4 Camera Dvr - 50fps

[Service Engineer]

dave...you close topics for less than this....or does being one of your homies give you extra rights..

PeterR has expressed to me a willingness to view debates about the bad publicity concerning his employer, and a will to try and remedy any problems. I applaud him for this..

Currently his Trade membership is under review, and until such a time as we allow him access then I wouldn't be doing his mission any good by hiding any relevant posts in a Trade only section.

If PeterR would rather these posts be removed then he only needs to ask.

[Guest]

PeterR has expressed to me a willingness to view debates about the bad publicity concerning his employer, and a will to try and remedy any problems. I applaud him for this..

Currently his Trade membership is under review, and until such a time as we allow him access then I wouldn't be doing his mission any good by hiding any relevant posts in a Trade only section.

If PeterR would rather these posts be removed then he only needs to ask.

jive talking....

[ian.cant]

I applaud his honesty in trying to save some of his employers reputation which has been destroyed on here (rightly or wrongly is irrelevant as thats the way it is).

Im still firmly a believer that this forum is here for everyone to benefit and as far as i am concerned that includes Joe P and people in the trade. As a wholesaler or retailer they have every right to reply to the critisism in public as thats where the critisism was posted and im pleased that someone has taken the bull by the horns.

I have not been and do not expect to be customer but if enough people turn around and say ahhh such and such a company has changed, they really look after you and value your custom now, then i want to know.

The Service i receive from Dynamic CCTV is faultless which is why i champion theyre name so much. In the same respect if they treated me like this company treated Pete, im sure i would savage their reputation like Pete does, but im sure Pete would like to see them turn things around also. Any company with a bad reputation within our industry smears us all so any company that turns that around is good news in my book and i hope they do!

[PeterR]

I applaud his honesty in trying to save some of his employers reputation which has been destroyed on here (rightly or wrongly is irrelevant as thats the way it is).

Im still firmly a believer that this forum is here for everyone to benefit and as far as i am concerned that includes Joe P and people in the trade. As a wholesaler or retailer they have every right to reply to the critisism in public as thats where the critisism was posted and im pleased that someone has taken the bull by the horns.

I have not been and do not expect to be customer but if enough people turn around and say ahhh such and such a company has changed, they really look after you and value your custom now, then i want to know.

The Service i receive from Dynamic CCTV is faultless which is why i champion theyre name so much. In the same respect if they treated me like this company treated Pete, im sure i would savage their reputation like Pete does, but im sure Pete would like to see them turn things around also. Any company with a bad reputation within our industry smears us all so any company that turns that around is good news in my book and i hope they do!

Hi all,

I have read your comments and would like to reply as follows:

1. Peter James - The problems you had were unfortunate and before my time, which does not help you now I know, I have spoken to the powers that be and they have agreed to sit down with you and see if we can resolve the issue of the DVRs you still have to everyones satisfaction, would you be available to do this?

2. Trade Status / PM - I did not want to use this PUBLIC site to discuss issues that were TRADE related and have requested trade status, in the mean time I thought it would be better to discuss the issues using PM

3. Collection costs -Let me explain this in more detail, faulty items under 14 days old are collected free of charge, items being returned for refund are at the customers cost, this is more then the law requires, better then some of our competitors and does help to reduce our costs, we are open to further discussion on this point.

4. Pricing - Like all companies we have competitors and we have to make sure our prices are competitive, because we are on the web it means our pricing is very low, however we also have trade customers so we offer them a discount , the only time the pricing is an issue is when the trade customer's customer sees our prices which is not very often.

I will be away from the office until Saturday but will try to keep checking in on the forum, I really appreciate everybody giving us the chance to discuss these issues rather than us simply ignoring them.

Thanks

Peter

[PeterR]

Gaz

Its not jive talking its a free debate, and I would of thought with your political veiws you of all people would see that.

If I didnt know you better I would think you were looking start trouble.

My problems in my opinion were not unjustified, and closing the Topic would be UNFAIR TO Y3K as they have every right to reply and give their point of veiw. The public are now able to make their own minds up based on my posts AND Y3K's REPLY, rather than just my post.

Having this debate behind closed doors or by PM would not help anyone, Y3K, or punters considering buying from this company, their replies and the way they deal with this can help them, its not always about the mistakes you make its the way you deal with them after youve discovered youve made them.

This is an adult forum and PeterR has given a very good reply and has earnt my respect.

I doubt that I will be taking Peter up on his offer but (His company has burnt all their bridges with me), I do think there is a small outside chance that Y3K's policies may have changed.

Gaz I am sure if you were treated badly by a company at some stage, you would like me warn others .

Theres a calculation that comes from the company you work for Gaz, it goes something like this: Do a good job and you will be recomended to three people, do a bad job and they will tell sixteen people how **** you are.

Critisim is a good thing if you know what to do with it.

PeterR

Regards your return policies, I suggest you take a good look at your competitors return policies you may NOW be giving better than statutory rights, but your nearest competitors give much more than this. You will find if you are reasonable an fair with your returns installers will have more confidence in your products.(And not only that think about it from the installer's point of veiw, he wants to fit the kit and forget about it, he doesnt want to be returning it in the 1st place let alone paying to return it)

And I note you chose to ignore my suggestion regards the 0845 number over 0870.

