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Like it or not, it is the future! I remember hating the very notion of a software system, I was happy living in ignorant bliss without it many years ago nowadays I couldn’t and wouldn’t live without it! Quite simply, it saves a truckload of time and therefore money by having information at your fingertips rather than raking through bits of paper for hours on end to answer the simplest of enquiries.
Web based is the way forward as well as being open to talk to anything, like links to Sage, Quickbooks etc and the likes as well as to other systems so it can be customised to suit. As well as being affordable!
I’ll keep everyone up to speed but the developers did ask me to ask for any suggestions, so I asked.
K.
No, the self-billing invoice (in so much as I or anyone else understands it 😕 ) relates to the work submitted by the system due for payment that month, it’s a VAT dodge, GIAS play the same game and have done for many years. Basically they raise an invoice for work that you have “claimed” for in that billing period and then pay it. Only NESN often don’t! This way they are not paying VAT on the rejections etc., neat accountancy trick and it plays merry hell with everyone’s understanding of the system.
The problem is that the way NESN pay invoices is extremely confusing, deliberately in many ways I believe so you end up with a situation, due to the advance balance thing, where you do not know what’s been paid and what has not. You cannot interegate the NESN Call Manager system and get a realistic assesment of what calls have been paid to you and what one’s have not due to this as many that show as unpaid (to NESN) have been paid to the agent. Hence, GIAS is easier and simplier to reconcile than NESN’s shit system which is extremely labour and time intensive to reconcile.
That said, they (as far as I know) agree to pay you the calls done on the given date, if they do not then that should consitute a breach of contract.
And, not to put too fine a point on it, it’s just SO fucking cheeky of them what they’ve done to you guys! Paying 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of Coverplan whilst only 60{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of everything else is still not paying the full balance irrespective of how you view it. By doing this all they’re doing is trying to safeguard that everyone pays Connect for spares and continues that work, that’s all!
Interesting news on the other WP, can you spill the beans?
K.
S’ok Mark you’re not the only one on JT’s hitlist i’m quite sure 😉
I’ll pass on your regards to Ted this evening 😀
K.
From BT:
BT Telemarketing Services
INFORMATION FOR CUSTOMERS
GBR (Geographic Based Routing)/ AreaLink
Do you have a number of offices dotted around the country which answer your customers’ calls, rather than a single answering centre? GBR (Geographic Based Routing)/ AreaLink can help you ensure that calls are answered where and when you want them to be answered.
Headlines
• PSTN (Public Switched Telephony Network) calls can be delivered according to their geographic origination
• Mobile calls can be bulk routed or based on the nearest BT interconnect point mapping
• calls can be delivered to whichever destination is designated to cover the given area
• national entities appear ‘local’
• enables you to vary your resources to meet changing calling patternsKey Marketing Benefits
Creating a local presence
GBR (Geographic Based Routing)/ AreaLink enables you to deliver local calls to a local destination. For example, your business has nation-wide coverage, but because of its overall size, has a number of regional offices. You may offer a specifically regional or localised service; therefore you want to answer calls originating from those designated regions within those same regions; this gives a local ‘feel’ to the service that you offer to your customers.
Calls can be sent to a particular individual, such as a Regional Salesperson. However, you only incur the cost of advertising one national number rather than a whole series of separate regional numbers. For example, a mail order firm has a number of regional warehouses around the country; to minimise the distances that orders have to be physically sent to their purchasers, calls are sent through to the nearest warehouse answering point and distribution centre.
Answering calls anywhere that suits
The local or regional centre does not have to be within the designated region. All calls originating from Scotland could be sent to Edinburgh; those from Wales could be sent to Bristol, along with those from elsewhere in the Southwest.
Cost minimisation
You may find that the costs of providing an answering centre are too high in some locations compared to others. Consequently, calls originating from the more costly location could be delivered to an answering centre elsewhere.
Introducing regional variations
Individual areas (or groups of areas) can be given different treatments; you can therefore trial a new product in one area only, or make a variable regional pricing offer. This can still be achieved by using the one national number, rather than having to set up a new number, with associated costs, for the duration of the campaign.Useful feature combinations
Used in conjunction with other features, GBR (Geographic Based Routing)/ AreaLink becomes a powerful tool for a company’s resource management around the clock. By using GBR (Geographic Based Routing)/ AreaLink in conjunction with TimeLink, calls can be dealt with at several different answering locations during normal opening hours, then transferred to a single answering point outside of those hours. If this includes Saturday and Sunday, DayLink can be added to the suite. By adding DateLink, Bank Holidays and other special days can be added into the equation.
With the further addition of DistributionLink, calls can be split proportionately between the different answering points, on the basis of different times of the day and week.Tariffs
See BT Price List for detailsFeature Summary
Availability of Advanced Feature by BT Telemarketing Services National Number Group (NNG) and Brand:
Feature Freefone Lo-call Nationalcall Call Optimiser International/Universal Value Call Services: (Premium Rate)
Numbers Groups 0800 / 0808 0845
0870
Adv PSTN 0800 / 00800 090X
GBR (Geographic Based Routing)/ AreaLink A A A A N/A A
A= Available N/A= Not AvailableFeature Description
The GBR (Geographic Based Routing)/ AreaLink feature allows you to route calls to specified locations based upon BT defined geographic areas. These BT call routing areas are built upon the fixed geographic location of the originating caller, for PSTN callers this is the BT exchange location, Mobile callers are mapped to the nearest exchange to the mobile interconnect BT DMSU (Digital Main Switching Unit) location. GBR (Geographic Based Routing)/ AreaLink defined UK areas comprises of some basic 722 geographic BT network call originating areas (called Caller Subscriber Geography, CSG’s) which can be grouped together to meet your requirements. Calls from one or more areas can then be routed to a particular office (e.g. the one closest to the caller, or even to a particular person (such as the salesperson responsible for the caller’s region).Re: Sales and Service.
ted wrote:As low as it sounds this could be based on a 4{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} failure rate (in guarantee) so Service never seems to have enough cash to cope when things go wrong.
