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John is looking into this today for us, including trousers and polo shirts, fleeces etc. where we can have the proprietry company logo on one side and the UKW one on the back or something. I’m sure John will report back later.
K.
LMAO @ Brian’s comment in that pattern spares thread! Maybe they are starting to see the light after all but I guess we’ll see in time.
The thing of it is that none of this information should be a secret and in recent years, largely due to the internet, many large companies have been forced to cough up the information or it damages sales. It’s at the point where that happens that service and spares sides of the business are simply told what to do as, as we all know, sales rules the roost end of story.
But the same thing applies to service as a whole when you think about it, if the service is crap as it is with Hotperloni ATM then sales suffers, when that happens arse gets kicked from on high. What they don’t ever think about is using service as a marketable device. In fact, we don’t think on service in that way either in the UK, it’s a breeding thing, whereas the Yanks whilst their service isn’t as fantastic as everyone likes to make out they do have one thing sussed, how to market service and thus add value into the marketplace.
Us sitting and saying that we won’t work for £XX rate is fine and it will gain short-term results but we have to do better than that I feel. What we have to do is turn ourselves into a marketable entity, something that could not be achieved as individuals really. By doing so you should be able to command higher prices and, by volume, make certain demands on information, rates and a lot of other little goodies along the way.
Bugger all harm in trying though.
K.
Regards the poll I placed on the front page Brian, is that enough to gauge public opinion or do you want me to leave it running for a bit? I think that the sentiment has been made pretty clear to all manufacturers that use electronic fault reporting on the basis of the information thus far and, even if you expanded that to ten times or more the sample you’d get pretty much the same result.
Here’s the thing, without too much free analysis for you, if the public feel that way about a simple fault code how do you think they will percieve a brand/manufacturer that will not at least point them in the right direction when it does fail and display and error code?
K.
Hi Vaio,
Feels like I’m typing a mesage to my own laptop. 😉
I can’t see any listing for the fault code displayed, which means it’s either unrecognised and that possibly means a PCB failure or that the machine employs a different fault protocol from that which we “openly” know about.
AEG is now owned by the Electrolux Group and perhaps one of their Service Force agents could offer a little assistance here?
K.
Hi Bill,
It points in the direction of the motor being faulty I’m afraid which may well not be good news as they ain’t cheap. It may also be a PCB fault, but according to the info I have the motor is the most likely culprit.
K.
Hi Bovman,
I can’t find the specific codes for that machine so I’m really not a lot of use here. 😕
Johnmac, Dented Porsche, Patches or Kevin may be able to answer but Kev’s away for a few days so hopefully one of the others will be able to help you.
K.
Ehm, that’s a tad on the steep side!
I would be retailing that part for £19.84 excl VAT! Dave should be able to order you one a bit cheaper than that price, or me if your stuck.
K.
The lowest rate I have now is £35 for a standard call, non-gas and non-refrigeration and both of those carry a premium due to the level of skill/training required as well as just pure time.
I assume that’s there’s no increase on appliances in 2-5 year parts cover or for insurers (yet I bet the insurers get charged a lot more as usual ;)) and, that being the case, even as a volume contract it’s simply not worth it at that rate IMHO. Especially in view of the product, customers and other stipulations.
For example, it is more or less accepted that it costs ~£27 to chap a door, once you factor in no-access calls, double visits etc. there’s nothing in that at all, it could very well actually make a loss from the get-go and you still have the initial stock to pay for as well as carrying the cost for at least the first month at best.
K.
I have already spoken to some “names” in the industry regarding this Martin and the wheels or large corporations do indeed turn slowly. 🙁
But as I’ve always said and, I think we discussed it at length at the last meeting, the intent is to use that revenue to keep UKW going and growing as well as allowing us to look at funding other projects. Essentially, the money isn’t coming out the repairers pockets.
K.
Both worked, I got Martin’s and yours Dave. Pretty neat as they arrive as PDF files. 😀
Just means that I can now recieve a fax from anywhere at anytime, even if I can’t reply till I get to a machine with fax capabilities.
K.
Which is where Del was supposed to post and not you. 😉
He’s an IFA (Independent Financial Advisor) who I had a chat with last night and he’s willing to give a talk at the next meeting on financial services for us, which may well be of interest to some of us.
K.
Re: e-Jobs
Just so you all know, heads up for the subscribers….
UK Whitegoods Launches e-Jobs
UK Whitegoods today announced the planned launch of its e-Jobs system for independent whitegoods repairers in the United Kingdom mainland covering repairs of most major domestic kitchen appliances. The system has been introduced to allow customers to place a service call request online 24 hours a day with the details sent directly to the most appropriate specialised repairer in the area and negate the need for the customer to trawl through a telephone directory making several calls to obtain service for their faulty product.
(PRWEB) September 23, 2004 — The customer simply inputs their postcode, the product type, brand and the details are automatically matched to the most relevant repairer ensuring that the customer gets the best possible service from a specialist in the chosen field. The details are then emailed to the repairer to contact the customer.
It is the intention of UK Whitegoods to have this remain as a free service at all times to consumers and the independent repairers. Blanket coverage is available to corporate clients in many areas as well, please contact site admin on admin@ukwhitegoods.co.uk for further details of this feature.
It is hoped that this new addition will allow customers receive the best possible care and the repairers to receive the work that they specialise in, a mutually beneficial arrangement for all parties. With over seventy different leading brand names to choose from UK Whitegoods is sure that the independent repairers can cater for almost any domestic appliance sold in the UK and more areas and brands covered will be added through time.
For the moment e-Jobs is limited to out of warranty repairs, i.e. where the appliance is outside of its manufacturer’s warranty and not under any form of insurance cover, with the exception of pay-an-claim policies. Other avenues may be explored in time that will allow logging a warranty or insurance call to the system.
Primarily this feature has been instituted to give the independent repairers the most relevant service calls straight to their inbox, giving a very high conversion rate of enquiries to results without using the traditional Yellow Pages “hit or miss” approach to advertising in this field. There is no fixed pricing for a call as the rates are set by the repairers dependent on area, products and other commercial factors.
The UK Whitegoods e-Jobs system is due to go live in before the middle of October and is currently undergoing final revisions and testing.
Goes live on PR Web, which distributes press releases throughout the world on the 23rd September. It will be followed by targetted notifications to some press and industry related news.
Subscribers will, of course, get first crack at the the areas, skillsets and brands so have a pen and paper handy as well as a known list of brands that you cover as you will need them. I have not yet seen the finished article as it’s not even installed on UKW as yet, but I am led to believe that you will be able to actually manage your postal areas of cover and the brands covered so you will need to set that yourselves and Dave and I will be busy boys creating logins. I have however seen the mock-ups and let me tell you, it looks sweet. Make sure you guys are first in the queue! 😉
Remember, for any that doubt this, any member of the public and the back of my fag packet tells me there’s about 8000 of them a month, are here because they have a problem, let’s make sure we offer a solution that we can all profit by.
It is my sincere hope that we all benefit from this endevour and get something tangible from it, at last a result that can be seen in the bank!
K.
