WTA Engineer Register

Re: WTA Engineer Register

I don’t really want to get into any debate over this as I think I’ve gone over it conclusively many times.

Adrian, sorry mate, you’re wrong here.

In your opening post on this topic you accuse those that don’t sign up of not contributing, how do you work that one out? Just because they don’t perhaps subscribe is no call to belittle anyone.

Every repairs@ member signs up to the COP and agrees, by the terms to be bound to the conditions, including arbitration by the AC, this has been the case since day one. End of story.

If you read back through the members forum you will see, very clearly and repeatedly, requests to get the results weighted n favour of the subs, now members. I am on the case with it as I was allowed the budget to to it but, without bottomless pockets I can’t force getting it done at a stroke as you appear to think it can be done. This is us into serious custom coding now and, it ain’t cheap or fast.

However, at a stroke, this gets rid of 90{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of what you’re on about.

On the second point, how is that going to drive anything? You need traffic to generate demand, you don’t have that on the TA site so there’s little point in putting something there at a massive cost in both time and money for no-one to use is there? The TA site, for now and probably the next year or two at the very least, will be mostly trade only hits by direction and recommendation.

As for the AC regulating it, well we’ve been doing that anyway for two and a half years without any hassles, why does it become one when the TA comes along?

QUOTE from the WTA constitution: “To provide an Arbitration scheme, for diputes that may occur between our members and their customers”.

Doesn’t say anything about non-members that happen to adhere to the COP does it?

As for the recommendations thing, again we’ve been doing it for over two years, why is it all of a sudden a problem?

All I’m going to say to you in conclusion is, crawl, then walk, then run and you don’t catch flies with vinegar.

K.

Re: WTA Engineer Register

Who said there were no repercussions about people who don’t abide by the Charter or Code of Practice.

There has already been a case where a UKW member has been struck off RepairS@ for not abiding by the Charter. The customer and member in question were kept fully informed during the arbitration process. After careful consideration by the A.C. a course of action was required of the member who chose not to abide by the decision taken by the A.C. and was removed from Repairs@ as a result.

The customer was also informed of this action and was more than satisfied with action taken.

The difference between us and Dasa is the fact that we did not go on telly and slag off a member off our own trade thereby blackening the whole trade as a result.

You have to understand that Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will the WTA be. The only way you could be 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} sure of every member would be to physically call round to every member and carry out a full service provision audit.

Some how I don’t think the £60 per annum WTA membership fee will quite stretch to this, so we have to take people on trust and self declaration to the charter has to be the best place to start.

I fully realise that things are not proceeding as fast as you would like but we are still finding our feet. What has already been created in a few short moths is light speed compared to anyone else in our trade.

There are important jobs for us all to do. A major one, is one you already posed yourself ie ‘Who should we seek recognition from?’
If we could get our code of practice recognised by the O.F.T. then that would really be a feather in our cap. But it is a minimum of a two year
obstacle course worthy of the SAS. These are the things we have to accomplish to be taken seriously

Are we up for the long hard challenge or is it just badges and short term fixes like DASA.

Sean

Re: WTA Engineer Register

I can see where Adrian is coming from but the more people we ‘include’ the better, If it became common knowledge that positive discrimination was taking place within the system that would, in my view cause unrest and ill feeling which would be counter productive and would be to the long term detriment of the TA.

The cowboys will not get far on Repairs@ the type of person who uses web based methods for contacting an engineer is not likely to keep quiet if things are not up to snuff.

Jim.

Re: WTA Engineer Register

iadom wrote:I can see where Adrian is coming from but the more people we ‘include’ the better, If it became common knowledge that positive discrimination was taking place within the system that would, in my view cause unrest and ill feeling which would be counter productive and to the long term detriment of the TA.

Exactly.

Not just detriment IMO, but the death of it.

The only way you’d ever get rid of of all the cowboys is by using voodoo or something. Even then, some people probably see me as being a cowboy as, you can’t get it right all the time or please all the people all the time. All you can do is your best, beyond that it’s in the lap of the gods.

K.

Re: WTA Engineer Register

Customer visits WTA site. After reading all about us, and now finding trust in us to help him/her get a proper repairer, he/she selects ‘find an engineer’, and in turn is routed to UKW. She inputs her postcode, and there are 4 repairers displayed. She picks, at random, repairer ‘A’. Now, repairer ‘A’ is NOT a member of the WTA.

Perhaps a little more explanation of my thinking is required here.

Okay, for years I used to work to the AMDEA Code Of Practice. This was the accepted industry standard and defined certain parameters for me when dealing with customers. It acted not only as a standard by which to work but, very importantly, as a shield from complaint.

The fact is that they had down certain parameters that were acceptable within the industry but were actually not that great for consumers. But, it was a standard to work by and it was in black and white and, most importantly, it was from an independent third party and so as such, customers accepted it almost without question.

As I used this it became clear that I was promoting the standard of an institution that, to consumers, was entirely unknown and yet, here was I promoting an organisation that did me no favours, didn’t help my business or that I even subscribed to. So, for free, I was promoting AMDEA by using their COP.

Did I have to be a member of AMDEA to work to their COP? No.

Do I want to be a member of AMDEA? No.

Does this mean that I cannot apply their COP to my business practices? No.

Did that raise standards? Yes.

Let’s ignore that they have changed it for political reasons and assume that the AMDEA COP is worthless. Now, what standard by which should repairers work to? I’m sure that we’d all agree that it should be ours but, where is the incentive to do so?

If you start to place barriers in the way of using that COP then you place barriers in front of promotion and standards. Is that really what we wish to do here? Do you really want to say, well you can use out stuff but only if you join our gang and pay the ransom that we demand?

I don’t think that’s the impression that any of us wish to promote.

We need a standard that is open and accessible to as many people as possible and we need to encourage people to use that standard, not put them off with silly rules or by being overly officious about it. And, that means, we have to be open-minded on it IMO, not scythe people off because we have rumours and hearsay about them or the odd disgruntled customer as we all face that.

My chosen course would be to let the bad boys join. Out them. Then publish that they’ve been removed.

Far more effective and far fairer than reaching decisions behind closed doors on who is, or is not, worthy of wearing the badge.

But, it’s up to you what you do.

K.