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Re: 0800 Repair
Priceless.
I guess his excuse would be that he’s well overdrawn in his business account, the clients are giving him hassle for no parts and slow response times, he’s got too many calls in a day and forgot what his kids look like and his completion rates are poor.
Plus his has to wear these stupid cloths and drive this daft looking van.
Knob.
Re: What’s the most stupid things customers say?
When ringing to inform client I’m arriving in 30 minutes, response to be asked if I know where they live ?
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
One that really used to bug me, clients having the front door open and standing in doorway before I’d got out of the vehicle.
This got worse with the intro of mobiles being illegal to use whilst driving, so I’d pull up, front door would be open and I’d be ringing a client back leaving them standing there waiting impatiently for my not so impending arrival.
Had one guy stand by my door the whole time and then followed me around to the side door for my tools.
Knobs.
Re: company house registration
Its a pain for sure, just when you think you’ve finished with the returns another reminder for something else arrives.
Re: 0800 Repair
In my experience many clients cannot read a simple instruction manual and follow those instructions, never mind notice a difference between a national or local web page.
A friend of mine is a web design and builder, self employed and works from home, his designs equal that of 0800 his charges are not out of the reach of the local self employed.
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
There has been a very noticeable decline in people over the last 10-15 yrs, complete lack of general knowledge, yet retaining the ability to complain furiously before thinking.
Re: 0800 Repair
Yes 0800 con there clients, plain and simple, why else promote local when there in fact a National Company with so many middle men it would make your hair curl.
British Gas for example are National, yet the guy actually doin the repair could well live around the corner from the client, his home location has no relevance, it is still charging far high prices than the actual local self employed business such as Ade’s, who ultimately can only compete thanks to people wanting to support a local trusted business.
Re: Safety testing. Do you think this is over the top?
Last week a brand sacked an Engineer on safety grounds.
It has nothing to do with safety really, more to do with insurance companies who will not indemnify company staff unless these procedures are followed, the brands have to show evidence there policing these, it helps if a few are sacked each year.
The more costs in manufacturing are cut, Beko and Bosch appliances having safety issues make the argument for and against much harder, do you allow engineers to finish by 3pm (like the good old days)and risk an injury or death followed by serious cash payout or you make them work till the end of the day that their paid for and implement safety procedures to ensure the company is secure both financially and morally.
Martin wrote:
You surely would know the answer to this Ally, but exactly how to these “muppet managers” observe anyway, what form does it take, do they carry out covort stalking in unmarked BG company Vauxhall corsa’s………?????They involve outside agencies, ring clients to ask simple questions such as “did the engineer pull out the appliance, ask for the plug/fuse box location etc etc” and observe an engineers tracker times. More companies now are adding more technical interviews involving proper questions to grasp how much tech knowledge peeps had and a few are now looking into ways of suing engineers personally if found to be flouting procedures beyond sacking, although how viable that is I doubt it, but the stronger the message the chances are the lazy will get fed up and leave and the grafters will continue without being bothered.
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
I’ve decided not to call back any weekend callers who leave messages and numbers, complete waste of effort.
Another annoying thing, instruction manuals, i could understand it if I was looking perplex before attempting the repair, but before even asking what the fault is.
I now reply to them “Why is there anything in there you don’t understand”.
Re: National Hoovering Of Service Work
Martin wrote:Here’s an idea to throw into ‘the circle of bright ideas’….
Create a template web design that has all the speil like the national hoovering companies use. With loads of useful tagged keyword information on it outlining a national service network of independents. A workers co-operative if you like, built around charging a referral fee for all enquiries passed on to the individual company that the search criteria actually flags up.
One server loaded with all the necessary information (i.e brands, product types, skillsets and postcode areas each business supplies to the database). A simple ‘tick each box’ application process to load all the necessary information required.
A system akin to the likes of UKW’s Find an Engineer but far beyond that to include all and sundry that are not necessarily attached to any trade association or code of practice either. But who are up for getting a bit of extra recognition and in the process paying for it ‘piecemeal’.
So and for example, the way it would appear at the top of any search engines web page would show up something like:
LOCAL FIX the nationwide repair network local to you!
So if you are a one man band in Tadcaster, Tooting or Taunton or a small oufit in Inverness, Iver or Ilchester and register all your details with LOCAL FIX your name, phone number and link to your website (if you have one that is?) will show.
Each and every referral ( say?) 25p each and taken from your account via Direct Debit. And for a nominal extra fee, and if you have your own web site, then you can adapt it (using the same template) to look exactly like a mirror image of the server’s own site in layout and format. But to also include all the additional extra information, photo’s and even embedded video you already use on your existing site.
In effect LOCAL FIX would act like a giant Internet ‘notice board’ where you choose whether or not to pin your own business card on or not. The ‘opt out’ easily administered on a suck it and see, two way street basis.
Or you could run a company to bring the work to you, you source it out, could then call it JTM or Repaircare. :rotfl:Sorry but putting all the eggs into one basket takes work, which ultimately costs time and money, simply running a national ad campaign linking all the independents together is really what is already happening. Someone ultimately will want to own the web page and take a bigger percentage, the JTM’s will find a way to compete.You cannot give all the work to all the independents, either someone is left out or you’ll have too little to share around, people will break free because loyalty does not owe you and its certainly does not pay your bills and feed your family.
Ridiculous idea.
Re: Indesit Reorganise
mikeday0800 wrote:There you go again Lee. Mushroom springs to mind. The Chinese purchased some machinery from indesit to make dishwashers. There the association ends. This happened when indesit designed it’s current dishwasher range. Some brands now purchase said dishwasher from china.
No, It just happens my OH grew up with, went to the same Uni and remains friends with a Director of one of the brands included in this discussion. 🙂
Re: 0800 Repair
mikeday0800 wrote:
I see Lee has chipped in with more useless sorry I mean useful information again. :r
😈Simply educating those that require it.
0800 promote themselves as local for one reason only, many peeps wish to support their local businesses rather than feed corporate greed, by promoting themselves this way they are taking advantage of people, helped along by people who in my opinion could not run a successful business without them, in fact probably couldn’t run a kids birthday party.
Its just another ploy to frankly con people, both franchises and customers.
With McDonald’s there is no deceit, even hoodies are aware that the brand is US based and frankly the business would not benefit from promoting itself as locally run and owned, the people who choose to promote local businesses probably would not eat from there.
To be honest the ones benefiting are the brands, the local guys are suffering and declining thanks to 0800 JTM etc and are to expensive for the brands to contract to, clients seem to be returning to brand engineers, slightly more expensive but it seems word is getting around that independents (0800 etc included) cannot cope with the number of products and the knowledge/parts required to repair quickly and efficiently.
But I could be wrong. 😆
Re: Indesit Reorganise
They have been buying Chinese for the last few yrs, some models the same as Baumatics etc also buying Fagor stuff brought over from China.
I doubt the Chinese are that worried to suddenly stop exporting to one of there major markets.
Re: 0800 Repair
Viva La revolucion.
Well done Ade.
As for Engineers, I’m afraid White Goods repair peeps are Technicians and only required to be qualified to that level, generally 5 GCSE’s or equivalent and a technical college qualification, Engineers are required to have Uni degrees.
“An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems”.
Replacing a PCB,carbons or a blocked drain pump does not fit the bill, no matter how much scientific knowledge you use to develop a solution.
You would have a tough time comparing a white goods tech to an Engineer, bit like comparing a Nurse to a Dr. :rolls:
