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Re: Merloni
For that kind of money they needn’t even bother asking me and I wouldn’t advise that anyone else took it on either but the only way we win here is if enough people tell them to go forth.
K.
Re: Merloni
kwatt wrote:the only way we win here is if enough people tell them to go forth.
Yep, that’s what I’m rather hoping will happen.
flipper wrote:3 years ago we were doing it for £25.00
How times change 😀
Dave.
Re: Merloni
Flipper, if they do come to me I will be sticking out for £37.00 for ordinary calls, and no advance booking by them. Just so you know I do not need any of their work hence no way will I drop the price, hopefully Jason will stick to a similar price too. Which means if they want it doing the players are secretly setting the cost per job in south yorkshire area.
Hope that helps
kevin
Re: Merloni
Flipper wrote: All calls should be cleared down via the laptop, – These calls go back into the merloni system,any second visits may not come back to you.– Payment issue.
Spares are replenished FOC you don’t charge for them. no margin there then.
Even though they have booked the calls for you they wont pay for Not in’s.
I was offered £25.00 a call, the highest of their rates as we cover a large area. Extras £10.00 for gas , £16.00 for a plastic tub , £30.00 for a metal tub, then theres £15.00 a day for going out of area. i.e. if I am asked to just do wakefield for them but then they throw 4 Doncaster jobs in.
P.
Nothing has changed then. As I keep saying, they very nearly bankrupted me.
This second visits may not come back to you, I therefore assume the flip side is you could well pick up someone elses 2nd visit?
I not suprised the tight bastards are still screwing everyone down on cost. And the lap top booking system, possibly blocking a workload regard an engineer already having calls for YOUR OWN customers, no way.
I once gave them 24 hours notice unless they put their prices up from £25 to £27 plus enhancement for gas. They gave in to my demands, and a couple of weeks later I phoned a few Merloni colleagues and let them know I was on a higher rate. A few weeks after that an internal e-mail from Merloni was leaked to me telling their service managers to look out as there was a conspiracy going on and agents were talking about rates.
My name along with one or two others was mentioned in the e-mail.
No wonder they didn’t like me.
Alex
Re: Merloni
I’ve been quiet of late, nightmare time with kids at night so I’ve not been getting my sleep. 🙄
Anyway…
Alex, you’re spot on. The bastards basically want employed engineers and want independents to run under the same regime and bloody well fund it as well up front and THEN lose money and time on top. Somehow I think not!
Not only that, as I said (or at least alluded to in the rumour mill) they will drop these poor buggers the minute that they can recruit new engineers or the workloads drop back to a level that they can cope with. I also happen to know that they are supposedly training or re-training 50 bodies, so where does that put you if you take this on?
The rates on offer are a joke, you will have three months notice of them pulling the plug, in theory, in practise I suspect you’ll have about three hours if any at all and a hell of a time returning any unused stock. And after that stock’s been knocking about in the back of a van for 6 months or more it’s worthless anyway and probably not considered returnable.
Na, I’m with Phil on this one….PASS!
K.
Re: Merloni
kwatt wrote:
Alex, you’re spot on. The bastards basically want employed engineers and want independents to run under the same regime and bloody well fund it as well up front and THEN lose money and time on top. Somehow I think not!Not only that, as I said (or at least alluded to in the rumour mill) they will drop these poor buggers the minute that they can recruit new engineers or the workloads drop back to a level that they can cope with.
K.The above is why I posted what I did in the rumour mill. I’d change the above to “drop back to a level they THINK that they could cope with”
I’m sure nobody is stupid enough to go for it, but just in case I thought I’d remind them that they will jeopardise their entire business if they do. As I’m sure Del & a couple of others will testify, they will bleed the agent/franchisee dry & move on.
Alex
Re: Merloni
Well I have just had one of Merloni’s Regional Managers call at my place regarding my responding to Merloni’s email for agents/franchisee’s.
He explained the situation regarding Merloni and recruiting and offered me a chance to become either a ‘full’ franchisee or do ‘part time’ work based on a limited postcode area and daily call rate. In both cases the rate was £30 per completed call (WMA drum changes classed as 2 calls =£60). A full franchise requires a £6000 stock holding and part time work between £1500 and £2000 payable with 6 months. In both cases a FREE Laptop is provided with all technical info preloaded. All work is pre-booked via the Laptop each evening by Merloni, and all invoicing, orders for spares etc are all done via that electronic system.
According to this Regional Manager there is a full mix of employed/part time and francised engineers all in my area which is a nightmare to control. The overall intention of the company is the emphasis for recruiting 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} franchised engineers throughout the UK because in that way, (and I quote) “it is currently considered by Merloni as THE most effective and cost efficient solution for controlling after sales service for their products!”
