RINGTONS: A YEAR IN REVIEW

RINGTONS YEAR IN REVIEW

RINGTONS YEAR IN REVIEW

2020 was an unpredictable challenge that forced us all to change the way we lived and worked and no one knows this better than Ringtons, a family business founded in 1907.

Known for their doorstep delivery service, their iconic black-and-gold vans are a familiar sight to many, but when the national lockdown was enforced in March 2020, they quickly shifted all business online, cementing their eCommerce site as their main sales channel.

For them, 2020 was a year of innovation, as they quickly adapted and responded to the changing external landscape.

Daniel Smith, 5th generation of the founding Smith family, explains what 2020 looked like for the business.

January – June 2020

Our doorstep delivery service offering ‘Tea and More to Your Door’ has been delivering since 1907. We’ve only had two breaks of service in those 114 years for the world wars, but in March, we took the decision to suspend our service for the third time.

We have over 230,000 customers, delivered to on a fortnightly or monthly basis, serviced by our dedicated and passionate team of over 300. Suspending our service was a very difficult decision, but we believed it was the right decision for the health and safety of our team, our customers and their families.

The suspension left our customers without their usual supply of tea and biscuits and resulted in dramatically increased demand on our e-commerce site. In order to cope with this demand and continue supplying our ‘tea and more’ offer to both regular and new customers we took several steps.

First, we launched ‘The Monty’. It’s a single box product that contains plenty of tea and biscuits, plus a jar of coffee. Delivery is free and we guarantee next day despatch. The products are fixed so it’s quick to pack and despatch compared to standard orders. Secondly, we revisited delivery chargers. Our customers are used to our free delivery service so the online postage charges didn’t seem right to us. We reduced the order threshold for free delivery to £15 from £40 and those who contacted us directly, who didn’t have access to the internet, were offered free delivery whatever their order value.

With order volumes 10 times higher than the same time the previous year, we increased capacity. The team pulled out all the stops and with help from third parties we were able to despatch 10 times our previous capacity.

We also decided to shift our focus and reduce the range on offer. While our website previously contained exclusive items not available via our doorstep service, we removed all these products to focus on our core range and to help doorstep customers with the transition to the website, reduce the complexity of orders and improve our efficiency.

We found it increasingly important to keep our customers up to date with all our activity via our website and social media. The key for us is being clear, concise and transparent.

July – December 2020

By July 2020 all of our 230 vans were back on the roads visiting our customers again. We spent a long time planning and thinking about safety before our return and introduced a set of comprehensive safety protocols, PPE and the right cleaning products for each person, van and office. As with the decision in March, the safety of the customers and the team remains paramount.

We’ve had several touching letters of heartfelt thanks from customers for our service since we resumed, this isn’t unusual but the specific nature of these letters has great meaning at times when isolation is more extreme and our service is more important to them than ever. Each visit comes with a smile and a chat, the importance of which can’t be overstated. Tea is the national beverage and with lockdowns, isolation, loneliness and stress, we think it’s playing its part in helping the nation get through these tough times. It’s back on trend with sales in the tea market growing, which hasn’t been the case for decades. For us our biscuits have also proved particularly popular.

We saw an increase in the number of people signing up to become customers via the internet and phoning us, our business model of truly direct to consumer visits looks less ‘old fashioned’ by the day.

Our Tea Packing Division which supplies several retailers and supermarkets were facing a different set of tough challenges. There were limitations in the number of people allowed in the facility and shifts had to be segregated to reduce risks, all increasing downtime and mounting pressure on our output to fulfil our customers requirements.

We have been able to maintain a level of production throughout and although it has hardly been plain sailing, we have strong procedures and a well drilled team in place to reduce the risk.

All of our team whether out visiting customers, in the factory or at home, have done a tremendous job and we’re immensely proud of their actions and attitude throughout 2020.