The Coronavirus pandemic is having a profound affect on individuals and businesses worldwide. There’s no shortage of news and information being shared across the internet, but Carter Machinery wanted to gauge the impact locally, first hand. To do so, we started a pulse survey program being administered by our customer-facing employees, including sales reps and service personnel.
We feel it’s important to share this information with our customers and other constituents within our territory so everyone in the industries we serve can benefit. We will provide periodic updates on this page so be sure to check back.
March 31, 2020
Over the course of six days, we interviewed another 500 customers for a total of 1,200 since we started this survey. Again, we asked each individual if they see their business slowing in the coming months. While the overall percentage of those who said yes stayed around 38%, the quantification of how much varied somewhat.
| Slow Down | March 25th | March 31st |
| Less than 10% | 20% | 23% |
| Between 10% and 25% | 50% | 49% |
| Between 25% and 50% | 20% | 18% |
| Over 50% | 10% | 10% |
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We also identified some additional obstacles being faced in your day-to-day operations:
- Issues with an inability to have more than 10 employees in one area while working together on jobs
- Decline in the amount of waste coming into transfer stations, recycling facilities and landfills
- Employee shortages due to stay at home mandates for non-essential employees
In addition to talking with customers, we’re also monitoring a number of industry resources, here are a few you may be interested in.
- U.S. Map of Active Public Bidding Opportunities During Coronavirus (COVID-19)
- Construction Industry Coronavirus (COVID-19) News
- Construction Bidding Opportunities
Finally, in response to Virginia Governor Northam and West Virginia Governor Justice’s executive orders to close non-essential businesses, Carter Machinery has been deemed an essential business and therefore will stay open to support you.
March 25, 2020
Since last Wednesday, we’ve interviewed over 700 customers throughout our territory. The group represents a broad base of companies from various industries, sizes and applications.
The first question we asked, “Do you see your business slowing in the coming months?” Answer: 38% said “Yes.” As a follow-up to those who said yes, we wanted to quantify how slow-down is anticipated. Here’s what we heard:
- 20% say less than 10%
- 50% are projecting 10%-25%
- 20% are thinking 25%-50%
- 10% believe it will be more than 50%
Next, we wanted to understand what obstacles they were facing in their day-to-day operations or ability to provide sales and support to their customers. Based on the input, we boiled their feedback down to a dozen or so categories.
- Concrete delivery due to reduced employee count/workload
- Pulling permits
- Potentially having to cross-train employees as backup plan for future labor shortages
- Limited inspector availability
- General logistics
- Potential for less dry cement products from slowing ship traffic
- Vehicle licensing
- Silt fence shortage
- Internal company travel restrictions preventing use of technicians from other Divisions.
- Equipment hauling
- Containers for scrap hard to get back and pricing on scrap low already
Since compiling these results we’ve talked with over 200 more individuals. We’ll post an update next week on this page, but we’d like to know what you think. Share your feedback and we’ll add it to our survey.
Also, let us know how we can help your company. While not all of the obstacles above fall into our wheel house, some do. Ever seen a Carter low-boy out on the highways? Have you heard of Carter University?