Peter

Hi Peter

Sorry I did not ignore the 0870 issue just forgot to mention it, our view on technical support is that it is a cost like any other in the business that has to be paid for, we could give it for for free and then charge a couple of % extra for our products, or we could charge as its used via an 0870 number and subsidise the majority of it which we do. This we think is fairer to repeat (trade) customers since it is not very likely that they will be ringing up about the same technical issue over and over again, yet if we have free technical support then we will be charging them through higher prices every time they use us.

The returns policy issue is one we have discussed with installers, big and small, and in view of our more then competitive prices and the business model we follow the majority seem happy with it.

There are 3 main types of CCTV distributor we reckon:

The N**ra*n type, which have very high prices and after sales support with perks, where they will send advanced replacements after a couple of months, pick up items after a few months etc... However they do not offer this for free, you are paying for it by paying the very high prices in the first place.

On the other end of the scale you have the complete cowboys who simply do not offer after sales, no warranty, no credits when you make a return and no tech support, they just expect you to conact the manufacturer to solve the problems, I will not mention any examples in this category, what I will say is that the biggest and cheapest in this category have now also added not paying any of the there suppliers to there list of conributions to our industry.

Finally you have the category that I guess Y3K, Pla*et, C*p etc... fall in to which is very competitive pricing without the after sales perks, in that category I believe that we are offering a fair deal, low prices, 14 day replacement / collection if faulty and 14 day money back guarantee (however on the money back guarantee we ask the customer to pay for the return, why?, because it costs us money to take a sale, pick it pack it and then receive it back, check the product, restock it and refund the customer, again if we did not do this, prices would go up)

We agree that in the past the balance between cheap prices and good after sales was wrong, now we have corrected this, the price have gone up a little but the after sales structure is now solid.

Why can a company not have Y3K prices and N**ra*n after sales perks, because we would not be making profit to stay in business, and our goal above every other is to stay in business forever so we can be there to serve our customers.

Finally with regard to the issue you had please do not let pride get in the way, if we can resolve the issue lets.

Companies should not be judged on what they say but on how they react when thing go wrong, things have gone wrong in the past and we have reacted.

Thanks for listening

Peter

[Drew]

The 0870 discussion worries me a bit. We have one of these because we moved from Lewes to Brighton and changed our number to the relocatable one two years in advance. The only reason for this was that we could switch locations with no disruption or faff. We don't get a penny back in revenue, as we are way below the mega call rate you need to achieve this. I can't remember the exact facts behind this - how much each option cost and how it worked, but we did make a rational, non-stingy decision at the time.

Our outgoing call costs are huge. We always ring back to installers' mobiles if requested and we are happy to do this. If you really think we should have an 0800 number, I would be intereted to hear - and of course we'd look at it.

So, I think the phone cost comments may be a bit harsh, but the comment about the web page security is quite correct. The purchasing page says it's a secure one, with a Thawte logo (although an out of date one), but it's not - it's plain old http. It is definitely not secure. To see one that is set up properly, look at https://extranet.paxton-access.co.uk

[Brian c]

Our outgoing call costs are huge. We always ring back to installers' mobiles if requested and we are happy to do this. If you really think we should have an 0800 number, I would be intereted to hear - and of course we'd look at it.

I thought you guys would've been all set up with VoIP lines?

Personally, I think that 0800 numbers are a god thing for tech support, although I can understand you still have to pay for tech staff. Having said that, most of the time you ring tech is from a mobile which still charges for 0800 calls anyway.

[Drew]

Hi Pete

Hi Drew

Click Say NO to 0870 for more info, 0845 is much better.

We'll look into this again!

I dont pay for calls to any national or local calls I pay a one off monthly fee, but I do pay for calls to 0870 numbers so I simply dont call them if I can find an alternate (your competition).

Right then, you can currently get us on 01273 811010 - today it's the number behind the 0870 one, but that might change in the medium term.

Anyway Lewes has the same STD code as Brighton??

Mad isn't it? We definitely could not carry our Lewes number to Brighton, though. As it was, the process of moving the connection nearly broke my will to live. I won't say which company was resposible on a public forum, but you may be able to guess.

And why have you not put us as a recognised installer on your search thingy??? we,ve even done the training?? and we have one or two big sites with your kit in .

I may call you (cheap rate, of course) to discuss this. Or, if you around, call in and we can chat over a coffee.

[Drew]

I thought you guys would've been all set up with VoIP lines?

I was talking to a provider about this today. TCP/IP GSM gateways look interesting!

Personally, I think that 0800 numbers are a god thing for tech support, although I can understand you still have to pay for tech staff. Having said that, most of the time you ring tech is from a mobile which still charges for 0800 calls anyway.

You are spot on with the point about mobiles, and I think at the time we changed, it was actually awkward to call 0800 from a mobile. Didn't you have to dial a plus instead of the zero? The more we looked at it, the more 0870 seemed the only choice. The one thing we really can't afford to do is to keep changing our number.

[Guest]

I can't remember the exact facts behind this - how much each option cost and how it worked, but we did make a rational, non-stingy decision at the time.

An 0845 number costs a tenner to set up and can be forwarded to any local or mobile phone, usually via an online control panel. This may not be true for huge volumes of calls but I can't seem to remember reading anything to the contrary with any suppliers I looked at.

We definitely could not carry our Lewes number to Brighton

BT and their magical ways means that you can't simply move your number about anywhere within a dialling code, usually.