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Sorry folks I’m on babysitting duties this weekend, gotta lose sometime I expect. 🙁
Okay, so here’s the deal with the whole network thing…
I don’t subscribe to the whole call centre thing, waste of time and money IMO. And, were I a manufacturer or brand owner (ignore the fact that I am eh? ;)) then I don’t think I’d be wanting to place the my destiny in someone else’s hands less I really had to.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that a “network” has to be owned by anyone, it’s only as good as the sum of its parts.
I don’t think that agents should go unrewarded for good performance.
I don’t think that a “network” should be closed to people working for it.
What I do think is that, if we were to get a fookin’ grip and get organised we’d rule the roost and I think that we can do this if we put our minds to it.
Many moons ago Kevin mooted the idea of people paying to join a network, we argued about it, I didn’t agree and vociferously fought the idea, in the end I told him that was fine, fook off and do it then, but don’t attach the UKW label to it as that’s not what UKW was or is about. It’s never been about making shitloads of money for me or any other director. Fact is, I guess I have to admit, that there’s the chance that it could do, but that’s not my primary motivation in life.
My motivation is to see that this trade has a future and to defend, to the hilt, the independent repairer.
So, here’s the thing…
Regardless of how you want to move forward on this, if indeed you want to at all, then there’s pretty much only one way that I will be a part of it and that is, if there’s a cooperative formed. This was the basis for the network (God I hate that term) formed by UKW or with its blessing.
My vision of this was that UKW would control a slight majority shareholding, for no reason other that that it is far easier to manipulate funding that way, and that the engineer cooperative would control the remainder. It’s irrelevant really as I know that one without the other is entirely useless, it’s totally symbiotic.
The cooperative needs UKW to go out and get business, UKW needs to do this to earn from it and the cooperative has to do the work to pay the bills that they have. It’s desperately simple in many ways and eminently good PR for the “network” as it’s a cooperative, many working together towards a common goal. PR aside though, that’s what it is, a repair network built and run by repairers who have a share of the spoils.
So I should think you’ve gotten the idea that one needs the other and this protects into the future as well nicely offering longevity.
What I’ve outlined here is the concept, not the execution. We need to be smarter than the rest, offer more and do better. No easy task, but not impossible by any means.
I could bullsh1t you and tell you that life will be grand, we’ll win and we’ll all live happily ever after but I don’ t know that that’s the case. I don’t even know if it’s possible to achieve what I think can be achieved.
What I do know for sure is that nothing was ever accomplished by not trying.
I know that this will hold little interest to Chris and Martin as well as Gegsy other than the fact that they are totally dedicated to seeing us succeed, but they have an opinion and whilst I may disagree with the sole trader position at time as it is different I still respect it.
So here’s what I’d suggest. I’d suggest that, if we’re all up for this, that we have a little meeting of minds here first then we meet up somewhere to plot where we go next. I say this because I simply can’t relay all my thinking and how we achieve this in a single post, or a few.
K.
Re: A New Way
kwatt wrote:I know that this will hold little interest to Chris and Martin as well as Gegsy other than the fact that they are totally dedicated to seeing us succeed, but they have an opinion and whilst I may disagree with the sole trader position at time as it is different I still respect it.
I am deadly serious about UKW succeeding, make no bones about that ❗
I appreciate that I am not a business owner but make no mistake, I will fight for all UKW stand for to the last.
Its the principle of the matter and its worth the cause.Greg
Re: A New Way
Right so I’ve left it sitting here for a month then, has it sunk in yet? :snigger:
Bryan and Mark are excused on the grounds that they’re probably still catching up.
It was suggested that there may be cause for a little mini-meeting on this to try to push it forward by a certain person in Zumerzet.
K.
Re: A New Way
From Ee in Summerzet. Assume you don’t mean Jeremy as he is a tosser and would not be in this room in any-case.
I recall we have bandied this around before, under a different guise. We are looking for an inroad for work providers to use our better members.
