food for tought

[igi]

Hi
all
in the town that i work there is a competing dealer,he never sends his techs for training.
he takes them young and pays them peanuts.my problem is this the oposing dealer cuts all the corners when it comes to servicing,
he is not replacing the drum or dv or service kits when needed.because his running costs so low he can undercut our prices.
our biggest forte is our knowledge and experience and of course propertly maintaining the ecuipment.my question is if i am helping this dealers techies on this forum and share my experience with them,am i slowly edging myself out of my job?

your taughts will be very much apreciated.

tanx ALL

[daveyball]

Re: food for tought

Sooner or later the lower quality of their serive will come apparent, and customers will come to realise the differance, it did with us

[igi]

Re: food for tought

Sooner or later the lower quality of their serive will come apparent, and customers will come to realise the differance, it did with us

i hope much sooner then later

[Zackuth]

Re: food for tought

No, I don't think so either. Like Davyball said their lower quality will show itself soon enough. True, you can tell people what is wrong on this forum, but if these people have to ask a question for every problem they encounter, there is going to ba a lot of down time on this company's end as they leave, post a question, wait for a response, test that, if that one doesn't work, come back and look at other responses, test those. It could end up taking your competitors four hours to troubleshoot a problem you will have solved in ten minutes.

[Bantams]

Re: food for tought

I Think the other companies techs are too busy trying to maintain there badly maintained machines for you to worry about them comming here and actually asking for Advise

[daveyball]

Re: food for tought

I Think the other companies techs are too busy trying to maintain there badly maintained machines for you to worry about them comming here and actually asking for Advise

I think by the nature of the question asked you can sometimes tell if they have a clue or any experience on the products, i.e. "I have a MPC 3000 with black lines, please help", or what is frimware!!

[igi]

Re: food for tought

I Think the other companies techs are too busy trying to maintain there badly maintained machines for you to worry about them comming here and actually asking for Advise

i like the way you think

[blackcat4866]

Re: food for tought

I'll agree with that. Most of the people here have a very high degree of dedication to spend their personal time talking shop. I doubt very much that the employees of this competitor have that level of dedication. In addition, as we find with endusers, having the answer isn't enough. You have to know what it means and how to implement the solution. It sounds as though that would exceed your competitors skill level. =^..^=

[banginbishop]

Re: food for tought

Hi
all
in the town that i work there is a competing dealer,he never sends his techs for training.
he takes them young and pays them peanuts.my problem is this the oposing dealer cuts all the corners when it comes to servicing,
he is not replacing the drum or dv or service kits when needed.because his running costs so low he can undercut our prices.
our biggest forte is our knowledge and experience and of course propertly maintaining the ecuipment.my question is if i am helping this dealers techies on this forum and share my experience with them,am i slowly edging myself out of my job?

your taughts will be very much apreciated.

tanx ALL

[Larryo]

Re: food for tought

I agree with Blackcat, Daveyball, everyone on this one. I have been doing this job since 1986 and have been a street tech up through GM. One thing has ALWAYS rung true: DO GOOD WORK. Your competition will NOT be around in the long run. Good service may or may not get you that next deal with the customer, as it usually comes down to price, but bad service will ENSURE you don't get that next deal, best price or not. Hold your head up and do good work, especially when nobody is looking and you will be fine.

[copylaser]

Re: food for tought

I had a dealership and always sent my guys to training, some stayed and some left toTRY and compete. Its kind of the same thing I didnt worry about them competing because they will never compare to our way of thinking which is keep em all trained.
We are correct in helping because it is retured ten fold and those who are inferior will pretty much always stay inferior if they dont change their ways.

[igi]

Re: food for tought

tanx all your input is apreciated

[Ollie1981]

Re: food for tought

On this related topic....

.... has anyone had an ex-customer ring them directly almost begging you to come and look at a competitor's machine?

We lost a customer to a competitor that undercut us, it was a customer I was on relatively friendly terms so they have my direct mobile/cell phone number and they used to ring sometimes when they had a minor problem or question. Anyhow, lease was up on the machine and they decided to go with a competitor because they had given a significantly cheaper quote. Hey all's fair in business right?

...'cept now they are discovering just why this outfit were so much cheaper. The machine they provided was a lower-volume machine and when they call out for service, it can take up to a week for someone to turn up. I had this guy ring me the other day practically begging me to come repair this machine and bill their dealer for the work (like they'd ever pay in a month of Sundays).

I couldn't help but feel a little smug, some lessons are hard learned. Still they only have another 30 months or so left on the lease and I doubt that dealer will get the buisness again. Hehe I guess this is what the Germans call schadenfreude.

[blackcat4866]

Re: food for tought

Twice that I'm aware of, in general terms that is. The first was a Canon NP-6060 that got replaced with a 25 cpm Ricoh. Within 60 days the new vendor had RA'd the machine as defective. I was astounded to be the first person to suggest: "Hey did you really think you could do 100K per month on that machine?" Two months after that, they tried to to RA the machine again, but Ricoh wasn't buying it. Within 30 days of the Ricoh appearing on-site, I was pulling the Canon back out of storage. It was a good thing that it was a $1 buy out lease. And two years later the Canon was still running, and the Ricoh was gone, don't want to know where. Before that we had the Michigan State contract for 10cpm machines, specifically Mita DC-111C. I loved these machines. They were placed in the worst possible, and environments, and survived. Well, when the contract was up, these 111C's were shoved in the closet. A few weeks later, the State Police offices were calling telling us about the Minolta replacements: "Can you still maintain those Mita's ... " Why yes, we can ... =^..^=

[Shadow1]

Re: food for tought

..'cept now they are discovering just why this outfit were so much cheaper. The machine they provided was a lower-volume machine and when they call out for service, it can take up to a week for someone to turn up. I had this guy ring me the other day practically begging me to come repair this machine and bill their dealer for the work (like they'd ever pay in a month of Sundays).

I'd be happy to come fix the machine, but the customer would pay the bill - if he can get anything out of their current vendor after that more power to them.