Yes it never has enough cash to cope simply as the cost of service is not relative to the cost of the appliances, the two are worlds apart on costings, and it would appear that many manufacturers fail to see this for whatever reason. By that I mean that the cost of a repair or providing any service is not in direct relation to the RRP of an appliance therefore, the repair cost always seems extremely high in relation to the selling price of the machine. The same effect does translate to other industries but it is very acute in ours given the low prices of most mass market appliances these days.
The other think to bear in mind is that more and more those of us that are doing IG or EW work are finding that chargeable repairs are steadily dropping, as are margins on EW work and, indeed EW work itself in many areas, to such an extent that many of the service companies around the country are struggling to make ends meet. This phenomena is simply attributable to the low RRP and therefore the expectation of a low cost service to be provided that is in relation to the appliance’s RRP. But with high spares costs, increasing labour costs amongst the general costs of running service the actual cost of service is and has to, rise.
Catch 22!
K.
Alex wrote:One day a lass from this manufacturer phoned and asked the status of a call that we had passed back to them. I refused to divulge any information, she got rather agitated at this and said I was likely to jeopardise my realtionship with them, I told her my business was likely to be in jeopardy and this needed sorting, I asked her if she was getting her wages o.k. every month, to which she replied, “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here!” I replied, “I rest my case! When they pay me to date I will reconsider my actions”.
Yes I have done the same on a few occasions as we only have two things as leverage to get payment, doing the calls / information from doing those calls and paying for spares and if I put someone on stop for non-payment then I do not offer any reporting back nor will I settle any outstanding spares account in relation to that work. Spending more time administrating the work you’re not being paid for is only compounding the loss, once I get paid I’m more than happy to continue.
Alex wrote:I say to everybody, don’t try to be the nice guy, the Staff, Vat & Tax offices still want their cut and when it comes to the crunch, they won’t be so nice.
Exactly!
K.
I have always maintained and I *will* always maintain that the Whitegoods group and the site are for the best interests of the agents and *my* personal motives have always been and always will be to that end.
I agree with Dave here (and like Dave I’ve had a few 😉 ), smaller and more profitable areas are the way forward. The 0870 number under the DASA banner is a means to that end IMHO.
Going forward uner the DASA banner is not an issue, paying a bit for the service is not an issue and paying a quid or so a call is not a problem! All the admin. and effort in this is worth it, time costs money and that’s a simple fact I’m never done preaching to everyone so I’m hardly likely to disagree with any administrative costs. The issue is that some WP’s are simply taking the piss, NESN being one of the main culprits.
Yes, under the DASA banner is the correct way to go with this and I think it is the way forward, in fact, the only way forward!
Neither DASA or us as a group want to be another NESN.
K.
(drunken spelling edited 😉 )
Del wrote:Might be another suggested topic for the office of fair trade to investigate ! as it is becoming to be more the norm. 🙄
All they would say is that it is a commercial decision that *you* make to accept that treatment, the simple answer is you either work for them and acept it, or don’t. That’s the choices, take your pick! 😕
Problem is that, bar stopping work either permanently or for a short period until the payments issue is resolved there is little you can do about it.
But it is my experience (and I’ve done this too 🙁 ) that most agents will try at all costs to avoid taking this kind of action for fear of losing the work. As I say, I did as well until I had an epiphany one day….
Why do work for someone that is not paying? Or why do work for people that don’t pay you on time? And why do we all fear taking action over it, if you don’t get paid don’t work!! IF you don’t pay staff, what happens? Yup, they don’t come to work or go and work elsewhere that’s what.
What I realised is that there is no point to it I would far rather cut back the workforce or the area that we cover and become more profitable on a smaller scale than less profitable, with all the ensuing headaches, on a larger scale.
So now I’ve tried this business two ways, on a small scale with a couple of engineers and with over 30 of a staff, needless to say now there are only two engineers that work for the business as it is more profitable with less grief than I have ever had before. Oh and I can sleep at night!
K.
Re: Late payment
ted wrote:The real answer is to withdraw your services and find some who will work with your business and not against.
Exactly! Some people treat you like dirt and an idiot and expect you to sit back and just accept it, all I can say is “remember who’s business it is and who pays the bills here!”
ted wrote:It won’t be an easy task…but if one company can put the squeeze on because of late payment think what will happen when they cant pay at all.
Yep a scary thought indeed, but we all need paid as badly as anyone else, more so probably as we’re the guys at the sharp end with the real day to day running costs and issues/problems to solve for other people.
ted wrote:Be wise …….leave the sinking ship whilst you can….
In this case, I’m out already!
K.
eastlmark wrote:I will come but I am a bit dissapointed its such a hike from the Railway station.
Mark,
I’m sure one of us could swing by the station and get you if we know who etc we can get something organised I’m sure.
K.
I have heard tales of involvement with certain service companies one in or around London and maybe another, totally unconfirmed though.
K.
Dave_Conway wrote:Fucking right it aint good, bastards, once that prick Shaun returns my calls after three messages left for him, they can get fucked. They promise to pay 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} coverplan though, we’ll see. 😡
Dave, I’m getting the distinct impression that you are not amused by our friends in Stoke-On-Stench! 😉
Seriously though, I wonder what would happen if they told the staff they were only getting 60{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of their wages this month? And regardless of what JT says, it is *exactly* the same thing.
K.
See they’re skint again this month, only 60{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} payment with an “endeavor” to pay the rest within a week, not good.
K.
