WE ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS
On behalf of everyone at Metropolitan Picture Framing, we thank all of you who have reached out to us and wished us well. During the month that we were closed we talked to customers from around the country. Everyone had a story to tell and wanted to share it. The following is our #mnintimeofcorona story.
Closing the business
On March 28th the Governor of Minnesota closed all businesses. We put a sign on our door and contacted our vendors to let them know we were closing. Our web developer put a notice on our website (at no charge) that we were closed but we were still taking orders and we would contact our customers when we reopened.
Payroll Protection Plan
We have been in business for over 45 years so we have weathered a few storms. When we heard about the government plan to help small businesses we contacted our bank immediately. We have an exceptional staff of long term employees and we wanted to make sure they could sleep at night. It was a happy day when we could tell our employees we had received the loan and they would continue to receive their full salaries and health insurance benefits while we were closed.
Preparation for reopening
Before reopening we wrote a preparedness plan, did conference calls with all of our employees to discuss the plan and the safety features we were implementing. We then made sure all the masks, gloves, disinfectants were at the production center when they returned. Fortunately, we have a world class researcher (Leslie Desnick, owner) who used all of his skills to source the supplies.
We all now have a better understanding of the dangers that lurk on a door knob. Team Metro has taken steps to ensure all employees are working in a safe environment. We have a large production facility and can easily social distance. We are not open to the public and will calls will now be done with curb side pickup. Like all of you we take safety very seriously and want to do everything we can to make sure we don't get sick and we don't cause others to become sick.
Reopening
The first day customer service dealt with the logistics of letting our vendors know we were open. They contacted our shippers, flagged down the mailman, etc.. We then started contacting all of our customers who had orders in the shop when we closed to see if they were still able to receive shipments. Customer service started processing the web orders we received while we were closed. Our production managers came in to organize the work and make sure all of the safety equipment was ready to be distributed when the rest of the staff returned the following day. Thanks to Team Metro we were back to our normal routine by day three of reopening.
With kindness, patience, ingenuity, generosity, and determination we will get through this together.
Stay safe.
Karen and Leslie Desnick, Owners
Metropolitan Picture Framing