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Re: One Million!
Congratulations on reaching your 1 st. million. It is quite obvious by the hit’s you have recieved that the trade has been crying out for a way to communicate and it looks like you guy’s have found the right tool.
Roll on two million. 😉Best Regards Del 😀
One Million!
Good, innit?
Surely demonstrates how little confidence the public has in the manufacturers and the main retailers that they seek out a truly independent opinion!To this end, a couple of thoughts. Obviously, the public are coming in for advice and opinions on new products, not just advice in the public forums as to how to fix it themselves. (Fascinating really – been messing about in here for 6+ months and I’m still finding new things) I did go through a phase of thinking the public to be a bit of a labour intensive nuisance, but it’s nothing in proportion to the number of hits! We are a bit thin on the ground on the “new” reviews. I would say that our opinion in this area, if developed, would not only give the public informed advice but would give us external influence. The ones we have are beautifully written and highly informative, but having done a bit if creative writing for UKW last weekend I must say it’s damn hard work and therefore an inefficient use of an engineers time.
The only independent external source of advice currently is “Which?”. They are very good at the evaluation of product, but never actually pass an opinion; and there is certainly no follow up with regard to reliability and customer satisfaction.
Can you imagine what would have happened if “Which?” had done that kind analysis of the WMA series 4 years ago and said “This is cr@p”? We have, between us, the ability to do this.
As an independent, I don’t get to work on new appliances until they pass out of the initial guarantee period, but as we know, the ranges update on the same platform year by year, so opinion would be relevant. Some of you guys are out there doing it for THE COMPANY, some of you are subcontracting for THE COMPANY and are getting a feel of things much earlier.
If I had some “Fill-in-the-numbers-and-tick-the-boxes” forms from UKW on my work pad, it would be the work of moments to log problems and customer opinions with regard to newer appliances. What a database we could build that way!
The point I’m blundering towards is that:
a) I doubt that “Which?” gets anything like a million hits a year with regards to white goods.
b) This site is a great club for us, and there is no harm in that whatsoever, and should be roundly applauded (Anyone clapping in a circular fashion leave now………)
c) When it becomes even more widely known that the public can get an honest, unbiased, informed and quantifiable (That’s the tick the boxes bit) opinion on a wide range of appliances, sooner or later the manufacturers will have to sit up and take notice. After all, what we say can and WILL affect YOUR business………… A million hits this year? It’s only going to grow isn’t it?With the growth of the internet making communication so much easier and faster, we have an opportunity to develop a truly independent voice with huge potential to push this market place back to where it should be – IF we can present the facts! It could be just beautiful if we work it right.
Think on Brothers, and prepare for leadeship.
Penguin.
Re: One Million!
Peng.
I really think you’ve put your finger on it, yes there is an absolute gold mine of information on this site. Provided you have a year and a half to read through all the post’s. We need some way to corolate the info at a glance, because the easier something is to use, then the more people will use it.
I know that Ken has asked people to do reviews on products and one or two members have done just that, but not everyone is a natural journalist myself included. So if someone could come up with some kind of table format as you have just sugested then I feel sure that more of our excellent engineers would contribute to keeping it updated. We almost need a Libriarian now to guide people round the site.
We cant keep expecting our admin team to do it all for us, So if there are any net nerd’s out there who think they have a solution let’s hear it.Regards as ever Del
Re: One Million!
Wow, this has taken an interesting twist. Penguin has indeed hit a nail on the head.
There is practically no independent advice available to the public about whitegoods in the UK, very little in fact worldwide so the manufacturers get to do what they like effectively as there is no control other than legislation really. They have, IMO, mostly fought a price war over the past decade or so and where’s it got them? I’ve heard the tired excuses about Currys/Comet etc. forcing price points on appliances, but really, there is a little word that needs to be learned and, it is “no”. What has happened in recent times is that (again only my opinion) we’ve seen not only the price erroded but consumer confidence in major brand names as well who appear to be losing ground to newer brands now. We’ve seen the errosion in quality of components and in the actual engineering in the appliances with many these days seemingly designed to be consigned to the tip at the slightest failure, even the lack of information of training on them shows us that let alone the actual build.
