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Re: brandt
This is looking like a concerted solution, not a war council, which is exactly how it should be.
Can I safely assume you can set the ball rolling with D&G? and I for the time being will liaise through you, then when the time is right, & Friday is a good day, we can then pounce.
Poor old D&G are stuck with this lot, but Therese has told me more than once that she seriously regrets taking the Brandt contract.
Re: Brandt Review
By all means put my name in the frame on this. May be an idea if we speak on the phone 1st.
D&G are fully aware of my sentiments, but you have my authority and I’m o.k. with being pulled into the discussions. This after all is to be to the good of the industry & the likes of Manoj should not be allowed to be given carte-blanche to walk all over us.
I’m getting passionate now, but in over 30 years I’ve never dealt with such an orgnisation as Brandt; and it is about time we reminded them we are professionals and not their lackies.
Alex
Re: brandt
Right.
If I get enough genuine names I will take on the brief on this. But I will need as much support as possible, the more the merrier & you must be able to “put your money where your mouth is”, meaning to allow your names to be brought forward, and no backing down. There isn’t enough work from Brandt to make any difference anyway. Just think about it!
I am happy to tell D&G what the consensus is out here and be in a position to be able to pass on names.
Your call guys, but we need to extend this to outside the W.R.
Alex
Re: Brandt Review
Well to be honest every time I speak to the team at D&G I steer the converstion around to slag off Brandt.
I’ve even said I will talk personalities on this as I have no time for them in particular the Brandt service director. Yes I mean Manoj Aggarwhal. He thinks he can treat us as though we are something he has trod in. I suspect everytime my name is mentioned he probably says, “Oh him again”. If I’m a thorn in his side, then I hope it eventually pricks his conscience.
Therese at D&G knows I’m finishing the Brandt work 17th Dec. and I promised her a review before that date. I must phone her as a reminder no way will I reconsider, and I’m glad to see the back of Manoj & his bloody outfit.
It may be an idea to get together as a team & put D&G into the picture, but really the best way would be individually, but all on the same day.
Maybe someone would like to point D&G to these postings and then maybe they can see what the issues & sentiments really are.
Alex
Re: Brandt Strike Again!
In case you don’t see it, go to Brandt review in general trade forum.
I’ve poured out my sentiments, and the best advice I can offer is chuck them out.
They have no respect to their support teams, proven by the fact they gave 24 hours notice to their loyal agents and have totally failed to support the D&G network.
Re: Brandt Review
I’m sorry this is chapter & verse, I wrote something similar the other day & it was lost in the crash.
FRIDAY 17th DECEMBER WE FINISH WITH BRANDT, I CANNOT WAIT
I had a case where we ordered parts on a Brandt I/G call. Not all the parts were listed on Agora. They took 5 weeks dithering about and finally condescended to replying to my requests. (They don’t seem to possess a technical department). When the bits arrived we phoned to book and it transpired the customer had it repaired 2 weeks ago. We questioned who called & they told us an engineer direct from Brandt. This was 2 weeks before their parts had even arrived to us. The customer made it plain that if it weren’t for her intervention, she would have still been waiting. She had pleasure in informing us that were inept; after all, 1 phone call from her got things in motion, yet we as agents were obviously impotent. Brandt to this day have never even asked us the status of this call.
Back in the early Summer we had a D/Washer that would not stop leaking from the door. The call was out of area, but because we were daft and no bu@@er else would call, we got it. We ordered hinges and the springs etc. but were unable to determine why this was happening as all looked good. We called back to find no avail, so phoned the so-called tech dept. we were told to order the goal post seal which we did, despite it looking 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}. Engineer returns to fit seal & door won’t close, looks in the package with the seal & there is a bulletin advising we renew the door lock in conjunction with the seal. Nobody mentioned this before; so another order was placed. Called back to fit door mechanism, D/W leaked when got hot, phoned tech. again, nothing heard.
Couple weeks later, the customer drove to Basingstoke & sat outside waiting for them to open, after he phoned the BBC, Brandt took an interest. Brandt sent their own guy 2 days later and he found there was a splash seal part way up inside the door. He replaced that seal which he happened to have had. The customer told me it leaked again a couple of days later and in the end he had a replacement product. In all that time, and since in fact, we never had any follow up call or anything from Brandt & we were stuck with the bits as well a 5 calls out of area.
I tendered my notice to D&G regards me supporting or working for such a rubbish outfit, I advised D&G that I would give the same notice Brandt gave me, i.e. 1 working day. It appears that Brandt have got D&G by the short & curlies, and took pleasure no doubt in telling them that they are deemed to find a replacement agent. I told Therese at D&G there is no problem as Brandt seems to be capable of doing their own work, and they are undermining the whole D&G network. Well, my better nature kicked in, & I’m seeing the back of Brandt as from 17th December.
