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I sympathise with you guys. As a sole trader my involvement with Brandt is limited, most recently to two door gaskets – the first one wrong of course, the second fitted and the bill refused, so I’m now about £140 out of pocket on parts – a little bit excessive for what we normally expect to be a £15 bit of rubber.
Not being an account holder, I have no comebacks, so my level of satifaction with this company can best be described as low.
I trust that your chosen course of action will sort out other issues for the rest of us.
Good luck and best regards,
Chris.Re: Brandt Review
You can add me to the list as well, loads of spares I’m unable to return, crap tech info and at least a double visit everytime, excessive spares prices etc…. the list is endless!!!
Dave
Dave a few of us have spoken to DAG who will look into the situation and take it to Brandt.
We’ll see what happens.
K.
Re: Brandt Review
Well, had the letter today from D&G. They are parting company with Brandt, kicks in 1st May.
So, I checked the date, April 1st is day after tomorrow, cheered, picked up the phone and renewed my rapport with Lindsay at D&G. Made my week. Fan-Dabbi-Dozi thought I.
Oh! But it was short lived. On questioning she gave me the news that CDSL appear to have landed the contract. So, on the blower to Roy Fisher, I started the conversation with the train of thought that on these products I would prefer to become 2nd tier agent. Roy was disappointed, but seemed to respect my sentiments nevertheless. I have left it open ended for now, and will discuss with Roy Fisher or Dave Parker in the next few weeks.
At present I’m between the devil & the deep blue sea. I’m damned if I do and perhaps damned if I don’t. I’m aware that we have the expertise, and still some stock. In addition now it seems my protests will be rather hollow as no matter what, the work will still get done & CDSL will no doubt use a 2nd tier agent if I spit my dummy. The upshot of that is there will be no feedback to Brandt regards my negativity on this. As far as they will be concerned, the work is getting done.
Thinking about it, the issues that were a regular occurrence in days of yore may be ending. LG is a case in point; things have improved dramatically. No reflection on D&G as they inherited the worst of the hit, being upset agents following the Brandt overnight termination. Poor D&G had to take all the politics on board as well as the personal issues that came with the Brandt way of saying goodbye.
I wonder if there are any other CDSL agents who were given 1 working day’s notice by Brandt and are now who are thinking along my lines as myself? Being, the work coming back in through the “back door”. Another important point, does the money match the payment as given by D&G?
Alex
Re: Brandt Review
Yipee!
No more Brandt work for me, so no more loss making calls to do! 😀
Good luck people.
K.
Re: Brandt Review
Oh dear I seem to be in a minority, Bit of a shame to see this go for us, Ok Parts and tech support was poop to say the least but we are sorted on it now after the learning curve ( aint it always the way) and WAIT for it we were getting cash work as well Oh Well what next
Re: Brandt Review
PTM wrote:Oh dear I seem to be in a minority, Bit of a shame to see this go for us, Ok Parts and tech support was poop to say the least but we are sorted on it now after the learning curve ( aint it always the way) and WAIT for it we were getting cash work as well
You probably missed out on the way Brandt stuffed their entire network of existing agents. “Letter as postmark, dear Agent goodbye, here is 1 working days notice, tough if you have accounting issues already, we will now run away and hide”. That was how it was.
Domestic & General handled it very well, considering; and no doubt you have enjoyed their support etc. However, such is the nature of a lot of companies these days. Move to whoever they feel fit on a whim, and blow the consequences and leave the poor old managing companies to suffer the fall-out. They know we as agents can take it.
I suspect your Agora account will remain open though and there should be no reason why you cannot undertake the odd chargeable call. Despite us not being an agent, and one or two derogatory remarks I may have let slip, Brandt still used to give out our number on chargeable calls.
Time to move on I suppose. I will never forget the way they terminated us all and then expected those of us who were D&G agents, to carry on as if nothing had happened. Lack of common courtesy and a display of little regard or respect.
Alex
Nope, I won’t forget it either. Nor will I forget the amount of double visits to products on which there was little, if any, technical support for which given the range and product placement was appalling.
The running mantra with De Dietrich product was, “if in doubt, order every PCB shown!” Funny thing is, that’s what Brandt often told us anyway.
