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I love brassneck cheek and heres why.
Customer rings up the shop…
Customer” hello can you tell me how to fit bearings in a indesit washer?”
Me “Have you already bought the bearings?”
customer “yes”
me “which bearing kit did you buy?”
customer ” yeah its the one for the w103 model”
me (smelling a rat now) “what kit did you buy from us?”
customer ” oh i didnt buy it from you”
me “well you should ask the person who you bought it off”
customer “cant you tell me”
me “sorry but you should ask the person you bought the kit off SIR!”
customer “so you wont tell me unless i buy the parts from you?”
me “yes”
customer ” blah blah blah ill remember blah blah blah”
So how nasty am i?Re: How nasty am i?
Ralph wrote:So how nasty am i?
You’re not, that’s exactly the same thing I would have done.
I’d even go as far as refusing to tell customers how to fit parts they have bought from us, basic guidance maybe, going in to detail, never.
Dave.
Re: How nasty am i?
I think you are terrible and have a very bad customer care attitude, so what if the poor chap didn’t buy the spares from you!
I would have been straight round with my tools and big hammer and other things I thought he might need and stood behind him encouraging him on, and point out his errors in a nice way to ensure that he ended up with a good working machine, then I could have gone home feeling good about myself and slept the sleep of angels knowing I had done my little bit to help someone in need.
Shame on you! It’s people like you that give the trade a bad name and I bet you will not be hearing from this chap again and I can only say it serves you right.
:rotl:
Re: How nasty am i?
I never give a hint at how to fit any parts, or even what to look for regards their machine. The moment they come into us to buy a part, they have demonstrated they know what they are doing, and what they want. At least they think they have. 9 times out of 10 they don’t listen anyway.
I fact I go as far as telling them the reason I have engineers and pay them is to employ their skills, not to give the information away for nothing. On the phone the girls tell them flat that we will not give out information. We have even had them turn up 1st thing on a Monday morning trying to catch the engineers.
If anyone comes in to buy a Zanussi board and it isn’t configured, we always tell them they will need an engineer, but that is as far as it goes. I had one guy who wanted one, and I questioned the fault, suggesting he may have it wrong. He gave me an ear bending and told me he had a mate in the town who was an engineer. 2 hours later he was back saying the board was faulty, and sheepishly requested a service call. All it that was wrong was the tacho coil hanging off the motor. One good thing though, he has a spare board should he need one.
One guy comes in with a fridge stat with the capillary cut off. Buys a new one & off he goes. Comes back next day with the new one, capillary cut off. Wanted to buy a screw on connector, you guessed it, he was making a taped joint on the capillary. We make a strong point that parts are non-returnable.
Then you get the ones that want the plastic fixing at the bottom of the oven door, then they swear at you and tell you you don’t know what you are talking about, “It isn’t the door I want, just that clip and a squirt of glue”. One bloke even wanted to borrow a tube of glue, bring it back and we charge him for the bit he used.
The bloke that complained after he received his part in the post, (basket wheels) that the p&p of £3 was too much. He lived 30 miles away so I suggested flippantly, if he cares to pop in he can have a refund of £1.50 1 hour later, he turned up.
Regards gas, I will not supply anything, that includes, ignitors & jets.
Aren’t they lovely, where would we be without them?
Alex
Re: How nasty am i?
I must admit Alex I took pretty much the same line with the general public as a lot of them are just too dangerous to themselves.
We got them coming in for all sorts and calling up looking for all kinds of things so now we don’t supply spares to the general public at all and that suits me, never sold enough to make it a worthwhile endevour anyway really since we moved out of Glasgow. Now I just direct any spares enquiries here, to UKW and Dave picks them up. The customer wins as they get a better service, I win because I don’t have the hassle since it’s not a mainstay of my business. On balance I find that spares sales, in the quantity that we did, just wasn’t viable financially as you had all the hassle of looking stuff up, ordering it, packing it then shipping it for not a lot of margin, if you’re doing loads like Dave is then it is worth it, but for one or two a week it was just a pain. Especially the likes of Brandt stuff! 🙄
But yeah, when I was doing Zanussi etc. you got some absolute toppers coming in all the time. The ones I loved best were the ones that bought Candy belts because they’d stretched and wouldn’t believe us when we told then it had a variable pulley system. The ones that bought timers because the machine stopped on the program… the list of muppets is endless.
But of course now you’re not allowed to tell anyone how to do the job if they are not deemed “competent” (see “The Reason You Can’t Give Tech Info” post in the General Trade Forum) and most of these people are far from being even remotely competent. It is cases like this where that little gem of legislation actually makes sense to a large extent as some people really just should not be allowed to attempt death by washing machine, or whatever. Of course if you do tell them they’re gonna come back and say, “well you told me to do that so it’s your fault”.
It’s a mad, mad world right enough.
K.
Re: How nasty am i?
Yes Ken you are correct! Think of the people that strip down thier Microwaves and ask for the internel fuse 😥 . Taking no connsideration that they could have killed them selves or some one else by leaving the lid of while they purchase the fuse. But why did the fuse blow? Within a shot time they are back saying you sold them a duff fuse>
BillRe: How nasty am i?
Funny regards spares. We do very well, we have normally 2 people in the spares dept, 1 on maternity leave.
We have a direct delivery set-up with Distriparts, all we have to do is create the invoice electronically, take card details and EDI to Distri. Punter gets the goods within 48 hours, all the painful bits are done.