One small point though, if this comes in through the back door, don’t include me as an agent. They are the most nefarious company I’ve ever dealt with and there is no way on earth my company will attend their products as long as their present service director remains in charge.
Please note:- no engineers or office staff were abused or hurt in the making of this statement.
Re: Connect don’t connect 🙁
If you do get a call from CDSL I suggest you go for it. May be worth a courtesy phone call from some of us users of this site just to put some names into their system.
I was very reluctant to take them on, being Service Force, I looked at it politically instead of financially or logically. I was becoming aware we were losing some of our customers and took the decision that I need to look at courting some of them back. Despite my old age, I’m not looking to scale down my business.
I must say CDSL are about 15{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of this operation and I have no real issues, only the normal day to day things that we encounter anyway no matter who it is. the billing regime is spot on, there are no real issues and moreover they do listen to us.
It is a pleasant change in this business to have a company that works with us.
I will be the 1st to complain if things fall apart on this contract.
Alex
Re: Connect don’t connect 🙁
kheath wrote:connect may have read the comments before the data error…..
hopefully they will improve. 😉
Kevin
I think they may well have done.
I did say in a previous posting that got lost; there are times when we get little sense regards L.G. & Servis parts identification. Perhaps not in that vein, but I’ve slept since then. That may not be down to CDSL as L.G. are renown in this office for failing to respond quickly when we need it. We know as we have been associated with them for a few years on & off.
I do recall I gave a positive comment though, we are now in the silly season, the result of which we are all busy and stressed, that can lead to a blame culture and at the end of the day we all share the same problems; and despite that I don’t think CDSL are doing a bad job. The call logging system is 1st class as well as the support they give. They have jumped into the deep end with this type of work and when you consider the volume, it aint that bad.
I think we can all say wev’e dealt with a lot worse over the years, and considering they are the new boys on the block they seem to be showing others the way forward. The best way to resolve any issues is to pick up the phone, if you get nowhere from the staff at ground level then go to the top, that’s what they are there for.
If that don’t put me on Roy’s Xmas list, I don’t know what will, but I do think at times; if it is good, then we should say so. Personally I love it when a customer phones us with a thankyou.
Alex
Re: rumours
Tinhips wrote:Please tell us where Alex’s 8.59pm contribution has gone
It is listed as on site.As if I can remember what I had to say.
The bones of it was someone who was an ex-member pointed out his company was still on the Dasa website as a member, and apparently he has been advised DASA are unable to remove him from this listing. Reading between the lines he was not chuffed.
On the strength of that I must therefore assume that any new members are not able to gain inclusion either. That to me is a poor state of affairs, and to be blunt a shambles. I’m at the point of not renewing and the only tangible benefit I could see was being on the listing. Now it seems I will stay on there for a while by default.
Alex
Re: What’s Santa bringing you!!
Bit Early I know, but thought I may as well kick this subject off again.
I thought I should pass on this message from Santa, in case you were hoping for something fantastic this year.
Dear FriendsI have been watching you all very closely to see if you have been good this year; and since you have I would love to leave some goodies under your trees at Christmas.
I was going to bring you all gifts from the 12 days of Christmas, but we had a little problem.
The 12 fiddlers fiddling have all come down with a strange malaise as a result of fiddling with the 10 ladies dancing.The 11 lords leaping have knocked up the 8 maids a-milking, and the 9 pipers piping have been arrested for doing weird things to the 7 swans a-swimming, who were in a flap anyway.
The 6 geese a-laying, 4 calling birds, 3 French hens, 2 turtle doves and the partridge in a pear tree have me up to my sled runners in bird excrement. The outcome of that being I’m getting grief from the local Environmental Department of Health.
Not withstanding the fact I had to pawn the 5 Gold Rings to pay the congestion charges from last year.
On top of all this!
Mrs. Claus is going through menopause, 8 of my reindeers are in heat, the elves have joined the gay liberation and some people who can’t read a calendar have scheduled Christmas for the 5th of January.
Maybe next year I will be able to get my act together and bring you the things you want. You never know.
Santa.
O.K. Then, how many of you actually started singing it when you got to 4 Calling Birds etc.??
Alex
Re: DASA!
Well I’m not renewing. I publically said back in March that it was swathed in inertia, and they are too busy pontificating or doing bugger all to see the real picture.
With the staff I have it would cost me a bomb & I aint got the bloody time either. All DASA is is a secret handshake society with a high social agenda, a toothless dog.
