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Re: e-Jobs
And just to offer you a flavour of what it will look like and, remember this is the bare bones without any prettying up by me yet…
K.
Re: e-Jobs
Oh I forgot something….
If there is an agent in place for the appliance, especially if they are a subscriber, they get preference on that appliance/brand because that’s the way it is and it’s fair IMO. That does not include OEM service because we don’t really like them much for the most part, so sod them.
What I won’t have is an area where someone wants to cadge all the Zanussi or Whirpool work from the existing agent, I wouldn’t want it done to me so I will carry that sentiment forward here too. So unless there’s good reason not to forward that work primarily to the “approved agent” then that’s where it should go IMO.
It is my honest opinion that this is the honourable course to take and that UKW and we should respect that.
There’s loads of work to go round, it’d be pretty crap if we started fighting about it. But, that said, if you ain’t in it you can’t win it, as Alex oft reminds us.
We still have a way to go with this and, trust me, this is only the start of what I want to do with it all as well but I said I’d get it done and get it done I have with a fair bit of very appreciated help from some friends and collegues just to deliver a benefit to you lot. Make sure that, as subscribers, you’re first in the queue for the work as a reward for having a bit of foresight and vision.
Kevin, Dave and I all hope you get some work from it and that it is a success, God knows we’ve worked hard enough to get to this stage! Now it’s time to get on with other projects as well… 😈
K.
Re: e-Jobs
This is great …but,
Are you are saying above that all “private chargeable work” through e-jobs will go to the existing agent for that manufacturer because he is a subscriber in preference to another subscriber, based on the fact that one is within the manufacturers franchise and one isn’t?
This is(hopefully) extra work to what members now do, so why restrict non franchised members to no work, as in theory all makes have an approved repairer and far too often its the same company in an area.
IMO if a subscriber opts in to doing a brand then he should be equal in stature to the franchise dealer assuming both are subscribers. Lets face it we all do Hotpoint but not Meile, we all do auto’s but not Gas. There will be an element of natural selection, so I think each level should not be seperated by being a Franchised/authorised dealer.
In many cases a non dealer will never become one as those who have the franchises now, won’t let go. As you are aware some of these franchise areas are huge which means one business getting priority over many……..reminds me of where Dasa went wrong.Kevin
Re: e-Jobs
Thing is Kevin that whilst I can “weigh” the repairs I cannot stop every one from going to any agent bar opting someone totally out of a brand.
But let’s put this into perspective and take me as an example.
MFI work which I do, I really don’t want anyone else touching it but I accept that many will slip through the net. I carry stock for that brand, technical information and my chances of a first fix are therefore far higher than George up the road a few miles. But I am not an agent for Hoover or Hotpoint or Zanussi nor do I stock, other then the odd casual bit, for any of those brands so the chances of me getting a first fix on it is extremely low if you see what I mean therefore I don’t want that work at all. I regularly turn away chargeable work that we are not agents for or cannot obtain spares and technical for as there’s no point, it’s no use to me or the customers.
I do realise that not everyone takes that view of things but as an agent often with contracts, such as De Detrich or Smeg as two prime examples, they wouldn’t be worth having where it not for the charge and 3rd party work off the back of them as you well know.
Yes there will be a process of natural selection involved and I think that will actually sort a lot of it out but some of the biggest brands around do not have any independent repairer agents at all like any Merloni Group product, Hoover, Hotpoint, Miele, Bosch, Neff, Siemens etc. etc. so there’s loads about and most of the guys seem to carve a niche for themselves largley on those appliances. The reason for that is all too obvious when you actually crunch the numbers, from the 50 brands listed in e-Jobs, 26 brands have service not carried out by any of us! So in actual fact over half the stuff out there, more if you want to break it down still further by product group, is not getting fixed by us.
Bear in mind that e-Jobs is designed to deliver the best possible solution to the customer and where the independents are concerned, I would argue that 90{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of the time that would be the “authorised” agent. Simply, this is because the better that we do the job the better and faster our reputation spreads. That is not a slur on anyone else at all individually, but across the trade it is generally accepted that this is the case in most areas.
In future I want to develop the idea of offering the customer a choice at the point where a call is booked and offer them a chance to select the closest or approved agent, then it’s out our hands anyway. But for now we’re stuck with a single choice that we’re making on the customer’s behalf. Repairs@ still has some development work planned, I ain’t done yet!
This is why on the form for e-Jobs I asked the question of what appliances people specialised in, I wasn’t just looking for the “we repair anything” answer which I got from a few people as that doesn’t help target the calls. The idea was to give each repairer the work that they wanted and that they could therefore easily repair both based on skillset and all the above factors.