Which do provide some insight and, sales teams around the land read it avidly as, like a good review of a car in What Car it can mean sales are boosted by a positive review. By the same token the reviews, if negative, can also adversly affect sales. The huge difference between the likes of What Car and Which is that What Car will go into detail pricing spares and servicing costs, running costs and the platforms on which the mechanics are built on giving a much greater and better picture than Which would do. We have no equivelent in this industry so the consumer finds out the XXX manufacturer’s spares are hideously expensive when they go to buy one. The response from the consumer is generally never to buy that brand again and instead try another, rightly or wrongly. But with little or no information to provide an informed purchase, other than the manufacturer’s literature in most cases or the advice of the salesperson, they have little choice but to do so.
Offering an opinion based on your own experiences in the field is just that, an opinion and we all do it day after day when customers ask and, they do ask. I see no harm in giving an opinion if asked and I make it as honest as I can when I do, it has gotten me into trouble on occasion but I’d rather have my integrity intact thank you very much. Although some clever wording goes a long way. 😉
I think there is a large potential niche in the market for a range of solidly built and well supported appliances and I honestly think that customers are fed up with the muck they’ve had for the past few years. The problem is we seem to jump from the poor quality at low prices to decent quality at high prices, there seems to be little in the middle ground now.
As for the site, thanks for the comments and let’s hope it makes a difference somehow.
The posts, as we’ve discussed before, are better left there as they are searchable and indexed (in the public forums) by Google etc. so people can find answers without having to ask the same questions repeatedly and they are searchable using the internal site search engine, for the trade forums. I think it’s best that valuable information that people have taken the time and trouble to type out is left there. It also builds a history of the site and the industry which has previously been non-existant in any form.
Penguin is correct totally in the time it takes to type something out for the site as you have to type it, review it, polish it, review it then publish it. I do do some stuff “off-the-cuff” but that’s just me, then oggle at the errors later! 😆 But that’s why I, personally, really appreciate the time that people put into UKW as I know first hand how time-consuming it can be and that’s also partly the reason I won’t prune the forums as someone put a lot of effort into doing them in the first place.
I do believe that Penguin is correct in that we have a unique opportunity here to express our views and just maybe inprove the trade in some fashion. I think we’ve already made some progress in that regard, or at least I hope we have and that manufacturers etc. can see that we are trying to help them, not hold them to ransom or any such nonsense. Although, sometimes as the old cliche goes, you have to be cruel to be kind. 😉
I’ll have a think about the reviews thing over the weekend and see what I can come up with, I’m sure we can do something. Some people in the industry may not like that though although, IMO, the more and better information/feedback that manufacturers get the more they are liable to pay attention.
Thanks both Del and Panguin for some excellent and thought provoking posts, I know I’ve probably gone off a bit and not answered some points but I do have to work! 😉
K.
Re: One Million!
If I may just throw in some thought provoking comments into the discussion for what my views are worth, see what comes out 🙁
kwatt wrote:There is practically no independent advice available to the public about whitegoods in the UK
The vast majority of people in reality do not seek advice at all or even request it. Until that is when they step into Currys Superstore and ask a salesperson, leaving them at the mercy of their slick sales patter 🙁 However those amongst us that do ask for advice usually find it in the ‘Which’ magazine and from visiting this site. That’s where UKW can indeed score highly. 10 out of 10
kwatt wrote:I’ve heard the tired excuses about Currys/Comet etc. forcing price points on appliances, but really, there is a little word that needs to be learned and, it is “no”.
The word “no” is not part of the major retailers vocabulary, and it never will be. Lets just face up to it, they call the shots. All the manufacturers therefore dance to their tune. The advent of Internet shopping has exacerbated it even more, with the public at large demanding more for less. And if they can’t get it for less they will stop buying, forcing the retailer into reducing prices even more to meet sales targets and sell more, and on and on it goes.
kwatt wrote: What has happened in recent times is that (again only my opinion) we’ve seen not only the price erroded but consumer confidence in major brand names as well who appear to be losing ground to newer brands now.
