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LOL, we used to do recons and it’s a nightmare!
Would I buy a recon, no! Would I sell a recon, no! And with appliance prices so low these days I really don’t see any point in it at all now other than perhaps the likes of American FFs, but we’re not exactly tripping over them.
I can sympathise with anyone doing recons as I know the score first hand and getting a 40 footer or two of these is no fun, I can assure you. Paul, the scrap ratio is very, very high as many are just not worth the effort to even look at let alone repair. The good old days when there would be a load of Hotpoint 95’s and Logics are long gone and you tend to get a load that is very highly mixed. This makes keeping parts, even off scrapped machines, very difficult indeed and buying new spares for these is economic suicide!
Me, I’d go get a deal on new machines, far less hassle and when they break it’s not your problem.
K.
No I’m not so sure we’ve seen the last of him either, he strikes me as the type that cannot resist a bit of attention for whatever reason and, from his writings, seems very cock-sure of himself. TBH I didn’t speak much with him at the meeting and neither did anyone else I think and I noticed his total absense almost at the social event which struck me as odd. All round very strange indeed and it has been annoying me somewhat as I do think there’s more there than meets the eye.
Or maybe it’s just an unfounded gut feeling about the guy, but something’s not right there to my mind.
We’ll see.
K.
Re: REMOVAL OF TOPIC
I’d agree with Ted TBH Del and I’ll leave it there for several reasons, not the least being…
1. We have sod all to hide
2. It was investigated, or the attempt made THAT DAY and no proof or even any sniff of evidence was provided
3. It’ll drop off and be forgotten soon enough
4. If people do read it they will see that we do take such things seriously even if the poster was a wanker 😉
5. I agree that we are bigger than that
I see no reason to remove it, the guy was proved to be wrong, his actions only serve to make him look a total tosser that was trying to cause an upset, which failed and the posts make that blatently apparent.
I knew something was afoot when I got this on Saturday evening:
Hi Ken,
Just been surfing UKW , as you know I regularly do.
I was mystified for a while as to why my listed “postings” totaled 235 yet my actual total was 246!
It got me kind of wondering how come 11 where missing ?
It suddenly dawned on me later at the pub! I came home and checked out my suspicions…..
MY DASA Comments have been deleted!
Before I fall out of my tree on the subject I would like to hear your side of the story? And I promise right here and now that I will not mention or comment anything on the subject on UKW, before or without your kind permission.
Just curious?
Regards
Martin
Obviously after recieving that I was on my guard and I knew he had a bug up his ass about something as anyone anal enough to count the posts is a fookin’ liability!
His access has been removed, it was within minutes of this mail:
There is a sinister element that watches over UKW’s activities, my seemingly innocence comments have hit a raw nerve with some out there.
I want no part in it, please delete everything associating me with UKW, especially my web site being on there, thankyou!
Martin
Enterprise Domestic Appliance Services
And after this one I think we’re well rid of him:
Thanks for your co-operation Ken,
I fully appreciate your being sceptical but you are not drawing me into any further comments. It is best you remain totally ignorant and of course totally innocence as to the goings on. Please god I will get no more phone calls from anyone other than my own customers? This is my last ever contact with you and I have put your email address and Dave Conway’s (the only other UKW contact that has directly emailed me in the past) on “Block” so there is no point in further contact.
THE MATTER IS CLOSED OK?
My very best regards
Martin
Enterprise Domestic Appliance ServicesNeedless to say I really don’t want to hear from him again and I doubt anyone else will either, nor has he ANY credibility with anyone after his posts and his recent actions.
I’d rather leave that there to serve as an example and as a record of the guys stupidity.
Obviously this is TWR info only.
K.
Oh BTW Steve al I can say is that thus far I don’t have a problem with the company you work for either, but I couldn’t blab who it was unless you said I could. 😉
K.
Re: The Contractor’s Contract
steve486 wrote:We of course all have our own opinions based on experience, however the number of compliment letters from customers, sub contractors, manufacturers etc on our notice boards would suggest otherwise.
What notice boards?
What’s the ratio of complaint to compliment letters, because in my experience in the service industry the complaints normally outnumber the compliments by a minimum of 3 to 1. The problem being is that the only reason a customer has to call us is that something bust, so they’re already hacked off.
steve486 wrote:Added to that of the recent extra 22 sub contractors we have added to our existing base, 16 have no problem in our system and therefore can be paid the following week, as to the other 6! I hope to try to seek some kind of solution as it is in no ones interest to just spit the dummy out and seek an alternative subcontractor.
Adding agents is no problem at all, retaining them can be as I’m sure you know. There is no “one system fits all” out there to my knowledge as the demographics and geography of each territory in the UK is differnent and many have to have a different approach to working practices. The failing of many manufacturers etc to see that has been a problem and a bone of contention in the past and still is with some.
It is good to hear that you work with your agents, that is an encouraging sign indeed, unlike some I could name.
steve486 wrote:Yours and other threads do raise some very valid points that deserve to be given ( and will be) some thought the aim being to seek to build both trust and respect and an enviroment all can work together . Presently I see warring factions.
It’s not warring factions at all, it’s simply commercial reality coming home to roost. It’s simple, time costs money and an engineer’s time has a price tag on it you either choose to pay the price or move on somewhere else just like buying any other product or service. Sadly the end products value in monetery and percieved value has been eroded to the point where we are struggling to earn a living doing what we do and make a living (except for Martin and his Securicor escort of course ;)).
And, as my favourite analogy of the moment goes, you can walk into Tesco and buy the own brand cheap as chips stuff or you can buy the Finest or even something in between, the choice is yours as they say but the two or three products are worlds apart and more often than not, you get what you pay for.