In short, it’s a hell of a lot to try to resolve as it is a very complex market in some areas, especially the likes of where you are, I grant you that, but move away from the main hubs and it gets a whole lot easier. You’re in a pretty unique area with the sheer volumes and the number of repairers in the area all crossing over so your the ideal guy to experiment on. 😉
CDSL kinda puts a spanner in the works here by setting an authorised agent and a non-franchised but very competent agent in the same areas, but I’m sure we can come up with something where it’s an issue. If there are people in a specific area that want work that is part of another’s franchise then perhaps splitting the postcodes is the way to go if there’s some debate on the subject. This is one reason why I wanted the Advisory Council running. 🙄
As for the areas being huge for some franchise agents, well what can you say that we’ve not said before about that? Going down the DASA route, I don’t think so, DASA fell asleep at the wheel a long, long time ago and still doesn’t seem to have woken up.
Also bear in mind that people have to give us the information to target and this is the most important point here as, thus far as you’ve seen Kevin, the information has ranged from pretty damn good to total crap. In some cases we could have filled the form out with more information than the business itself doing it! We had almost the exact same thing doing the MFI stuff as well.
If the information you give isn’t right then the work won’t be targetted correctly and we can only fix so much.
K.
Re: e-Jobs
Correct me if I’m wrong but the way I read this is that the authorised agents get the cream and if they can’t handle the amount of work coming in it is thrown out to the commoners. Seems a lot like DASA and jobs for the boys. 🙁
Re: e-Jobs
Ok read your post…however as RS contributes “jobs for the boys” it ain’t right yet.
You use me as an example, ok, I have several subscribers who also do the same area as me, no problem with that. They have franchises also which means that I will not receive any of their franchised makes……WHY.
This is work that is on top of what we already receive! These guys did not take these franchises to benefit from chargeable work from UKW, they already benefit from being the advertised agent within their franchise network. They have no extra entitlement to any chargeable work from e-jobs, whether they stock for it or not, presumably they stock to do the work they already have.
As UKW is only passing the work onto a member of UKW I don’t think we can interfere with 1st time fix, stock and suitability of agent. Its down to individual members to do a good job and keep their place within the UKW framework, hence the Advisory Panel idea.I’ll give you an example of where this goes wrong…..
The present Whirlpool agent for Sheffield is not a part of UKW at the moment. So all whirlpool work in his area is up for dispersal to everyone in UKW. So this guy joins UKW due to our success and hard work and subscribes too.
So he is now entitled to all the “whirlpool” e-job chargeable in the Peterborough, Doncaster, Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield, Hull and York postcodes? Just when UKW is being sought as an alternative to the £80.00 plus vat call fee by the customer.Sorry Ken, if you stick to this formula, it offers nothing to the smaller members of UKW at all and not much to anyone outside of the larger franchises.
Kevin
Re: e-Jobs
Ehm hardly.
How on Earth is it anything like DASA? What the hell has DASA got to do with this? DASA hasn’t even contemplated anything like this and it’d take them three years to reach a desicion on it that only allowed DASA members access, this is allowing ANYONE the ability to recieve work from e-Jobs! If anyone in DASA is even still awake!
If you go down this line then you’d have to say that there was no merit in allowing the subscribers more work, or anyone else and we end up with a communist regime where all the pigs are equal. Why should someone not prepared to be a part of this, or just coming online 6 months from now get the same rights as those that have put a hell of a lot into this and UKW or indeed, even subscribe?
You see, a fine line isn’t it and not just as simple as it first appears to be? So the best that can be done is to, at some point along the way, reach a compromise.
You see and here’s the crux of the problem…
None of us wants to see food stolen from our table, in order to achieve that you have to build in some measure of protection whilst at the same time delivering the best possible solution for all parties.
Now you have two glaringly opposing views on this in that, where the company is not an agent and they want a sniff of ALL work and you have a recognised agent who wants to capture all the agency work and everything else on that brand. Who wins? You tell me what’s fair and what’s not.
You will also find that a good many authorised agents take the same view as I do, they won’t touch what they’re not agents for or very, very little that they are not, Alex is a typical example of this. The reason is quite simple, we generally have neither the time nor the capacity to deal with it, besides which our costs negate any benefit as it is almost always a double visit. So are you suggesting that they should be penilised for passing all the other work out and not trying to horde it all?
And yes, I realise that there are exceptions to that rule but it is a generalised statement.
As to the agents recieving the cream, frankly that’s crap, all they’d get is the appliances that they are agents for weighted in their favour, everything else is open season just as it is in Yellow Pages or the local rag, there is little difference.
The advantage of the e-Jobs system is that the people on looking for a repair will not be looking for a free ride, it will be quality work from people that want to pay for it. Quite simply we can ALL benefit from it if we do it right.
But here’s a suggestion for you to think about….
Where a major agent decides that he/she’s going to capture everything on any brand then the postcodes are considered open to all across all brands and no weighting will apply. Where they stick to their agency work then and pass on everything else then I feel that they should have some measure of protection on that work.
That to me is fair.
K.
Re: e-Jobs
RS wrote:if they can’t handle the amount of work coming in it is thrown out to the commoners.
