jb-eye Posted July 31, 2004 Posted July 31, 2004 Why do we charge maintenance? A question I am surprised to find a lot of installer’s don’t know the answer to. How many installers confuse maintenance with service? I know my answer to the question but would be interested to hear how others explain maintenance to customers. Jeff Customers!
Guest RICHL Posted July 31, 2004 Posted July 31, 2004 This is something I often have to explain to punters: Its "preventative" maintenance, not insurance. Check the system against previous readings to help predict any faults/find faults which they may not know exist, and to keep an eye of those batteries etc. To the customers its all about perceived value. There will always be some who just wont take you up on maintenance no matter what (and there are others who cant wait to see you again next time). My answer is just to say OK then call me if you have any faults. If and when they do have to call you out then they have to expect to pay more than the better customers. Harsh but fair I think. If some installers wont respond to former customers have no longer have a contract then fair enough.
Guest Peter James Posted July 31, 2004 Posted July 31, 2004 The prevenative maint visit is only a small part of maintenance contract. Alarm companies have to be there(and quickly) when the customer needs them day or night 24hrs, they have to have trained engineers that know what there doing, they have to have suitable reliable vehicles with all the insurance that goes with it, they have to have all the insurances to cover them if the engineer puts the ladder through the customers window etc, theres mobile phone bills, fuel bills, rent and admin staff. It all costs money but is taken for granted when a customer phones up. Because your always in competition with the "ill put it in for a bag of crisps and a luncheon voucher " brigade there is very little profit in the installation game (even if you do sell on quality) . So maintenance is the life blood of the company and the big installs are the profit. Pete
norman Posted July 31, 2004 Posted July 31, 2004 Pete, you are beginning to sound more and more like Mike lynskey... you are not him incognito are you? Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
abbz Posted July 31, 2004 Posted July 31, 2004 get asked that question many a time from customers, my reply to them is that they pay a maintenance contract to have the avaliablility of an engineer 24/7 365 days a year. i know my company i work for charge at least an extra £50 +vat for non maintained customers and also cant guarantee them a response time as maintained customers have to come first. that answer always seems to make customer feel little bit better when paying annual charge.
Guest Peter James Posted July 31, 2004 Posted July 31, 2004 Pete, you are beginning to sound more and more like Mike lynskey... you are not him incognito are you? Hi Steve& Norm Mike never even replied to my emails re this site I do think alot of what he says makes sense, so maybe him and I are on the same wave length. Im only half his age(more or less) so Im compimented that you find my comments as wise as his. Pete
norman Posted August 1, 2004 Posted August 1, 2004 Mike never even replied to my emails re this site I'm surprised, he lives in the same town and used to inspect me at a previous company (in fact my brother used to see his daughter a few years ago). There is another guy who might be interested, Pete Moss from Leeds Technical College, he has some interesting views and opinion's, I'll see if I can find his e-mail, You have probably seen his letters in the Security Installer magazine (and he can gas for England) Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
CompostCORNER Posted August 1, 2004 Posted August 1, 2004 I remember Pete Moss from several years ago when I attended the ACT false alarm prevention and fused spur certification course down at ACT in Rainford. Pete is indeed a good chap. I remember the course because my then boss wound me up something rotten telling me there was a written test after the fused spur seminar and that it was difficult to get certified. I went over to Rainford the evening before the course and litterally papped my pants. I was as nervous as hell. Then when the afternoon course came up, Pete would have us all write down the important bits of his seminar so we had the answers on paper for the few questions on the certification exam. Typical or what. I had the last laugh with my boss though as I told him I'd failed when I came back. Considering he knew how easy the course was, for a time he must have thought I was a blithering idiot to fail. I've done a few days with Mike Lynskey too. One thing that struck me was his total contempt for NACOSS when asked about such things. He was the SSAIB inspector back then and my old boss told Mike about how he was looking at applying for NACOSS. Mike really did rip NACOSS apart. He didn't have a good word for them yet several months after his last visit to our place, he's left SSAIB to join NACOSS. Either a deal too good to be true landed in front of him or he was mis-informed about NACOSS and saw the light lol. Didn't Mike join NACOSS to be a consultant? Tony
jb-eye Posted August 1, 2004 Author Posted August 1, 2004 Peter You explanation of why do we charge maintenance is excellent. I anticipated a large number of reads on this subject with little posting. We come across a customer & engineer view that believes maintenance to be the two service calls per annum (we only do signalling systems) where in fact this is only part of maintenance. As you rightly say Maintenance is the bit that pays for our engineers to offer a 365/24 service. This also begs the question of warranties or Guarantees. What happens if a part fails out of hours? We can’t charge for the part, should we charge for the out of hours call. We do and this is contentious. A customer has CCTV ACCESS FIRE & INTRUDER, only FIRE & INTRUDER are under maintenance. They have a problem on CCTV and you say we will be there day after tomorrow do they accept this? In my experience No! Jef Customers!
CompostCORNER Posted August 1, 2004 Posted August 1, 2004 Back on topic again.... As mentioned above, installation nowadays is non-profit making. A 3 day job only needs to over run by a single day and any profit can be lost. Maintenance pays all our wages. Install doesn't but you have to continue installing in order to increase the maintenance base. The maintenance charge is really a charge for peace of mind. Instant back-up, instant repair when things go wrong, prioroty over non-maintained customers. Again, as mentioned above, the costs of supplying such a service aren't free. In most of our installations, a maintenance is required 2 times a year. Simply to keep everything running smooth. Sods law states that if you pay for maintenance, your alarm will never need any attention. It will perform correctly but you don't take out maintenance, the moment you're not covered, the alarm messes up. People pay for the privilidge to have trained technicians at their beck and call in the unfortunate situation when things go wrong. Tony
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