Not so, stop 10 people in the street and ask them what they think of or have they heard of the brand name …say ‘Hoover?’ 80{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} will say they know of Hoover and think generally their products are good. Major brands will always win the the eyes of the public at large, who will turn their noses up at obscure makes. These newer brands will only take hold if Currys etc sell more of them, which I doubt because they are dictated to by the major brands who only tolerate them selling the likes of say ‘Beko’ just to show customers variety in their stores. But insist they have majority display holding (i.e. 20 Hotpoints to one Beko)
kwatt wrote: We’ve seen the errosion in quality of components and in the actual engineering in the appliances with many these days seemingly designed to be consigned to the tip at the slightest failure, even the lack of information of training on them shows us that let alone the actual build.
This is directly coupled to the actual retail market place price standing based entirely on ‘supply and demand’, when the demand goes up the cost of manufacturing actually goes down. It is cheaper to make 100,000 than 10,000. Costs can also be shed by the manufacturers forcing the raw material suppliers into submission and relocating their output to third world countries. Failure rates on high volume goods are kept at a very low percentage rate, less than half a percent (.5{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}) of their total output. So they can well afford to bin those that give problems. Down to component level is slightly higher at 2{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} on average withing the guarantee period, so again no big loss the them.
kwatt wrote:I think there is a large potential niche in the market for a range of solidly built and well supported appliances and I honestly think that customers are fed up with the muck they’ve had for the past few years.
I sadly have to disagree, 😥 I cite my comments about asking “10 people in the street”…etc. Many people are indeed unhappy with their product that fails or continues to fail and will buy another brand but go for another major brand name again. Blissfully ignorant all the while that that brand too is as fallable, possibly even worse.
Sorry to be so negative, by just commenting on what I believe is the business in which you and I find ourselves. I too believe more could be done in a pure engineering sense, but that costs money that will never repeat never be spent by those we wish would 😥
There are few positives in this game but UKW and all that it stands for and the direction it is going will be a big positive….Heres to the next 1,000,000 !!!!!!!!!….Cheers guys!!
MartinRe: One Million!
Sorry if this sounds negative but…
Isn’t our advice always going to be too late?
We all know that the current h#t###nt range “could do better” but did we know it before everyone bought one ?
Surely most of us only find out 2 or 3 years into production.
Too late for most buyers.I know its not too late to warn them off a particularly bad brand, but I think we can all names brands that have suddenly launched a range that WE then had to live with for the next 5 years of hell. And by the same token a very poor manufacturer who suddendly got it all right ONCE !
Lots of good information on the site but a lot is by (bitter?) experience.
Nope, a lot of it we do see in-warranty or many of us do at least, even if we don’t we can still tell you that the new range of Hotpoint washers still use the WMA tub group, in essence. We can tell you that the Tricity Bendix is the same thing near enough with minor changes to the Zanussi sat next to it for £100 more, or the AEG. We can tell these things to customers, we just haven’t.
Normally, in this industry which I have remarked before changes at a glacial pace, a tank/cabinet design has a lifespan of 10 years or more, look at any major European manufacturer and tell me I’m wrong.
The warranty failure rate for most manufacturers is calculated at approx. 5{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of appliances will require service within the first twelve months. Then it tails off a bit as most of those are actually in the first three to six months of ownership and then rises from about 2.5-3 years gradually from the information I’ve gleaned. Hence there wasn’t really that much hooha about a two year warranty being imposed, had it come to pass.
Customers ask me on a, literally, daily basis what machine I’d reccomend personally and all I can say is don’t buy the cheapest of the cheap, go to something at least mid-range. But even that doesn’t guarantee longevity of any sort these days.
Buy an integrated De Detriech and you get a Zanussi badged up, big bucks. Buy a Kuppersbusch washer and you get a £600+ Candy! These are things that the public are totally and utterly unaware of, should they be? Not only that, for these badged up machines, as an example, a timer for the “Kuppersbusch” intg. w/d is over £220!!!