But is is a laugh when the customer gets it wrong, then blames us. Sort of, “yes I know I asked for a main oven door shelf, but I meant the one in the top oven as I use it in the bottom oven as it is a slightly different shape and easier to get in and out”. Grrrrrrr.
Alex
Re: How nasty am i?
I think I must have missed the plot here. Why run a public forum if you don’t think members of the public should do their own repairs? I have been advising people on the Ezee-Fix site for a couple of years now and find you can usually tell which ones are worth helping and which ones will only make matters worse. As for selling spares, I do offer people tips like bending back the tabs on Hotpoint brushes but I only give general guidelines on things like bearing changes. I used to suggest to people with dead ovens that they make sure the timer is on manual but now I go and show them and collect a call-out fee 😈
Re: How nasty am i?
No I don’t think youv’e missed the plot. I have no problem selling parts, after all they chose not to have a repairer, so I may as well get a bite of the cherry.
What gets me though are the ones that either imply they know it all, and we are idiots, or the ones who plainly should not be within 10 miles of a toolbox, and then expect free advice.
Whichever way you look at it, if you employ engineers, why have them sat on their a**es when the office staff are carrying out free repairs over the phone? O.K. when the customer choses to buy the bit, youv’e lost the call anyway, but why make it easier for them? About 75{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of our sales are out of my area in anycase.
Alex
Re: How nasty am i?
You can guide, hint and point as you’re doing and the odd little tip isn’t exactly giving away a state secret.
But a step-by-step explanation is a no-no these days. 😕
The point of running a public forum is that people can get general advice on the silly stuff and pointers on the rest, if they’re bright or determined enough they can work it out for themselves after that. If people see some problems solved, as they are, then they at least are given hope or a clear path of what they should be doing next.
The thing is, people will always try and do it themselves if they think they can. At least when they come on UKW they get guidance to a point, after that point is reached (unless you have Candy bearings down and live in Finland of course) most people simply resign themselves to the inevitable without (NOTE) causing any further harm to the machine or themselves so everyone wins IMO.
But would you just look at the amount of people that are directed towards Repairs@ and the directories. 😉
K.
Re: How nasty am i?
Let’s be honest here. We run the public forums as a courtesy to the Public who are unaware of the contents of these forums. They might find this side of the site a bit of a revelation. We have threads grumbling about all their little quirks and foibles, their reluctance to pay, the simple fact that we can’t get it through their thick heads that they get what they pay for and all the rest of them.
The Public Forums give us street cred, and the public love it. They think that UKW is honest, open, frank, sympathetic and caring. They consider that this is a damn sight more than they get from manufacturers service and practical advice from the likes of Comet if they wish to purchase.
If you’re in this part of the site, you should have figured out by now that UKW has targets for the indedpendent repair sector. We want properly paid work for the contract lads, we want information, we want spares at a sensible price and a bit of respect from the manufacturers and work providers.
Relatively few of us advise the public. It can be thankless, most threads don’t end in “Thanks” (some do, mmm, nice), but the reference work for the public to access is growing daily. Some try to repair, some accept that it’s engineer time (have you signed up yet?), some say “Here’s a big stick to beat the manufacturer with”. The point is it’s impartial, it has no company/retail bias and it’s free.
We are the good guys. We love you and we want your business, but we want to be fair about it. That’s what the public needs to know.
They don’t need to know that we’re figuring out how to get an extra £5 out of them – Repairs@ does that for me. Lots of lovely AB1’s with money to spend, service more important than cost, speed everything.
Within the limits of my business, we offer small advice. “Put new brushes in my WM62 and it still won’t turn” – “You did release the tabs didn’t you?” is about as far as we’ll go; mainly ‘cos it’s so embarassing to turn up and go ping, ping, £40 please.
We need to keep this going. Within a couple of years, based on the extraordinary rate at which UKW is viewed, there will be only one reputable place to look for info – here. The site will exert influence into the trade as a whole and we independents will start to get our own way. Not tomorrow, but it’ll happen.
Even allowing for Martin, Gegsy and Goatboy. 😆
I feel better for that,
Chris.Re: How nasty am i?
Penguin45 wrote:Even allowing for Martin, Gegsy and Goatboy. 😆
I feel better for that,
Chris.I resemble that remark 😆
Greg
PS – Well put by the way
Re: How nasty am i?
Penguin45 wrote:We are the good guys. We love you and we want your business, but we want to be fair about it. That’s what the public needs to know.
They don’t need to know that we’re figuring out how to get an extra £5 out of them – Repairs@ does that for me. Lots of lovely AB1’s with money to spend, service more important than cost, speed everything.
Thanks Chris, you hit the nail squarely on the head right there in a great post, even better, it’s a Sunday!
We look great because we at least try to help the public, which is far more than can be said for a few in this industry, we try. And when we can’t really help any further here we have to make a living from repairing the machines, so we do, or fix if you like and that’s the whole point of it. After about a year or so of thinking about it all, where it was going, seeing the growth, Repairs@ was the next logical step to take. So when we do have to recommend a repairer we have a nice easy path to do so that causes minimum inconvience to the customer and maximum income for us for providing that nice easy service, simple.
And just wait till I get enough cover on Repairs@ around the UK (this will not surprise those that know me well enough), I have a few ideas. 😉
K.
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