Let it snow!

R

Reactivequation

With large parts of the UK starting to resemble Christmas card scenes, I was just wondering how the adverse weather is affecting everybody else's businesses?

In my current line of work, I split my time mostly between IT consultancy and freelance technical writing. Certainly for the writing side of things, there's very little impact - other than me having a slightly more attractive scene to look at through my window as I work. The consultancy side though, I'm not yet sure how the weather is going to affect things for me. I'm onsite with a client today, as the roads were passable and the client's office is only local - however I do have meetings lined up with some potential new clients and it remains to be seen how I will manage to get to these if the weather persists.

I do have a very small sideline in the form of an ecommerce website, and obviously expect the weather to wreak havoc with deliveries etc. however fortunately this area of the business is very small and very niche, so the actual impact on me and on cashflow is unlikely to be noticeable. I know from my former life in the purchasing department of a large IT e-tailer, however, that weather like this can easily bring even a large business to it's knee's!

Hope everybody 'weather's the storm' so to speak, and interested in hearing about any contingencies you have in place to mitigate the effects of the weather on your businesses.

Cheers,
 

KM-Tiger

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Aug 10, 2003
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...however I do have meetings lined up with some potential new clients and it remains to be seen how I will manage to get to these if the weather persists.

I've had a client cancel a site visit today. They decided to go into 'snow mode', so their office is closed, everyone working from home, including answering phones.

Obviously they have those facilities in place, but today is BAU for them, even though nobody can get in.
 
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Paul_Rosser

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Jul 5, 2012
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With large parts of the UK starting to resemble Christmas card scenes, I was just wondering how the adverse weather is affecting everybody else's businesses?

As my last client meeting was in December and I don't have another till
the 28th of Jan the snow won't really affect us.

I may get slightly further on Zombiu though :D
 
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B

B&H Digital

Apart from the factories being a 'no-go-area' for me, it hasn't really affected us. A few of our staff walk into work and where we are is really icey, so it's a bit of a hazard.

I hope it's not affecting anyone else badly, it's due to snow here in a few hours so shall see what that brings!
 
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GradwellDotCom

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Aug 9, 2012
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We are a business of 70 and today only people who could walk to work came in (plus a very small handful who braved the train). I'd say there's between 10 and 30 of us today, everyone else is working from home.

Lucky for us it's very easy for staff to work from home as we sell (and use) VoIP! They're all redirecting their office phones to home and can access everything they need. For the majority of positions it makes no difference where they're working from.

The phones sure are quiet though, I think a lot of businesses are taking a snow day.

For people like me who made it into the office, at least it's toasty here and everyone's in a good mood!
 
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MyAccountantOnline

Business Member
Sep 24, 2008
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I walk to work so it hasn't been a problem for me - its business as usual for the entire office.

My office is close to a main road and it's noticeably SO quiet today.

Quite surprised to see many of the large delivery lorries still going past but very, very few cars. It's quite nice actually.
 
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Sorry for the double post; just walked to the shop and the snow is quite thick here now. Not massively but thick enough.

Fun tomorrow then :)

Buses and cars still driving, couple of shops closed with "closed due to the snow" signs, mostly kids playing around; not many adults about.

The grit hasn't done much good on the roads.
 
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It's affecting my leaflet distribution business. Not only is it very slow to deliver in snow but the ice is a nightmare. It makes delivering take longer and really sucks the energy out of you. Also a lot of my staff have had appointments that they had forgotten about etc...basically none of them want to deliver in this weather but luckily I can handle all the deliveries on my own.

I have 3 clients currently and have explained the situation to them but one of the leaflets is promoting a karate class starting on the 27th so understandably they're worried. I'm confident I'll get them delivered though.
 
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The weather forecast is saying more snow this Friday. I was analysing our call volumes for last week and Friday, when it snowed, was about 20% down on the previous week. That's a fairly significant drop and it must be affecting businesses everywhere (click here for the full graph).

Has anybody got any good stories of making a success from the forecast of snow, for instance apparently Halfords sent out emails about preparing your car for snow conditions.

Ian
 
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Talay

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Mar 12, 2012
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The snow has forced me to seriously reconsider the implications of weather on part of my business.

A quick risk assessment the other day convinced me to halt a number of appointments where staff would have to carry some bulky items across paths and areas which would not have been cleared of snow.

Perhaps overly cautious but what is the cost of one of them falling down ? Almost certainly there would be a "no win no fee" lawyer on the case and you know where that ends up with costs.
 
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