K.
Re: The Contractor’s Contract
steve486 wrote:I can only speak from my perspective in that having worked travelled all over the uk myself that the understanding of distances times etc etc are part of the ongoing training given to all call takers and work schedulers and in addition to this where sub contractors are used is to ask what areas they cover and build this into the booking system.
Steve,
It is my experience that call centres on the whole employ staff who are trained in taking calls and not a lot else. They go through their little checklist and pass the call if it meets the criteria, little or no technical knowledge or skill is available for general receptionist work, this is particularly true of the larger call centres.
They provide the manufacturer or insurer with only a few benefits the major one being cost saving. The next is the ability to route the work to whatever agent (or employed engineer) they see fit to do so. The third is to provide the customer with one central point of contact. The last is to have a database of every call reported and therefore stop bogus claims, another nifty little cost cutting device. There is no other reason or point to them in my opinion.
Since customers, on the whole detest the the things why do manufacturers as insurers persist in using them? Customers hate the Casio concerto as they await an answer, they hate the loathsome “press 1, press 2” affairs and they hate the fact that often they are on for a lengthy period to get a human voice on the line.
We have a different problem, the engaged tone. However, we asked our customers if they wanted a call holding/queuing system adn out of 100 asked 98 said no! They’d far rather get engaged and have the option of using the BT “ringback” feature. We listened to our customers as we think they’re important.
As for the geography, well you may have a clue about how far Helensburgh is from Glasgow I agree. What you do not know is that during the summer months when those pesky tourists are out farting about on the roads looking at the pretty hills the journey time can be more than doubled. The same goes in many other areas of the country and I’m sure our members in the West Country will only be too happy to explain that.
So, your calls per day rate drops, the cost increases on a seasonal basis and the fee remains the same, something no WP I know of takes into account.
I very much doubt that pre-booking works in every situation. Frankly I know that it does not in my case for many postcode areas and, TBH, I find it a loathsome thing but I do try with it and do the best I can as I understand the need for it. That said, I often find myself re-booking the call with the customer, especially in rural greenfield areas, not so bad in conurbations where it is far easier to slip the odd call into a run.
I and, many others, are now forced to pre-diagnose calls to make it pay on certain contract work, I even now do this on many calls anyway regardless (including charge work) as its more cost and time effective. Call pre-booking cannot account for this and takes away that option as all we get from the customer is, “but the girl said you’d be here on…”
We always get hit with the nonsense about no-contact with the customer and whilst there may well be some justification with some agents on that font the biggest single problem I ever have is actually getting customers on the phone! They bugger off and then wonder why no-one can get in touch with them. The mobile phone thing is another problem and one that’s been discussed elsewhere, but to my mind that’s an additional service and there’s a price tag on it, just like the extra pack of biscuits you buy in Safeway.
But hey, if it works for you… 😉
K.
Where CORGI is concerned I’d have to say that no, your opinion does not count for much at all. Dave did ask them about this trade specifically and was told, albeit very nicely, to bugger off and live with it.
K.
Re: The Whirlpool Thing
Well it would appear that some of the rates being on offer have escaped into the wild, which should irritate Whirlpool no end. 😉
Let’s just say all is not equal in the camp… by a LONG way indeed. Some are on a reasonably good rate whilst others are being made to suffer.
I’m sure more will come out on this in the coming weeks and a clearer pictures built up but I will not publish any rates if I feel I can avoid it, that’s just plain nasty. 😉
K.
Well it turns out, after a few calls and a couple of emails, that this is a pretty well known about thing in the industry so I guess it’s safe enough to post it up.
LG have apparently been hunting about for someone to do the work and this is pretty well known, ISDA are aware of the situation. However, since I know that several WP’s and manufacturers will read this thread, LG are reknowned, almost legendry in fact, in their ability not to pay you as a direct agent or not. It is a dangerous account to take on IMO, so if you do make sure you indemnify yourself against any losses and that the agents get paid as they will just withdraw service if you don’t pay them.
And Rudi is 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} correct, LG (and Samsung funnily enough) are also well known for these capers in browngoods as well. Plus they like to apply browngoods practices to whitegoods, go figure. 😕
Let me put it this way, the jungle drums tell me that Service Force have already told LG to go forth very recently, hardly a surprise given they kicked them out previously “alledgedly” for accounting issues. 😉
So basically it looks like, LG are running out of places to go!
K.
No it doesn’t cover the cost and yes there should be office support in case something goes wrong.
What amazes me is that £35 is less than LG pay (or not as the case may be ;)) their own own direct agents to do a normal service call. Personally I’d tell them to stuff it as I regard that as a pay cut as well as an insult to my intelligence!
You just know you’re going to get the bogus recalls on those calls, anyone that has ever done product modifications in the field will know what I’m talking about.
K.
Re: Electrue/NESN
Ha, it would appear that NESN have snared a contract with LG to repair some 3,500 dishwashers.
Fit a new PCB and door latch for £35 as well as return the old parts. Having done this kind of work before I just sniggered when I read the terms.
Oh and you have to provide “out-of-hours” and weekend calls for an extra fiver, how generous of them. (sarcasm rarely works well on the net! :lol:)
Bet ISDAL won’t be too chuffed that they got by-passed in that little lot, or any others out there chasing the LG work, though why anyone would want it if they don’t pay is beyond me, just see the “LG” thread. The implications for NESN can’t be too clever if LG don’t stump up though. 😕
Have fun with that all you NESN people.
K.
As ever just an opinion based on the information I have.
