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Re: Lee’s Cost Embarrassment Thread
timdowning wrote:Lee I enjoy your stance on things, and enjoy your posts.
Thanks.
But could you tell me your secret in completing 2 jobs an hour. The jobs must be next door to each other and only need the filter unblocking?
I live in a large city and calls are not far away most of the time, I also do chargable work, agent work etc.
I’m Gas safe and refrigeration.
The agency work sometimes take longer, sometimes not, most of the time its below 30 minutes work.
I completed 33 calls this week. With booking the calls, doing the jobs, dumping old machines,banking,travelling, ordering…etc I didn’t have time to wipe my own….
Me neither some days it feels like that, I don’t sell appliances or take them away, so I don’t dump old machines, to me thats a complete waste of my time for the money.
And two jobs an hour isn’t the ‘large part’ of your business?
That was reference agent work for £30 a completed call, that isn’t a large part of my time, if it went tomorrow I wouldn’t lose sleep.
Do you wear a red cape? 😆 🙂
Tim.
I don’t try to come across as a hero, it’s not my intention to put people down or to be top dog, I maybe lucky in my location and the jobs I get.
Its not easy, I have been doin it a long time though and I spent many many yrs rushing around like an arshole for companies, for far less than I earn now doing my own work, maybe that helps, maybe not.
Re: What Would Happen If…
Have you talked to the people who control the industry and included their take on the future, after all they are the ones reducing the rates and forcing us little agents into reducing costs or going bust.
I ask this because I doubt anybody on UKW would argue your wrong, me included, which is why I’m registered with you for Amica work, you pay more and the more you pass me the less I would do for the others.
Reading between the lines on the D&G thread and the ridicule Lee thread I feel you believe I support doin the cheap calls, I don’t, which is why I’m pushing Amica/ISE sales info to all those that listen.
Its not eay though, one agent I use with over several hundred rental properties gets appliances from Howden’s at around £105 a unit, he buys around 4-5 appliances a week from them, I do around 15 calls a week, as he buys so cheap, so the repair costs have to be lower, I won the contract a yr ago as the agent he used was charging £65.00 to unblock pumps, this was not viable, so I under cut him and got the work, lots of it actually.
Its bloody hard though with retail prices, the crisis and people attitude.
I’d love it if UKW got enough support so that our interests could be put in large enough volumes to actually take notice, my opinion though comes from years of working close to management above the service dept’s, so I’m aware how much it would take for notice to be taken, probably why I accept cheap call charges for a percentage of my work, no matter how proud I may be I still don’t have enough weight to dictate, the door will simple get closed.
😥
Re: Lee’s Cost Embarrassment Thread
It’s working for me, thats all I can say, from what I hear others are having to as well.
Hopefully it will continue to work for me.
So far the referrals I get make it worth while, I’m reaching far more clients and getting more recommendations than if I advertised in the local media.
My labour rates are based on the business I run, I reserve the right to change as and when I feel fit.
The labour charges in my area for other industries is around £40 an hour for a mobile Mechanic, my local PC repair guy also charges this.So doing calls at £30.00 is around the norm, I daily manage to complete 2 calls an hour, so earning £60 an hour is ok, not ideal, but for me, it does not make up a large part of my business and I’d rather be busy earning this than laying in bed, also keeps my skills set up, maybe I’m thick or bad at business, I’ll accept that from my accountant and Bank manager.I’ll keep on doing my thing until they tell me my company is crap and I’m loosing money, can’t pay bills etc.
I make no apologese for writting my opinions here.
As for my writting skills or lack of them, please correct me, but only after you correct your own. :rolls:
The paragraph I quoted, anybody reading that with an IQ passed their shoe size would have known I hadn’t wrote that. 🙂
I stated on my first post I heard rumours, how accurate they are time will tell.
Re: Lee’s Cost Embarrassment Thread
Did I state I was writting from facts gained from D&G.
I’m at a loss as to how you concluded that.
Personnally I believe that D&G getting rid of the people who cannot complete calls to there {e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} completion rates.
Those {e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} rates may have been increased based on the change in climate, costs (please see definiton :rolls: ) etc etc.
I’m lookin at it from D&G point of view towards contractors, it should not come as a surprise that rates paid would drop, I did mention it last yr that £30 was being offered, to which you did jump on me, for some reason, why I don’t know, I’m not the one paying it, I have moved my business into a position that could sustain those rates, when we entered recession and had the doom and gloom predictions it was obvious to me that the appliance industry would get hit.
My advice in this industry is to view what is happening to those passing work to you and think as they would, act before they do, that would include work providers such as JTM, D&G to Mrs Smith down the road.
Re: Lee’s Cost Embarrassment Thread
I guess some are caught up in the cost definition I posted.You can read it in most good dictionaries, under “Costs” for those not to quick spotting the obvious.
