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Yes, you just reminded me that I forgot all about it! 😳
I’ll do it in the AM for you, sorry. 😳
K.
That is exactly why I’m now doing what I’m doing Sean, no account has more than 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} if I can help it but I like them at about 20{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of the business. That way I can tell any of them to fuck off at any time without lying awake worrying about it every night, I’ve long worn out that t-shirt.
If something promising came along that was bigger I’d simply open a new Ltd company and trade the contract under that, again if it goes tits up it’s a case of “I’m alright Jack”. That may seem callous, but it’s nowhere near as callous as some of the bastards that give us work are.
This Whirlpool thing and the NESN thing are two perfect examples of it.
K.
For those that missed the article on Watchdog it is now availabel as a compressed .wmv file in the downloads section. Fair warning for those not on broadband that it is a 4.5Mb file to download and it’s reported as the wrong size there for some obscure reason. 😕
It’s also well compressed so the quality is not wonderful but adequate.
K.
Yep, it’s a Brandt!
Part number is 45X8924 matrix code J4 whatever that is when it’s home, I’ll get you a price tomorrow when I’m back in the office Chris.
K.
Comet and that’s about it. Some are Brandt made though, what’s the model number and I’ll fire it into Agora and see if it recognises it?
K.
Re: The Contractor’s Contract
Penguin you’ve touched on a brilliant topic for conversation and one I keep beating people up on a bit.
In days of old machines were simple, I could vitually diagnose any fault on a Candy or Zanussi and I could either tailor the stock for that call or I would have 85{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of the time have already had the part onboard anyway.
Now there are all these small manufacturers that we work for and you simply cannot do that due to the lack of technical information and stock but more importantly a lack of familiarity with the product. You simply don’t see enough of them to assess them in advance which ultimately leads to double calls. Also the lack of technical information often makes the engineer look stupid in the house as he hasn’t a clue on a new product he’s not seen before and with the advent of more and more electronic fault codes this is getting worse, again leading to more double visits.
It has always been my feeling that the smaller manufacturers should be charged more for smaller volumes of work but that is not the case these days. Many of them and, I am thinking on ISDAL, AIS etc here, are getting a volume manufacturers rate for what I would not consider to be a volume of calls to justify the low rate on offer. I liken this to going along to a printer or indeed Connect, if I ask a printer for 100 pads printed the price for 1000 will be wildly different. Likewise with Connect, if I ask for 10 Askoll pumps I’ll get a huge saving if I instead buy 100 or 1000. Why do we not apply the same mentality in this sector?
So in effect the low volume but high double hit calls are paying for that service as they should be.
The problem is of course that many of these low-volume manufacturers or brands are undercutting the big boys to get sales with cheap appliances in a lot of instances which gives us even greater problems. That you won’t solve as, to the customer, all white or silver boxes are equal when it comes to domestic appliances, the only difference is price and whilst we know better, they do not.
But getting back to the point, it is on these calls that you will notice a massive increase in double calls and that’s the reason that in days gone by, many engineers would choose only to do Hotpoint or Hoover as, one or two boxes of inexpensive bits repaired all. Now, in the current marketplace for charge or contract work that is no longer the case and you can pre-diagnose all you want but even doing that the best first fix rates I’ve heard of currently is about 85{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} on a single brand service operation. For multi-brand that drops dramatically, in most cases to under 60{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}.
So given that a call costs, on average, about £27 to make you actually need to get £35 a call just to break even, not make a profit, just to meet the costs of providing the most basic of services. Go wrong anywhere, like incorrect spares, a triple visit, no-access call or whatever and that call just made you a loss…at £35 a call!
K.
Re: Site News & Updates
The Help Desk
As posted in the public forums this allows more precise feedback to be given and specific email addresses to be targetted by the enquiries to specific people. One of the first ones that Dave and I discussed was using it for spares since Dave has sold a few bits off the site, which I personally have no issue with at all. However Dave has agreed that if we do it this way he’d give a percentage of each sale towards the UKW funds. Top man really even though he is a pastie muncher! 😆 So, that we’ll get in play next week when he comes back.
The reason is that since we put on a search engine analysis we found that we’ve been getting loads of hits from people looking for spares as well as technical info. Rather than having the traffic just move on when they can’t find what they want we thought we’d do better to capitilise on it a bit, or as much as we can for the benefit of all.
If anyone has a problem with this please let me know ASAP.
