UK Whitegoods
UK Whitegoods
Meeting Minutes 10th September 2004
Present:
Kenneth Watt. Kevin Heath, Dave Conway, Sean Delaney, Mark Garner, Warren
Thompson, Paul Fearon, Dave Pannel, Martin Russell, David Parker, Gary Ainscough,
Roy Fischer, Richard Dalley, Phil Kendall, Chris Chantrell, Lindsey Moore, Terese
Eyton-Jones, Mike Fitzgerald, Ian Dales, Alma Dales, Tony Brown, Jason huby, Mark
Scoggins, Ray Biddle, Kevin Morrisey, John Mackenzie, Paul Swift, Andy G?
Chair: Kevin Heath
1 Corgi:
KW – The general view that there were too many elements involved in the ACS
accreditation scheme, many of which white goods engineers would never come
across during their normal working routine. This, along with the new increased
training requirements for new operatives wishing to enter the gas appliance repair
field would dissuade many companies from training new employees in the gas field,
therefore creating a general shortage of those able to repair gas appliances.
The new legislation requiring all new gas appliance installations to be notified to
Corgi was discussed, the general opinion was that it would further impose increased
costs on independent repairers, especially if or when Corgi decide to introduce the
notification scheme to repairs.
TB – We must not remove the safety aspect of the requirements of gas operatives,
this was generally agreed.
KH – Perhaps we should write our own local MP’s to increase pressure on
government.
MS – There would be little chance of changing legislation, possibly more chance of
encouraging manufacturers, insurers and work providers to increase the fees paid to
independent repairers for gas work to help absorb the increased costs.
DC – Asked the various work providers present if they were finding increased
difficulties in gaining national gas coverage, the general response was that although
there had been some difficulties it was not an immediate problem. Some WP’s had to
go outside of the white goods field and use heating engineers in some areas.
UK Whitegoods Limited, 8 Bowman Place, Stewarton, Ayrshire, KA3 3HZ
Phone: 0870 3404957
Fax: 01560 486661
Email: [email protected]
Registered In Scotland : 270039
KH – Perhaps it would be a good idea to approach training centres to try and work
with them and encourage Corgi to have a white goods engineer specific course.
MF – Offered the help of Domestic and General’s contacts within the gas industry for
Corgi contacts and the best people to discuss further the problems aired.
2 “E” Jobs:
KW – Explained the E jobs concept. There was currently being prepared a module
addition to the site that would allow the general public to make contact with an
Independent repairer in their area. This would be done via email and would involve
the customer entering their details, appliance type and fault; this information would
then be passed to the relevant repairer to make contact with the customer, an email
would also be sent to the customer detailing the repairers contact information.
In areas where there were more than one member covering the same postcode
district, there would be a scroll effect whereby each member in a particular area
would receive the next available job. This would also be dependant on the individual
members skill level’s in each particular area, ie: gas, refrigeration, laundry etc, there
was the facility to remove certain manufacturers from member’s information if they
so wished, they would then never receive calls for that manufacturer.
UKW subscribers would be given a higher percentage of calls in their own area
should a subscriber and a non subscriber cover the same district.
All UKW members wishing to participate and receive E jobs would be required to
agree to and sign the “Members Charter”. This was put in place to reassure
customers they would receive a minimum level of service and was easily achievable.
The Members Charter was created by UKW directors and distributed to other UKW
moderators and members for approval.
A copy of the Members Charter was passed around the room.
An advisory council was to be set up and put in place to oversee the members
charter was adhered to and any customer complaints dealt with effectively. This
would be put to a vote in the forums to appoint the members, site admin and
directors would not be a part of any advisory council. Three people would be selected
annually to sit the advisory council as this would remove the chance of any hung
votes.
DC – Asked if there were any comments regarding the members charter, none were
raised. If any changes or suggestions arose at any time, these could easily be
discussed in the forums.
3 Presentation By CDSL - Roy Fischer, David Parker and Gary Ainscough:
RF – Explained who CDSL were and their aims.
Spares consistency was discussed and improvements were being seen.
System training was available to CDSL members if requested.
Changes to the call system were to be introduced in the 1st quarter of 2005.
KH – Asked if it were possible to introduce to the call operators a system where the
operator would be able to advise the customer of the repair agents speed of contact.
Currently customers were being told “within 24 hours” and the customer quite often
would then go out almost immediately making contact difficult. If it was the case of a
permanently manned office, the initial call would normally be within two hours, if the
customer was advised of this, initial contact may be improved upon. RF said it could
be looked in to and did not see any major problem with this being implemented.
RF – Presentation in some areas could be improved. Engineer’s appearance had a
role in this improvement.
4 Training:
General discussion regarding training.
TB – Agreed in principal to arrange for regional training and could be combined with
any other company relevant to the white goods industry for two half day training
sessions on the same day to maximise the resources of the training and enabling a
more worthwhile reason to attend.
RF – CDSL are approaching manufacturers to arrange training on products they deal
with.
ID – Asked if it were possible that UKW could approach manufacturers with a view to
obtaining technical information using the buying power of the site, making this
information available on UKW.
DC – Noted that this had been attempted in the past with little success but
suggested that all these types of enquiry could be placed in the forums and would
almost without exception receive a prompt reply from someone with that information
to hand. Members were reminded not to reproduce information from manufacturers
CD’s and DVD’s as this would be in breach of the copyright.
DC- Asked RD if it were possible to reproduce the information available to ISDAL
agents regarding Frigidaire products and be allowed to upload this information to
UKW, this would be restricted to the parts lists and exploded diagrams only, all
wiring diagrams etc would be removed. RD agreed in principal and would reply to DC
letting him know the HI Group decision.
Various manufacturers CD’s and DVD’s were discussed and their merits or downfalls
noted.
WT – EAC would soon be moving to a similar format to Miele, produced by software
developers Infomill. This was almost universally agreed to be the most user friendly
format used.
KW – UKW would continue to encourage manufacturers to combine training days
where possible.
RD – Asked for general opinion on commercial product repair. KH raised the issue of
access to commercial premises, particularly in city centres. In general there were no
other issues raised. DC suggested a general discussion on this matter in the forums.
5 UK Whitegoods Members Charter:
DC – The topic had been fairly well covered in the E Jobs discussion and invited
further comments on the topic. None needed further discussion at this stage.
6 UKW Forums for Corporate Use:
KW – There was the ability for UKW to offer forums for the specific use of any
manufacturer, insurer or WP. This would involve only allowing access to those forums
the specific persons requested. This would enable general information to be passed
to their members, technical updates, or any other purpose that was seen fit by those
requesting this facility be set up for them.
7 UKW as a Limited Company:
KW – explained the reasons the decision had been made to form UK Whitegoods Ltd.
This was done as UKW had started to generate some income via some advertising on
the site and the Amazon and Google “click through” additions. The subscribers were
also contributing towards the income to the site.
KW, DC and KH were the three directors of UKW Ltd.
Shares would be offered to UKW members sometime during 2005 as the directors
had to establish their value.
KH – Explained the shares value had to be determined at a later date as UKW had
been contacted by many people in recent months from various areas of the industry
and outside the industry, much interest had been raised by some national
organisations regarding the exposure of UKW and its position in the whitegoods
industry.
8 Open Forum and Discussion.
It was universally agreed to close the formal meeting and continue discussion over
tea and coffee where the independents and WP’s present could discuss any issues in
a less formal environment.
5 PM Close of Meeting.