UK in recession but no one wants my business.

Dr House

Dr House

Dr House

Soldato
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
13,469
Location
London
I am not surprised that companies are struggling when they do not seem to even bother follow up potential clients.

I asked these guys to quote me for around 40k worth of glazing,
www.bespokeglazingsystems.co.uk

I arranged for the guy to came over to our house, once he simply did not show up, I called back so we rebooked for a few days later, but he cancelled, he then finally came after rescheduling again but turned up a few hours late.
Since then I have chased him 5 or 6 times for a quote but he has not bothered to get back to me.



I asked for a quote for 6000 sq Ft of under floor heating with some other parts. That is probably about 3 times the size of a normal domestic order, I sent them all the information on the 31st May and still nothing.
www.ufhtradedirect.co.uk


I agreed with lighting consultant he would come and look around my flat and plan a lighting scheme. For that he will charge me 1100 pounds plus VAT. He would also sell me 7500 worth of light fitting with a 10% margin on them. Again he has not bothered to follow up with me.

I would have thought at times like this people would bend over backwards for any business they can get.
 
Have had the same experience this week of a garage not bothering to get back to me with a quote for a full service despite asking twice and a plumber seemingly not interested in doing some work for me either.
 
can you imagine what happens when something goes wrong and you want to get in contact with them? be glad and go elsewhere that actually cares about custom
 
Recessions are meant to rid us of these types of companies as people realise they need to up their service.
 
When buying my new car I called 9 dealerships and told them exactly what I was looking for, which options and told them I was looking to buy within the next 3 days. All took my details, 2 called me back.
 
Skilled people are and will always be in demand.

I had an entire house to plumb up and I contacted 6 recommended companies. Only 2 turned up to quote and one of them was 100% more expensive than the other which I thought was expensive anyway.

I needed a full wiring of the house. I contacted 4 electricians which included one who was going out my neighbour so was there everynight. I finally managed to get the neighbour's bf to come to quote but never got his quote. Ended up getting a firm we used at work who lived an hour away to come but at least he came within 3 days and quoted me and did a good job.

Recession? What recession? My boss is the same, he;s struggling to find anybody to do building work for him as well. Same at our workplace. Turnover up another 24% for the 2nd year running and we have more employees than ever.
 
Plasterers are apparently the worst to arrange, due to their business booming too. A friend of mine phoned what appeared to be all of the local plasterers from Yellow Pages and it took weeks for one to finally show up :p

As for painting/decorating, I have a friend who does mine, and he even fitted a new bathroom for me. Friend-of-friend (at least) has gotta be the way forwards if they're in short supply.
 
I've had a plumber come around, do an hours work (re-routed a gas pipe) then leave with the view of returning a few days later to install the gas fire and simply become uncontactable as though he had left the planet!

Well at least I had a portion of the work done for free :p
 
Snap been trying to get a plasterer for over a week no one wanted my money ended up living with the artex for now and banking the grand I would have spent
 
You've got to remember what these guys do, often they'll have builders/developers they work for, they have prefered clients who throw them business all year round for years on end.

The thing is, while your toilet that needs fixing is easy and needs nothing else to get done, the housing project he's working on won't be able to say the plumbing is ready to do on say the 8th of the month, will take 3 days, but he can come anytime.

Big building setups can lose thousands a day if they get held up, so having a plumber on site the SECOND plumbing is ready to be done so that the next thing after plumbing can also get started the second he's done saves a bundle.

Your hour of work for £150 isn't worth a developer getting angry at waiting and losing 100k over several years of work.


Thats why its ruddy hard to get people in for small jobs or even a quote. Have big work done, have a guy arranging it and he'll have his own team of guys or contacts who value his business and will be available exactly when needed. Tiny jobs that take longer to look at than do, fix a float in the toilet are easy to get done, emergency stuff like leaks are easy to get done, as emergency guys get paid so much for callouts they tend to stick to that, its everything in between, jobs that would take an hour to a week that are insanely hard to get real quotes and reliable guys for.
 
drunkenmaster said:
You've got to remember what these guys do, often they'll have builders/developers they work for, they have prefered clients who throw them business all year round for years on end.

The thing is, while your toilet that needs fixing is easy and needs nothing else to get done, the housing project he's working on won't be able to say the plumbing is ready to do on say the 8th of the month, will take 3 days, but he can come anytime.

Big building setups can lose thousands a day if they get held up, so having a plumber on site the SECOND plumbing is ready to be done so that the next thing after plumbing can also get started the second he's done saves a bundle.

Your hour of work for £150 isn't worth a developer getting angry at waiting and losing 100k over several years of work.


Thats why its ruddy hard to get people in for small jobs or even a quote. Have big work done, have a guy arranging it and he'll have his own team of guys or contacts who value his business and will be available exactly when needed. Tiny jobs that take longer to look at than do, fix a float in the toilet are easy to get done, emergency stuff like leaks are easy to get done, as emergency guys get paid so much for callouts they tend to stick to that, its everything in between, jobs that would take an hour to a week that are insanely hard to get real quotes and reliable guys for.
Click to expand...

spot on.
 
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