Hi again folks,
I totally agree with what you are all saying. Now its a matter of profit over customer satisfaction. Having said that I am sure that experience has a lot to do with speed and service you get now a days.
I use to do about 3 of 4 jobs a day but remember that my area was the whole of Scotland. I had to try and fit all the west coast faults in one day then maybe all the north area ones another day. It did not always work out all the time as hospitals always had to get priority. Although I worked on a large range of products costing between a couple of thousand up to a quarter of a million,I am sure I probably had a success rate over 90% first visits repairs. I made a point of knowing my products and had repaired enough to be pretty sure what the fault would be before I arrived. Customers always want to see engineers that look confident doing the job. Once in a while you would get the odd fault but I would be in the area of the problem.
I would never turn up at a job and say sorry I couldn't try and repair a unit with an intermittent because it happened to work when I arrived there. Do engineers think that customers just phone up for help cause they have nothing better to do.....of course not.....they are phoning because they need help. Its always better to LISTEN to what the customer is saying and try and fix it on the visit, not swap something in the hope that with a bit of luck that might fix it.
I often had to travel 100 miles to do a job. THe company charged £60/hr labour, the same price for time traveling to and from a job and a cost per mile. We didnt come cheap but I seldom had to leave a job unfinished. I loaded my spares van everyday personally to cover all eventualities and worked out most of the faults in my head enroute. I dont think I was any different from any other dedicated engineer where customer service ALWAYS came first.
I had expected to be treated the same now.
JOck.
I totally agree with what you are all saying. Now its a matter of profit over customer satisfaction. Having said that I am sure that experience has a lot to do with speed and service you get now a days.
I use to do about 3 of 4 jobs a day but remember that my area was the whole of Scotland. I had to try and fit all the west coast faults in one day then maybe all the north area ones another day. It did not always work out all the time as hospitals always had to get priority. Although I worked on a large range of products costing between a couple of thousand up to a quarter of a million,I am sure I probably had a success rate over 90% first visits repairs. I made a point of knowing my products and had repaired enough to be pretty sure what the fault would be before I arrived. Customers always want to see engineers that look confident doing the job. Once in a while you would get the odd fault but I would be in the area of the problem.
I would never turn up at a job and say sorry I couldn't try and repair a unit with an intermittent because it happened to work when I arrived there. Do engineers think that customers just phone up for help cause they have nothing better to do.....of course not.....they are phoning because they need help. Its always better to LISTEN to what the customer is saying and try and fix it on the visit, not swap something in the hope that with a bit of luck that might fix it.
I often had to travel 100 miles to do a job. THe company charged £60/hr labour, the same price for time traveling to and from a job and a cost per mile. We didnt come cheap but I seldom had to leave a job unfinished. I loaded my spares van everyday personally to cover all eventualities and worked out most of the faults in my head enroute. I dont think I was any different from any other dedicated engineer where customer service ALWAYS came first.
I had expected to be treated the same now.
JOck.