I agree there is a lot of room for a good wholesome operation and with the right credence we could be well placed to go for it. But……..Without trying to sound negative, there is a lot to be looked at.
1) Assume being a co-operative you don’t want this to be profit making, or do you? It may have to be!
2) Co-Operative? As above, someone needs to be in charge, otherwise it will be run by committee and end up a talking shop at meetings.
3) Will need a director, and have some form of company status with registration at companies’ house, and Vat. Said director could go out of control; we’ve seen it happen loads of times, in fact Bollical Bill the Sailor (K.H.) almost headed that way.
4) Here is the killer, or maybe not if we can do it. Most that come to us will want; a) Central Billing; b) K.P.I’s; c) Access/information to status of their work; d) Uniformity in pricing structure; e) Full bespoke web-based call logging system; meaning, don’t be surprised if they ask for a call centre and pre-booked calls.
5) Staffing of phones out of hours etc.
6) Running costs, no matter what happens; to achieve the criteria that will be needed there would have to be a management fee attached to the work. This will add to the burden of any repair costs.
7) Growth. No doubt it would work, and then we become victims of our own success, cannot cope and start bringing in tiers of support/management. Then up goes the costs and we end up as bad as the rest.
Yes it is a good idea, and perhaps we could go out there and drum up some business. The ones that are out there now started small, had a fair reputation in the early days, and then gradually soured. We need to avoid that.
A meeting of like minds may be a good idea, perhaps tie it in with the next meeting, which I assume will happen in September. Have the pre-meeting the day before as the moderators sometimes do, and thrash it out a bit. However I suspect you may have more followers than leaders on this one.
As a service Force Agent I know only too well why they lost the C/Plan and why other insurers are pulling away, they want all of the above, and expect the managing agent to take full ownership of the customer & product. Service Force were/are too fragmented. They have national cover, uniformity on documentation, price maintenance on spares, all the skill sets, full spares access and technical support. Yet despite all that, could not get their agents to agree on anything.
All the above is just my slant on this. I know you are talking co-operative, not a repair company, but by default it could either head that way, or just stagnate. I’m not blowing out the water as yet.
Alex
Re: A New Way
I agree Alex, all these things have to be worked out and quite how it’s done is the problem.
My initial take was a co-operative partnership as they are known. Basically a co-operative of engineers working in partnership with a commercial entity, in this case UKW. The reason for that was simple, it allows a degree of control, accountability and all the resources of UKW to be put into play. Some of that will be more apparent in time I hope.
In the end, I’m having to do the donkey work for the moment anyways.
However we do need people and I shouldn’t think that there will be too many issues with Sean and John being involved as well as, to a lesser extent perhaps at the moment as we’re flogging him to death, Dave.
Whether it’s called a comittee or a baord of directors the effect is the same. What is needed (I agree completely) is a Commander In Chief if you like, basically someone to sit in the big chair and call the shots. Now, I’ve no problem with doing that if need be and, if UKW is involved as I saw it then my hope is that, much as is the case with other stuff, that my time is basically free. I’d have to explain that more but that’s the net effect.
Plus we need someone or people to chase business.
What I wanted was the operatin to run as a “not-for-profit” type affair and that any profits realised would be fed back into investment in infrastructure or repaid to the agents. In any event it would be used to further and strengthen the organisation, not feed some fat directors.
I’m not saying that there wouldn’t be costs, there will be, but that they should be controlled and reasonable.
Running costs we need to work on. However, I have some nifty ways of reducing those.
Central billing is easy. 😉
KPIs are easy. 😉
Access to info is easy. 😉
Pricing structures are harder, especially in the hinterlands, but not an insurmountable issue.
Web based call handling is easy. 😉
Call centres we’re not doing, don’t want to know about them. There are other ways to skin that cat.
Pre-booking is the way to go but I’d have to explain that.
Also, start small, grow.
It’s all up for discussion, depends on whether we want the wankers we have now or wether we want to do it ourselves IMO. How we do it is the question.
K.
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