Retail prices are dropping, therefore does that not affect peoples attitude towards purchasing Insurance.We relates to D&G income, which relates to expenditure.
I guess I missed the relationship.
As for talking bollocks, I like to say thats the first time someone told me that.
:rolls:
Re: Domestic and General cutting agents
I could have made it easier, I guess D&G are being squeezed, less income from insurance policies now the crisis has hit and appliance sales prices are dropping.
They probably got wind of DSG dropping charges and decided this could become the norm across the industry, like I stated on the DSG thread if there cutting costs they will take the opinion others in the industry should as well and that includes engineer call out and labour rates paid to contractors.
Most people are now becoming more budget aware and cutting out uneccesassary costs such as appliance insurance policys and extended warranties, most I come across are usually moaning they haven’t claimed for yrs and have paid silly money, more than enough to buy a mid range Bosch for sure.
I bought a £40 Mp4 player the other day in Argos, the girl tried to sell me a policy to cover any faults after the warranty, for £18, are they real.
The insurance concept for appliances is not a great one, colleagues in Spain where at a loss as to why people pay insurance for an appliance in the UK. :rolls:
Re: Domestic and General cutting agents
richardable wrote:and what costs are dropping??
Work it out. 😉
In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it is counted as cost. In this case, money is the input that is gone in order to acquire the thing. This acquisition cost may be the sum of the cost of production as incurred by the original producer, and further costs of transaction as incurred by the acquirer over and above the price paid to the producer. Usually, the price also includes a mark-up for profit over the cost of production.
Re: JTM again!
Not paying for goods and services is one of the warning signs as opposed to showing there makin loads a money.
There obviously calculating between essentials such as staff, bills and what ever is left is used to pay contractor’s.
That would be my personnel assesment of the situation, I could be wrong, maybe they are an office full of tools incapable of simple mathmatics.
😆
Re: JTM again!
On reading the above post I would suggest they have cash flow issues, serious ones.
Idiots tend not to be able to achieve the position JTM got too, therefore the chances of them making mistakes that only seem to favour them is a bit of a stupid excuse and one used by many failing businesses before they go tits up.
Maybe they bit off too much, maybe they should have used Kens calculation for profitability. 😆
appleelectrics wrote:we have been working with D&G for over 15 years and cover a massive area for them, if they pull the work from the independants, who will cover the machines like Servis, there is no manufacture service for brands like that?
I guess they’ll keep people like you on that stuff or shift it to a manufacture to cover.
Re: Domestic and General cutting agents
There not relying on D&G for profit, they us it as a way to steal clients off insurance and into using a local company, cheaper than buying ads in the local papers.
Re: Domestic and General cutting agents
I heard a rumour that the level of service provided hasn’t been up to much, probably down to the amount of products, one D&G agent I know of is lucky to get a 20{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} 1st time fix and there a large ServiceForce agent with lots of stock.But he also employs several idiots who rush to finish by 2pm, in favour of spending most of their time selling the parts they should have fitted on E bay. :rolls:
I also here that several makers are goin to be recruiting soon as there gaining more work back from the likes of D&G.
Re: DSG/RepairCare Rate Cuts
washdoctor wrote:
Increase service / sales costs?… It’s because of all of us (UK general public), that everything is so cheap and service costs are so poor! We all, want something for nothing! We all want the best deal, so Manufacturers have to price accordingly, as low as possible to get the appliances moving off shelves & into people homes to compete in our greedy world and win our money! All be it cars, washers whatever!
!People buy Iphones, Ipads, Miele,Sony etc etc, there may well be a need for cheap, but most of the clients I visit, who I would class as normal, ie they have jobs and don’t live of the charity of the govt, although I personnally know of one who does and has a Miele washer, but thats another story, most of the clients I have visited would pay more if the after care was provided within the cost of the appliance.
I believe that placing the life time in hours on the sales info in store would see a radical change of view by the general public.
So you give 2 options, buy a cheap appliance, that has a poor life span and a seriously bad aftercare service, make it openly plane and simple in the sales info or pay more and get a quality product with a proven record for great aftercare service by the manufacturer and not a contract company.
The client is faced with the options now, only you have to think about it and nobody really wants to tell them, for some reason people still expect a certain level of quality even on a £160 washer, thanks to the law they assume all products are built to the same standard or they shout not fit for purpose.
Its just a matter of honest education of the public and very easy to do if the makers admit which products are a pile of sh88 and who contract out repairs to any tom dick or harry, there are some real knobs working in this industry and not all of them are capable of servicing the products they work on to even a basic level.
Mr Director probably feels that his business has had to move with the current financial situation and as a result others should also, there margins have been reduced by cheaper products, so the level of service should reflect that.