Also, if you have any ideas on what else should be there and who would deal with the enquiry (even if it is yourself) then please, again, let me know and we’ll get something set up.
K.
Well done Judy neither Costco or Whirlpool came out of that too well at all. Maybe you’ll get some results now, best of luck with it all.
K.
I already have ISDAL, AIS and Servevast onboard with the idea. Just think how much that would save in time reporting alone let alone anything else.
Kevin is going to speak to Tony Brown at MFI and I’ve still to get someone in D&G as well to see if they’re interested, I don’t think they’ll say no somehow since the others are already falling over themselves for this. Oh and I’ve put the feelers out to Paul Greenberg as well and they appear interested too.
The point is that other than the initial dump of information to an application to send the data out there’s no cost, only savings on admin. So it may cost a few quid to get the info dumped at regular intervals as that would probably require some programming but it should be very easy to do.
From what I know of it you use Mark’s system, I’m sure he’ll be interested in saving some admin time spent answering stupid questions as well so the cost is again reduced and likewise for other popular systems.
The thing is, we have to start somewhere and this could well be one way of getting the rates up. 😉
K.
Re: HELP! TUMBLE DRYER ON FIRE! HELP! TUMBLE DRYER ON FIR
Just a reminder that this case is supposed to be on Watchdog tonight.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/
No news of it on the Watchdog site yet.
K.
Re: UKW E-mail Chain Letter
Hi Penguin,
As I said in another post we will NEVER get rid of the rogue traders it’s just not going to happen without massive support from government and even then there would still be stragglers left.
So you have two options…
Freeze them out and hope they give it up or…
You try to make them see the errors of their ways.
That’s it.
Yes, we do all have them in our areas and I come across one or two every other week but there’s sod all I can do about it other than do the best I can with my customers and hope they see the value in what I do.
K.
Re: UK Whitegoods – The Future
ted wrote:The future is surely here in UKW, with it allowing everyone an equal voice completely free of charge.
Yup and it will be that way so long as I have anything to do with it.
K.
Re: UK Whitegoods – The Future
Heya Penguin,
The idea is not to create a rival to DASA the idea is to put funding in place to basically pay for meetings, provide legal services and stuf like that which DASA does not do. And, the objective is to accomplish that at a low cost.
Whilst DASA deals with much of the legislative issues and, quality controls insofar as they can, we tend to deal far more with commercial issues on UKW as well as the implications commercially of the legislation imposed upon us.
Sadly as regards the quality of service issue, it’s one I’ve restled with for months on end and my thoughts on it are pretty non-conclusive as yet. The only way we can guarantee a standard of service is to somehow police it internally as a trade and this is, at best, difficult and takes a lot of resources to accomplish. If you don’t do that then all you have is the company in question’s word that they will adhere to any code of practice irrespective of how stringent it is. Without verification any standard set is pretty much useless in real terms, which is why CORGI membership costs a fortune as they do police it actively. That would never happen in this industry without legislation and, even then, there woudl still be a rogue element of so called “cowboys” out there as is proved by CORGI as there is still that element in the gas industry, albeit reduced somewhat.
We are not creating a “Members Site” merely a members area within the forums, as I said UKW will continue as is and I doubt you’ll even notice the change in all honesty.
However, with a bit of funding there’s more than one way to skin a cat. 😉
K.
I dunno Martin I reckon that many of the manufacturers are just as interested in what we’re doing and trying to accomplish as anyone else in the industry. In the end we all have to get on with the job and, regardless of how the manufacturers regard service and service agents, they need the services provided.
Also bear in mind that the independent trade used to be a breeding ground for multi-skilled engineers and everyone is feeling the lack of decent engineers now, so I reckon they’re most likely suffering that as much as we are.
I am more than happy to talk to any manufacturer at all, as many of them know, as are many others that read these pages. The problem is that demanding what you want and working with people to achieve what you want are two very different things and often produce very different responses. 😕
Short version, they have nothing to lose from talking to us and trying to help us as well as themselves.
K.
That is exactly as it was discussed at the meeting Martin. UKW will stay as it is now, there will be no change at all to the format in any way and the trade section will remain a free and open forum.
There may be a need for a “members only” section if you like, but that will be decided at a later date and not arbitrarily by me.
All it basically means is that it gives us some funding to provide members services and to fund meeting etc., it was put at the meeting that those that did not contribute would not be able to access the paid-for services, that was all and I think that’s fair enough.
K.
