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Double Glazing Blogger: How Not To Run Your Business

Friday, February 4, 2011

How Not To Run Your Business

Once upon a time we had a couple of fitters who decided to leave us to start their own business in the double glazing world. They set out with good intentions, determined to do as well as possible by under-pricing and over promising.


This worked well for a while as customers were tempted by the lower costs and the promise of excellent fitting. But as the months and early years drifted by, the stack of unhappy customers began to pile up. They were unhappy with poor fitting, poor time keeping and jobs not being completed either on time or not at all. It got to the point where one particularly well off customer threatened to sue them.


Does that story sound familiar? The downfall of the industry is that it is full of ex-fitters who think they can run their own business because they can buy and fit windows and doors. But they forget that they have to guarantee their work, see to remedial calls and be skilled in the customer services department. Unfortunately those last three things are ignored, hence the cowboy image the window industry has given itself.


Until legitimate companies do their best to force these shambolic operations out, we are going to suffer from fly-by-night companies for the foreseeable future. Rob Foy to the rescue I reckon! 

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Nige said...

GB-Not all ex fitters are like that, 4 years and not 1 complaint as yet !You can say some/ most are like that. But not all!
Not forget mid and large firms can be cowboys.....Rant over Nige

February 4, 2011 at 1:15 PM  
Blogger Double Glazing Blogger said...

That is true Nige, and good on ya for your good work!

February 4, 2011 at 1:23 PM  
Blogger robert h foy said...

on this one gb i personally think the bigger problem lies with ex salesman setting up and trying to run a business in a professional capacity. most fitters do know how a job should be fitted(time served ones that is)the cons and the worst jobs tend to come from salesman who will recruit anyone who says they can fit, and tend to rip people off unlike ex fitters who start up on their own. another problem is this. when the nationals need to fit 100s of thousands of windows a wk they employ so called fitters who they hope can do the job that a big name carries,sadly this is were some huge problems lie. once a consumer get a raw deal from a so called prof- outfit,they rightly start to complain to all and sundry. then the problem escalates as service engineers who usually are ex fitters(usually poor ones at that)are not trained in how to rectify a dropped door, a leak thats not coming from the window, how to ajust an hinge or keep or even realise new friction stays are required,not to mention over sized windows having been fitted. the after sales service is usually very poor in these companies, which is a very sad state of affairs. through this blog(and not gt) im sure that the retail pros- will start to visit more, rather than the non industry people who dont run a day to day business or wouldnt know how to do a job right get paid and leave the consumer happy. we can only try to make an impact gb, and im sure we can. all you need is more flow through your blog from those businesess that really want to improve the standards !!!

February 4, 2011 at 8:48 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I'm sure anyone that runs their own business has learned (or will soon learn) that the skills to do the work are only a small part of the picture.

I see this all the time with start-ups earning good money when the weather's good, but not planning ahead for the winter, and with little understanding of cashflow, marketing etc.

February 5, 2011 at 1:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mmmm. Refer you to the Quality Counts posting.

April 9, 2011 at 9:34 AM  

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