Alex
Penguin45 wrote:Look, there isn’t a lot of dosh – yet. It would make more sense to try and round up yet more Subscribers and see where we are in a few months time. If there is Subscription money available, I would like to see it used to push UKW forward – Ad in Electrical Retailer perhaps? Not everyone uses computers continually in the pursuit of their business (Yet!), so some carefully placed publicity may move things forward on the Trade Membership front – which is what we want and need to increase our voice.
Chris.Well Said. However I like the idea of a foreign jolly, cheap enough midweek with Easy Jet, fly out from your local airport & all meet up at the other end. Something like Paris, lovely place but wasted on the French.
Penguin is right though, before we go out on a spree let’s use the money to recruit more members to UKW and the subscriber forum. Then we can look at a small reward, maybe as an incentive to attract some high profile members and raise our credibility a bit more.
Alex
Re: Christmas closing
Bah Humbug. Should be a law against anything to do with Christmas before 15th December.
We are open all days except the statuatory bank holidays, but closing early Christmas eve and New-Years eve.
Why do they save it up to December every year? (New thread reqd I think)
Alex
Re: Before It Starts
This is looking good, then that bloody supercilious twat TRIGGER tells averyone in the old fashioned e-mail ring about Ken’s use of the word Crap. trying to either under-mine the situation or being bloody sarky, I don’t know.
Suspect he is miffed thet Ken’s site is getting some well deserved honours. Tee Hee.
Ken assures me he is never coming into this part of the site, too bloody bad if he does, as he will then read that he is indeed a tosser.
Alex
Re: Rate Reviews
This deserves a high profile I think, and perhaps I should have opened a new topic on Brandt themselves. If one appears in the near future, I will copy & paste this across. Unless the gand controller would like to re-title this.
Anyway, here goes.
Way back in Feb 2003 I had enough of Brandt. They owed me nearly 2k on returns and the whole accounting system was a shambles. Therefore I decided to terminate them and penned a letter accordingly. As per the contract I was about to tender 3 months notice. Before I got round to posting it I received notice from D&G that they were taking over the Brandt service.
The next day, we received a termination notice from Manoj Aggorwhal of Brandt, “Date as postmark” and “Dear Agent” How impersonal can you get? The notice in effect was giving us as company 1 working days notice. I was not best pleased, as my only bargaining tool up to that point was my threat of suspension of service in order for them to reconcile and agree any money I was due. To compound the issue, I was still stuck as being an agent as I was a D&G repairer, and of course that meant the work coming in through the “back door”. I was on the phone at once advising D&G I could not undertake any work for Brandt due to the accounting problems and the underhand way we as agents were being treated by the service director of Brandt. D&G responded with sympathy but told me the fact that they have promised, and are indeed obligated to provide a service cover as part of the agreement they had just set up with Brandt.
I wrote to Manoj, I told him more or less what I thought of Brandt and promised them I would be doing this contract under duress, and I would not even attempt to endorse their products. Of course I had no reply.
We have suffered this for another 18 Months, and besides the excellent help offered by D&G there is never anything forthcoming from Brandt. Technical support is totally non-existent. There is a very haphazard regime regards returns, even if they accept these, there is no set procedure regards how to return parts; which happens because the product has been exchanged due to their delays. We have now found that Brandt are undertaking some of the work themselves. We have been waiting an age for help from Tech. regards parts for a W/Machine and after they finally responded we ordered bits. When the parts arrived after a 5 week delay we phoned the customer who advised us a Brandt engineer called 2 weeks previously and had renewed parts and indeed the machine was fully repaired. This customer made it clear that we seemed to have been at fault and within days of them phoning Brandt the turn around was less than a week. The customer queried why were we so slow, and why did we not get Brandt to initiate speedier action. It worked for them, so it should have been the same for us the so-called appointed agents.
To say I was angry at Brandt’s actions is an understatement. Brandt fail to realise that they were out of order as they didn’t even bother to telephone enquiring the status of the call, let alone advising us they were about to take ownership of this job. On top of all that we were stuck with the bits. To date they haven’t had the courtesy to even respond to this issue. Due to this I have given D&G 30 days notice regards Brandt, which has put them in a difficult position. Brandt are demanding D&G find a replacement agent, I told Therese at D&G if it was me I would be mercenary in reminding them they have not only broken their contract, but are undermining the D&G network. Brandt have told D&G that it is up to them to find a new agent, my response was, “They’ve already got a repairer, themselves. If they feel fit to treat their agents in this manner and are able to make service calls themselves, so be it!”
Gong back to what this thread is all about, to add insult to injury, in all this time we have not had a rate increase on this account. Not only are Brandt getting away with the removal of their own infrastructure, they are now getting service on the cheap. We finish with them December 17th and not a day too soon.
Alex