I for one hope that’s not the case as I don’t know how the ‘repairs@ module’ works 😕 I would assume that if (for example) someone lives in Derby and has a faulty Zanussi Washer, that person would be given a list of ‘agents’ that cover that Postcode, much like Yell.com does, so they can choose ❓
Martin
Re: e-Jobs
to me fair is equal.
A subsriber is equal to another subsciber, its that simple. If the list of agents is continually moving each agent within an area to the top and next in line to be offered a customer, based on the brands selected, thats fair. We all get a crack at what brand we select.
To assume a franchise business is more capable than a non franchise is wrong. And that is where the Dasa comparison is, they always wanted their members to be franchised agents above all else.
Kevin
Re: e-Jobs
It is most certainly not a case of “jobs for the boys” by any stretch, it’s called playing fair.
I didn’t say that you’d recieve none of their work Kevin, I beleieve I said it would be weighted in their favour. But if they pass on say, LG and Brandt work is not fair that you reciprocate that? Just saying that they don’t want it due to the hassle isn’t really an argument as they could do it if they so wished.
I agree that it is up to the individual to do a good job but I also realise that, for example, I will not do that on an Indesit washer and therefore, in my eyes, there’s no point in trying to do so. I am not an agent for them, I don’t accept calls on them, I think the product is a pile of crap and the customers aren’t shall we say, the best. And that’s only one typical example and, in the case of the likes of Servis, after stopping working for GBDAR I will no longer attend a Servis on a chargable basis, I don’t wanna know about it. I will do it on a contract, like DAG, but that’s different and entirely unrelated to this.
What is interesting is the example you give of the Whirlpool work and, quite honestly I believe in protecting our own. So in that event then it’s a case of first come, first served and the agent arriving at a later date cannot simply expect to take away that work from another member that’s already doing it, that’s not fair.
Now, since the vast majority of the major franchised guys haven’t bothered thier arse with UKW and even some in here haven’t even bothered to submit the information for e-Jobs the field thus far is pretty clear for the smaller guys to scoop it all up and keep it open.
If I have my way it’ll be a moot point in a few months anyway as I had a feeling that we’d face this and I’ve already taken the initial steps towards presenting a cure for it. We end up with, more or less, what Martin suggests, where a list of “possible matches” is presented to the customer giving rates and agency status etc. Unfortunately we do not have limitless resources or time to develop this as fast as I can think on stuff.
K.
Re: e-Jobs
kheath wrote:To assume a franchise business is more capable than a non franchise is wrong. And that is where the Dasa comparison is, they always wanted their members to be franchised agents above all else.
It’s not an assumption or wrong, it is a fact. It may well not be in a hell of a lot of cases but as a generalisation it is.
However that is tempered by the fact, proven many, many times over, that independent service wipes the floor with OEM service and the larger organisations simply as we are far more adaptable. And service in a macro situation is fine and not that hard to run at a local level but the bigger you get the harder it gets, again as a general rule.
But the service industry is changing, we’re being forced into change by the manufacturers and I suspect that with product diversity as it now is, that the generalisation may well change. The change for me is I don’t touch anything I’m not an agent for so, when I input my info into e-Jobs I alienated myself from, probably, about 65{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of the available brands to work on. Is it fair that I should recieve only a small percentage of the remaining 35{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} that I will actually touch?
K.
Re: e-Jobs
kwatt wrote:We end up with, more or less, what Martin suggests, where a list of “possible matches” is presented to the customer giving rates and agency status etc. Unfortunately we do not have limitless resources or time to develop this as fast as I can think on stuff.
Well at least that’s answered my question 🙁
Without the ‘possible matches’ option, then I too can only view ‘repairs@’ as favouring agents above all others. Which would therefore be unfair, undemocratic and against the basic unbiased principles that UKW is supposed to represent. :con:
Martin
Re: e-Jobs
I for one can’t go along with 1st come 1st served……
Its a selfish stance to take when we are trying to increase membership and re invent this industry.
Our future lies in welcoming all with open arms and equality, not with the dead mans shoes approach. To welcome those who join next year we have to take an approach now that does not incur “its yours” forever. This system of e-jobs is fantastic and in 12 months will be a prime source of chargeable work for all. It could for some replace “yellow page ” advertising, saving money and producing it.
So, to weight one member against another within the different levels I for one don’t agree with. I do agree on subscribers being weighted, but as a whole against non-subscribers, simple. And in time the upper level may well be Shareholders above subscribers, no issue with that.
It is so important to do this right, which means as it is at present, each member being offered in turn according to Brands is fair, and allows one and all to join in without prejudice to when they joined.
Kevin
So therefore what you’re saying in effect is that the likes of me just has to live with the fact that I will benefit far less than those that open their doors to any and all brands then? That anyone coming online a few months hence, or years, is entitled to the same priviliges as someone that’s been doing it for years?
Fine, if that’s the way you want to go I will honour the request. I thought I was being as fair as possible, but apparently not.
As I said though, it becomes a moot point entirely once e-Jobs is further refined and you each have your own login to control what you do and don’t do.
K.
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