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kwatt wrote:The WK thing I heard some snippets on today, basically EAC are increasing their share of the work, whatever that means. They are also supposed to be looking at direct diect agents as well. So that’s a bit of a mess really.
K.
Problem with that is Sub Assignment as well as too many slices of the cake.
I could work with Paul Greenberg, but by the time it gets down to us, there will be bugger all left.
Re: Beko
Ye gods and little fishes as Tony Hancock used to say. Are there any S.F. agents out there I wonder who are for their sins G.B.Dar agents? (Mind you I suspect that is very unlikely as they are 2 totally different cultures.) If so I’m sure they will fax the details to Steve Clarke.
Re: Can anyone confirm…
NESN terminating with Electrue? Will be interesting if it is that way round. If so I think we should buy someone a drink.
Can any one confirm the White Knight divorce from Service Force, they are denying it at Slough.
Seeing the 1st post on this, I thought Oh My God!
I immediately got on the old dog & bone to John Dugdale at Service Force, on holiday; tried Steve Clarke, guess what, on Holiday, they are back on monday 1st Dec. Is it August?
I hope all this is rumour, the work isn’t a great deal but a lot of effort has been put in by S.F. at Slough to maintain this and there will certainly be questions to be answered.
What really surprised me was, who got the contract. I thought they were too busy making a b***s up of Servis work to consider anything else.
ces’t la vie.
Re: Reports, Reports, Reports
The biggest bug bear I find regards ISDA and faxes is that they only seem to own 1 fax machine on 1 number. The same fax that sends everything out. Thefore when they are on a send run, you have no chance.
Richard, If you read this, get them to spend £50 on another machine on another line, please; that way we can send orders or return faxes that do not belong to us.
Alex
Re: Profit & Loss
kwatt wrote:
the cost to get an engineer to the door for every visit is £28 of course this will vary due to costs of each individual business……………….
………you just cannot make money from such a contract and, in the long . Don’t be bullied or coerced into something that you cannot make to pay, just politely say “no thanksâ€.
K.
This is why I terminated Merloni. At the time they were paying me £25 for Everything That included extended warranty, chargeable was nil as most of their customers either had a 5 yr warranty or no money.
I calculated that Merloni cost me £2.10 per call. I also considered they were 40{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of my workload and constituted 3 engineers and 1 office staff to manage the workload.
I pondered over it for a considerable time & buried my head in the sand as I was not prepared to part with valuable members of staff. In the end I took the decision to bin it, hell of a gamble but it paid off. I maintained the staffing level, increased chargeable workload, reduced turnover but, (here comes the crunch), increased profitablilty.
As it happened they have ceased using agents now, so we would have had the rug pulled out any way, so I’m glad the decision was mine & not theirs.
Now if approached by any work provider, I make serious considerations if it is ever worth it. The only reason I’d taken so many on over the years is because I’d never wanted to see my local competitors get so big as we are. Well I’m older and wiser now.
Re: White Knight
Can’t say I’m surprised. A lot of Service Force agents, myself included put them on Stop last Spring as there was a serious delay in payments.
Pity really because it was a good product, the only problem was in communication.
I will wish E.A.C. all the best, the rejection rate and reasoning they apply sometimes beggars belief. I often wondered if they used us as research & development.
Re: Electrolux group automatic washer/washer dryer configura
bonzaco wrote:Gentlemen – To those of you that I have offended I apologise. Specially to Alex who I class as a good friend. I did not intend at the start of this to cause a heated political debate…..the Hopoint publication has not helped further…….
We all agree that the wps should supply the training/information but the reality is that most don’t and we have to work round it, certainly the smaller companies struggle and this is where the UKW is a lifeline to us and binds us together.
To all of you out there irrespective of your stance – Thank youNo hard feelings either way Bonz. No need to apologise, but thanks anyway. We are all in the same boat one way or another, it is the pirate ship that is causing the waves.
I must admit I was getting a bit passionate on this one, but there again it has highlighted an area of great concern. The debate was very good indeed and stimulated a lot of thought. We must do this again sometime.
I will buy you a drink at the next bunfight.
Take care
Alex
Re: Electrolux group automatic washer/washer dryer configura
Dave_Conway wrote:
ted wrote:
One of our members needs help and I’m ashamed of those of you who can help and play politics with him.Ted, I tend to agree with you, I don’t think anyone is denying that we should help Bonzaco here, I have already passed the information that is the very subject of this thread many times to people who are members of UKW and on the mailing list.
As you say though, it has got that member a little tied up in the politics here which should not have happened.
Anyway, problem solved, I have spoken to Bonzaco and I’m getting the relevent information off to him today.
Dave.
I’ve tried and it seems failed miserably to get my point across. I don’t ming helping anyone on an indivdual basis, what I am not in favour of is helping NESN. They have poached 15{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of our work and clearly should be in the position to offer the support. That is what they are paid for.