Martin you’d be amazed at the volumes being sold by some of the smaller guys out there and they’re taking business from only one place, the traditional brand names. Look at the rise and rise of Smeg, CDA, Brandt, De Detriech, Hygena/Diplomat, Cusina, Elica, Maytag an a host of others now out there and selling well. Many of these brands have come from nowhere in the UK to being known names by the public. Why?
Also please note that most of the above do not sell through the sheds and have specialist products aimed at a very targetted market in many cases.
There is and probably always will be a very large market out there for traditional brand names, on that I totally agree as people are comfortable with them.
But….
Look at the history, which everyone seems to forget.
Hotpoint and Hoover were once topping the sales charts by a HUGE margin, that has now changed totally.
How long will it be once you get Merloni in a Hotpoint box with 2 weeks for a service call, that retailers start to shy away from selling them? It’s more hassle than it’s worth to do so for the retailer if it does go wrong, as has just been proved by Dave’s reaction to the current situation with his customer.
When Lux made the switch from true Zanussi/AEG/Lux service separated and specialist,IIRC, Zanussi had a 15{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} share of the UK market, the service when it changed to Service Force as it was then had the same kind of delays at the time all over the UK. Zanussi’s market share dipped to under 10{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} in a year (again from memory) simply because the dealers stopped selling it. It was more hassle than it was worth, the same happened with AEG from what I’m told.
I can see Hotpoint going the same way, soon.
If that happens who will fill the void?
Enough market analysis for tonight, wine beckons and the manufacturers pay people loads of cash to figure this stuff out, albeit not very well IMHO. 😉
K.
Re: One Million!
Gentlemen.
This thread is nudging the way of so many threads; towards the “poor us” attitude. I am trying to demonstrate a way to empower the independent service network, in a reasoned, impartial, analytical and accountable way.
Have you any idea of the tremors that go through the car industry each year as the JD Power results come along? I have a mate who is a sales manager for Renault (Who always do well!) and even he starts to get fretful. As for Ford with the Galaxy, well………
We have some choices to make. We can either continue making a lot of noise in here about how bad the product/rates/supply/prices are, or we start accumulating quantifiable, analyitical assessments of the various machines we are all working on every day and publish them as either a rolling catalogue; or better (in a blaze of publicity) once a year announce the review as the UKW Product Review and see how they like that!
We could even play the guardians of the public interest card, “UKW says don’t buy HotHooWhiPerloni” – page 5 of the Daily Mail. Thought, eh?
As things currently stand, we are absolutely at the bottom of the white goods food chain and we’re going to stay there unless we come out fighting. This has the potential to be a powerbase to change the industry.
Points against as things currently stand. We have some 700+ members, of whom 300 – 350 are trade based. Obviously, we need to recruit. We are desperately underfunded. I chip in a nominal sum each month, I hope it’s some use. If I (and the rest of you) put in (say) £20 a month x 300 = £60,000, we have a) a salary, b) some dosh for consultation/analysis, c) a little bit for advertising (White goods engineer? Contact UKW.com; we could change your life!), d) a few bob spare so Ken and Dave can get sloshed at our expense for once!
I have been a mushroom before and I don’t like being in the dark having bullsh*t dropped on me from time to time. What I suggest, even if we get a “tick the boxes” set up will be labour intensive, and will take time to develop into a reasonable sample size, but in perhaps 18 months from now we could have the potential to drop a reasoned, analytical, well publicised bombshell right in the limelight.
Up to us really.
Penguin.
Re: One Million!
Some amazingly good ideas are coming from this thread 😀
Ken and I spoke yesterday and were trying to work out the best way of moving Penguin’s excellent idea forward.
So here’s what we came up with as one thought:
Four standard forms, cooking, cooling, laundry and dishwashing. All in Excell format so the information can be collated easily. So on that initial thought, anyone know of any Excell wizzkids ?
How do we gather the info ? Engineers in customer’s houses is one way, we would obviously have to carry out a general survey as feedback on the appliance being worked on would be wholly inaccurate as we would only gather information on failed appliances.
