing times.

Normal product lead times apply and we will be dispatching orders out of our Cornish workshop as usual. Our couriers are ensuring that the parcels are delivered as safely as possible to your doorstep, with no contact. If your parcel doesn’t fit through your letterbox, the delivery driver will place the item at your door and stand at a safe distance while you collect it.

We are sad to say that our Falmouth Showroom will be closed from Tuesday 5th January until further notice, you can however register interest in booking a future appointment by emailing our sales team - sales@tomraffield.com who will confirm a time slot and date with you as soon as possible. Any appointments booked prior to the lockdown announcement will unfortunately be cancelled.

It's been a challenging time and we're thankful more than ever to you, our customers, for your continued support. We're thinking of all the other small businesses who have to temporarily shut their doors this week and encourage you to shop locally, from small independent businesses where you can, and take care of each other in these uncertain times.

Tom and the team.

 

 

Previous announcements: 

As you know, we took the difficult and important decision to temporarily close our workshop a couple of weeks ago in response to the Coronavirus outbreak (see post below).

We are pleased to say that this vital pause in production has given us the time to plan and respond appropriately as a business to the pandemic. Tom has been busy working autonomously in our workshop and logistics areas putting in place new safety measures to adapt our work space and processes in accordance with government guidelines regarding manufacturing and COVID19.

These well-considered changes include:

Individually spaced workstations, pop up hand washing points to ensure strict hygiene practices are followed, separate and individual toilet and kitchen facilities for each team member working that day and staggered break times so that employees can practice social distancing at all times – to name but a few.

Consequently, having now ensured an incredibly secure and safe environment, we are pleased to announce that a small team of our talented makers will be able to return to work at our Cornish workshop and studios.

Operating with a reduced workforce of healthy team members will help safeguard the sustainability and continued function of our small family run business. The health and safety of our team, as well as their families, is our main priority, but it is important to also acknowledge our social responsibility to safely operate to support our employees, suppliers and our own family’s future.

We have been able to come together as a team and adapt to this situation to plan for a brighter future, and we couldn’t have done that without the continued support shown from you; our customers, clients, partners and friends – thank you for placing orders not knowing when you’d receive them, reaching out and joining our conversations, working together and ultimately being such an integral part of our journey.

SHOPPING ONLINE & DELIVERY

We anticipate that our normal lead times will resume when our small team return to the workshop as we will also be dispatching orders out of our logistics area as usual. Our couriers are ensuring that the parcels are delivered as safely as possible to your doorstep, with no contact. If your parcel doesn’t fit through your letterbox, the delivery driver will place the item at your door and stand at a safe distance while you collect it.

 

RETURNS

To support our customers who are self-isolating, we have decided to extend our returns period for orders placed from 1st March indefinitely (please see previous update for more details). If you wish to return an item delivered after this period please get in touch with our customer service team who will be delighted to help.

 

CONTACT US

Our customer services team remain on hand to answer calls, respond on live chat and reply to any queries, please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you need anything, they’d love to hear from you.

 

It has been a challenging and difficult few weeks but knowing we are all in this together has been a big help. We’ll keep sharing our latest news via our email newsletters and social media which will hopefully provide everyone with a little light relief, please join us and keep the conversation open.

Our thoughts are with all those who have been affected during these troubling times.

Thank you from all the Tom Raffield team for your continued support.

Please note, this page will be updated regularly with new information, so do check back.

Previous Updates:

24/03/20.

It is with heavy hearts that we have decided to temporarily close our workshop in line with government advice regarding the evolving Covid-19 pandemic. We would like to thank our fantastic team for their commitment and positivity as well as there continued support, but we are certain it is the right decision to enable the safety of them, their families and our community and to help fight this terrible situation.

Our website will remain open and you can place orders as usual, however, delivery times will be affected and normal lead times will apply once the workshop re-opens to commission your pieces.

Because of this temporary closure, we won’t be able to process return requests as usual, however, we have extended our returns period indefinitely for orders placed in the last 21 days, and we will deal with any requests as a priority as soon as our workshop opens again.

Our customer services team remain on hand to answer calls and reply to any queries, please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you need anything, they’d still love to hear from you.

We’d like to thank you all - customers, clients, partners and suppliers - for your continued custom and support, it's been a challenging and difficult few weeks but knowing we are all in this together has been a big help. We’ll keep sharing our latest news via our email newsletters and social media which will hopefully provide everyone with a little light relief, please join us and keep the conversation open.

Take care, Tom and the team x

Posted: 09.04.20
Updated: 26.05.23