Yes there are politics involved here, but tell me why has poor old Bonza been forced down this route, where is his official technical back-up now he needs it? Why hasn’t he gone back to these people and told them where he stands and make them earn their rake off?
As Ken pointed out, where there is a call on a one to one basis; i.e. where it is a chargeable yet unusual product, we turn it down. We do not touch anything we are not agents for, we have been down that route and abandoned the idea: examples like Meile, Bosch and many other specialist products; it then looks to the customer that we are inexperienced on their appliance. Even makes we used to be agents for, we pass the work on.
The other point is, what was wrong wrong with the GDA manual? it is a clone of our S.F. one. It is what we rely upon and as fas as I could see, armed with that info. a solution was available. I’m a little intrigued what Dave has managed to produce that is better.
I’ve come to the conclusion I’m peeing against the wind.
Alex
kwatt wrote:My point exactly!
If a manuacturer comes along and asks me to do work I expect technical support, information and training on the products to be given to me to enable me to keep *THEIR* customers happy and content. This helps everyone in the end and, let’s face it, that cost they would have whether they were training me as an agent or an employee, to me there is no difference in that respect.
Where it falls down, as is the case here, is where a third party steps in and expects us to do all the donkey work and pick up the costs of the training and technical info whilst cutting the costs.
K.
This reinforces my point.
I did have a twinge on conscience regards not giving out the information, but took the decision that has been reinforced here. Thanks for the support.
If we get a call on a gas product we always add a tenner if chargeable. Moreover I will NOT supply any spare parts on a gas product, that even includes cosmetic or non-gas parts. I tell customers, “It costs me nearly 3K to get an engineer trained, and I will NOT undermine this and pass things out to others. If you need a part to fit on your gas cooker/fire then you have to have a C.O.R.G.I. engineer”.
We refuse to give out free information to customer’s in any shape or form.
Alex
Re: Fisher & Paykel
Hadn’t thought of holiday resort.
What a nice idea though, in their case would have to be New Zealand. Then Lux could throw in Sweden or Italy, Maytag Ohio USA, Brandt Paris, Whirlpool the U.S.A. the list is endless. If we keep our noses clean we may even get a weekend in Stoke on Trent. 2nd prize, a week in S.o.T.
Re: Electrolux group automatic washer/washer dryer configura
bonzaco wrote:An interesting point that one Alex. As I understand it then, outside of the warranty period service force companies feel they have a Right to continue with the captive market. Cost is not really the question here as neither you nor I had any control over the contracts. What we do see clearly however is something that must cause Ted to have sleepless nights – How do you get us all to work together not work against the common good.
Lets see if we can make some common sense out of this.
I’m all for working together and agree regards “privileged information”. However, when you are contracted to carry out work for someone, then they should have the infrasructure to deal with your queries, and give their full support. If they cannot, or will not, then you have to consider whether you can work under these conditions. If they are not able to help you, then you have 2 clear options; which is either to phone your work provider and insist they seek a solution and if they cannot oblige, get the customer to do it.
If I get a problem on any Smeg product I phone Servevast and they always come up with a solution, the same applies to Anglo Iberian on one of theirs as well as I.S.D.A. on any of their calls. What I’m saying is, this is one of the things in the background that is in place that we don’t see. In a way it helps these Service Providers to justify why they have a rake off. (The percentage on that is another issue which I don’t want to debate on this).
The information to programme these appliances is out there. The Hotpoint book as mentioned is a direct photocopy of the Service Force manual, the only thing different is the quality and lack of colour on the paper. This book is the only thing we use, and there isn’t anything better. Steve Clarke advised at the DASA AGM, that the technical disc is available to anyone, all they have to do is phone Service Force at Slough and they will supply, at a charge.
I’m trying not to be intransigent over the supply of information, the point as I said earlier. “We weren’t good enough in the eyes of DSG previously, they made their bed, they can lie on it”.
The defence rests it’s case.
Alex
Re: Electrolux group automatic washer/washer dryer configura
bonzaco wrote:My local Service Force company won’t help other than sending one of their engineers at my expense but won’t allow me to see how he does it. Quote ‘it privileged information’
Do you blame them, it isn’t privileged information as the Hotpoint Manual you mention is exactly the same as we work with.
There is a bit of bad feeling with some S.F. agents as we weren’t good enough in the eyes of DSG. Despite already having the expertise, as we have grown up with the product, they saw fit to pass it out to the cheapest bidder. I won’t give anything out either, if there is a problem, then it should be up to the work provider to supply the solution.
Sorry if it sounds negative, but I’m not in favour of assisting on what is rightfully our own work.
Re: Fisher & Paykel
ted wrote:
Whilst service work may move from D&G you should rest assured the new network will be trained before hand..enough said.
ted
The training given by F.P. has always been 1st class. right down to all expenses paid at an Italian
It is a shame that now we are trained and got to like the goods, we shall see them no more. The rates as given by D&G weren’t very good, considering the quality & placement of the product.
Never mind, nothing is for ever