K.
Re: Brandt Review
kwatt wrote:Yipee!
No more Brandt work for me, so no more loss making calls to do! 😀
K.Agreed ,The only work we will be getting is chargeable or D&G network rate
That’s providing they don’t close Agora !!Lawrence
Re: Brandt Review
Oh I take a tough stance on this and I won’t accept charge work, especially on a brand like this. They s**t on me more than once, I won’t let it happen again!
Like Alex I got it back by default and I don’t really want to see it back again.
So it’s bye, bye to all those lovely steam ovens, horrid double pyro ovens, the horrid under double thing that blows itself up and the cracking induction hobs that cost a fortune in spares, made even more annoying when they can’t supply one out of three parts. If someone else wants that kinda charge work, they’re welcome to it as every one, almost without exception, is a double call. Useless.
Too big a range, too diverse with virtually no support, poor communications and too expensive for spares IMO.
I told the guys at lunchtime and they’re all in a good mood now this week. 🙂
K.
Re: Brandt Review
I guess there always has to be balance……
Having sorted our problems out with Brandt via D&G we have been hitting 70{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} 1st time completion, with lots of effort put into that. True spares were an issue but I have no others, and the chargeable work passed has been exceptionally profitable (£80.00 + vat for labour).
So, I’m pleased to retain the work and will look forward to CDSL sorting the spares problem out. If CDSL have taken this on they surely have done so knowing the problems raised in these very pages, therefore I expect an improvement of the contract as a whole.
The track record of CDSL so far has been excellent, it certainly deserves my support to make this work.
So, I’m well pleased.
Kevin
Re: Brandt Review
It’s like the sign on your wall says Kevin…
“Everyone brings joy to this office….”
😉
K.
Re: Brandt Review
Come on now!!
This whole thread has been about a cheap & cheerful (being polite) disposable brand that has been marketed as a ‘numbers trick’ ie, a {e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of faulty under warranty units against the opposite, for what it costs to manufacture this ‘toot’ it’s not worth a callout to repair……unless… there ARE people that are willing to do it for nothing.
Let the manufacturers of the crap repair their OWN rubbish, that will cost them money.
We all remember when appliances could go 10 years………technology is a strange thing….but it means nothing to the numbers people.
Re: Brandt Review
I hope you have all seen the news on the front page of the site. It is easy for this to be missed as it is below all the normal bits & bobs on the use of the site, which of course we all know anyway. I think it may pay for there to be a scrolling news pane near the top of the page, similar to Sky new tickertape. Just a horizontal headline would do.
In case you missed it……………….
http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/modules.p … &sid=13083
The point is; I would be disappointed if the directors of C.D.S.L. missed this bit of news. If I was running a service operation that meant I had to pay agents to work on Brandt products, and I was anticipating payment from Brandt in return, I would be a trifle worried.
Now consider all the spare parts Brandt were able to unload onto C.D.S.L. unless of course C.D.S.L. was canny enough to buy these on an open ended payment scheme. If not, what happened to the money that was received for the payment of these goods? I doubt if they have been frittered away, just absorbed by the debts. Such is the extent of the crisis.
Taking it a bit further, think on this one; if Brandt goes to the wall, poor old Connect will be stuck with shed-loads of spare parts that are suddenly deemed useless. Therein lies the definition of irony I suspect. Oh Dear!
The interesting thing is; the next bit of news is regards D&G whose profits are up. Not bad, but would that have been the case had they retained the Brandt contract.
Brandt has been bad news for years, and I suspect will be until they draw their last breath. R.I.P.
Rudi.
Re: Brandt Review
It should be interesting to see if Fagor can make any money at it, as no-one else ever has and Brandt Group (in whatever guise) has changed hands several times. I think a lot of that may have to do with the situation within France though with the unions and government, but I haven’t dug into that in any great depth to be fair. But I do know that there are “issues” there.
You never know, one of the Merloni’s might buy it (now there’s a match made in heaven 😈 ) or even Glen Dimplex as they seem to be buying anything with a price tag on it.
It’s all good fun… no, honestly it is. 😕
K.
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