They are losing employed engineers at an alarming rate, those that they manage to retain are (quote) “doing sickies more than they are working. And taking the franchise route means they can guarantee the work gets done ‘cos otherwise they don’t get paid!”
He is going to get back to me again to tell me where he has a ‘shortfall’ in the coverage of my patch……Will keep you posted, but as this information was told to me ‘in confidence’ so to speak, I’m not putting my name to any comments at this stage via ‘The Rumour Mill’ for obvious reasons 😉
Martin
Hmm the deal just keeps on changing eh? 😉
TBH @ £30 a call you’ve no chance now I don’t think, maybe okay for a sole-trader but as soon as you have employees and all the costs that go with that never mind premises etc. then that figure is just too low. Some idiots will take it though thinking it’s the solution.
But I wonder if they’ve considered that if it costs you circa £27 to call, you take off a proportion for no-access and parts as well as other wasted calls then they are actually not going to make much, if any, money on it. Then you have the second call thing, you may well get other’s recalls etc. as well.
But you’d better make money as you’ve £6K’s worth of stock to pay for and they want that paid back in 6-12 months. Has anyone asked how long, based on the above figures, it would actually take you to generate that £6K? 🙄
K.
Re: Merloni
Forgot to add,
Stock is supplied by them at their r.r.p less 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} (No delivery charges)
So if one can fit/replace say a Hotpoint (-Merloni Van Stock-) Motor from Connect any cheaper, at least you can profit on the difference 8) BIG DEAL !
Martin
Re: Merloni
Martin wrote:So if one can fit/replace say a Hotpoint (-Merloni Van Stock-) Motor from Connect any cheaper, at least you can profit on the difference 8) BIG DEAL !
MartinDon’t you believe it. They will cross reconcile any parts you fit over what you buy. They tried to catch me out once on modules; quoting I’d bought so many of one part number, yet sold back more. Transpired the part numbers of 2 modules melded into one, we updated our data to account for this and they could not grasp the change at their end.
On Ariston, Indesit products there is no chance of chargeable or selling spares, they handle all part sales as the phone number is on the machine, and there is no mark up facilities for parts fitted I/G or insurance. Bear in mind, they all have a 5 year parts warranty, and a lot of it won’t last much longer than 5 years. In August every year Italy will be shut, you will order bits and when they finally arrive some 2 months later the product has been exchanged.
Chargeable customers do not exist, they get onto Social Services when it breaks down and get a new one.
I assume Martin, you are stringing them along? If so then fair play mate, all the best and I will watch with interest.
Alex
Re: Merloni
Alex wrote:I assume Martin, you are stringing them along? If so then fair play mate, all the best and I will watch with interest.
Of course, as I said to Ken a while back, I would ‘apply’ and see what transpires and report back 😉
We all agree Merloni are the major player in this game, and anyone worth his salt would not hide their head in the sand as to what is going on in their camp. At the moment I HAVE GOT MY FOOT IN THE DOOR and won’t let it slam shut ’til I have fully sussed out what the hell is going on here 😈
Martin
Re: Merloni
We all have to remember that a lot of independant’s have been caught up in the war between NESN & CDSL and may very well look at this offer as a way out, especially if they have been limping along carrying engineers without full workloads.
We must be mindfull that those of us who were bitten badly by the callous
treatment we recieved from our friends at Merloni, can only warn others of the pitfalls.We should avoid being judgemental of those who decide to fall into the trap. Let’s face it we thought it was a good deal once upon a time, until time and experience prooved us wrong.
The final decision on wether or not to work for twat’s like the Merloni’s of this world, has to rest with the principles/directors of these Independant companies, we are not in their shoes, thank god.
We could end up doing UKW a lot of damage, if we end up telling these poor suckers ‘WE TOLD YOU SO ! ‘
By all means warn people, and it’s even o.k. to report on the aftermath when these poor buggers are used and then dumped. But when it happens as it surely will, then let’s all try to avoid being accused of gloating.
Just a thought
Del
You’re dead right Del and I have noticed not one post saying similar about anyone, all we can do is report and advise. Whether they all heed the warnings or not is their own call at the end of the day and I for one may well think it, but I won’t say it. 😉
K.
Re: Merloni
Well done Martin. I thought you to be too astute to fall into their web.
As Del says, we musn’t lower ourselves to laugh at the expense of others. We were daft enough to do it once.
I was told about £25 calls per week. We soon realised it was 60 calls per week and climbing rapidly. To start with I was too busy to see the full picture and kept taking on more staff to ease the pressure. Whata Mistaka to Maka, Some days the man from Business Post had to bring a bigger wagon to accommodate our orders.
We couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
Alex
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