Do we have a cunsumer form available for download ? Another way of doing it. Relying on people feeding back accurate info though is a worry as we may again only get feedback from consumers with an axe to grind.
Just a few initial thoughts.
And Penguin, Ken always gets sloshed on other people’s room bills wherever possible, he’s a Scott remember 😉 😆
Dave.
You are absolutely right Penguin!
It’s an idea I’ve toyed with on many occasions and thought about, all we need to get this started is engineer’s comments. Going on and surveying consumers could be done, but as you quite rightly point out, that takes a bit of funding.
Penguin is right about the car industry (I have a few contacts there myself ;)) everytime What Car, Top Gear or any of the other leading mags ask for a review car manufacturers sweat buckets awaiting the results, likewise the JD Power results. Why? Simple, it affects sales which is the only thing that a manufacturer cares about in reality. Manufacturers don’t much care about UKW and the bits I write on the front page other than the fact that it affects sales, like if a retailer or contract client read it they may be put off if there’s service problems and switch brand. Yeah, sure they care about the service aspect but not to anywhere near the same degree.
If you want to change anything at all, you have to affect sales and I think this is the start of a great idea.
K.
Re: One Million!
I have to agree with Penguin, and I’m sorry Martin but your resignation to the status quo of ‘nothing will change’ I feel is a little too defeatist.
What we need to do is to set up the UKW REVIEW in some form of a comparison table format. It need’s to have seperate pricing bands.A lot of customers feel they have been duped when I inform them that they have a badged appliance, so this fact needs to be shown also.
Which magazine came unstuck with this when they praised one appliance and slagged off another and both were the same make and model with different badges on the front. This is where we will score, as our reviews will be done by engineers not journalist’s.
CJ, you think that our advice will be given too late. i.e. after a customer has ALREADY made their choice. I would only say come with me down to my local rubbish tip and see just how many machines under 3 years old are being thrown away because the customer feels that they are not worth repairing. I personally think that some of those customers might be seeking some good advice before they purchase the next one. You can bet your life they wont be buying the same brand and a lot of them wont buy from the same store if they were sold a heap of scrap.
Once or twice in it’s short history UKW has tossed the odd hand grenade
at some of the culprits of bad engineering. But to deliver an annual timebomb would really make e’m sit up and take notice.
I for one like the idea and I’m also convinced that we are the only people who can do it right. I vote we go for it.Regards as ever Del
Re: One Million!
I think the idea is good, and agree with the points raised, but as Penguin45 says, it is very time consuming writing reviews. My own stats have proven to me that there is a big demand for independant reviews and they are very, very effective when written by an engineer.
I regularly get feedback for example, that people have purchased Meile washing machines that they would never have bought before reading my reviews. But they usually take me about 8 – 12 hours including research, doing the web page, processing the digital photos etc..
My big problem is getting access to new machines to review. I can’t get customers to pay for the reviews (like Which?) because there aren’t enough of them and they aren’t current enough, but I also don’t feel I can approach manufacturers, or people like Currys, because they are so independant that they can be quite critical of the products at times, so I’m in a catch 22 situation.
Using the resources and the experience of members of this site is a great idea, but what about discussing how we can make money out of this and other ideas?
I can see that the existance of the group is a totally brilliant idea (I wish I’d fhought of it K 🙂 but at a time when many are struggling and going out of business, I’m struggkling to see how giving very valuable and uniquely specialist information to customers free of charge actually helps any of us?
Re: Andy’s last paragraph.
As Ken said, the only way to influence the manufacturers is to affect their sales. If we have to create a BIG STICK, we have to influence public opinion. I suggest that we do this by creating a REAL reliability/value for money etc review and when ready, make it publically available. THEN, we may start to hold some sway.
There 30 million odd households in the UK, each one has at least 3 domestic appliances, so there are AT LEAST 100,000,000 machines out there to be serviced or replaced.
By comparison, helping out the half dozen punters each day who wish to risk life and limb and try to fix it themselves is very small beer indeed, and is an outstanding example of good will.
18 months from now, it could all be changing for the better!
Penguin.
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