What I want for Xmas......

[Davo]

A fire alarm company that can service and repair other companies' sytems without screwing up

Company B is now servicing all our stuff and we are having to get Company A back to unscrew their stuff 

davo
HoS

[Graeme]

see this all the time when a big organisation who used to use all local firms went down the route of all buildings,one company.

The guys who loose out know the systems inside out and more often than not get called back to help as it's not as simple as everyone outsdide the trade think. There are loads of different panels in use and fire alarm engineers can't be familiar with them all,especially closed protocol.

Local councils are going down that route of one company and it will end in a total shambles as anyone from wherever can tender and thy will just sub it out to someone in the area if they win the contract.

[Big_Fella]

With so many manufacturers of systems now, large organisations are insisting on a particular manufacturer for all future installations and upgrades to overcome this problem.

I know it doesn't solve the problem in the meantime, but something worth considering for the future.

(Davo - Wheres your tender document to allow me to tender for the maintenance  )

[The Reiver]

I once had a scenario similar to Graemes' post.
After losing the contract to a national outfit, I was then inundated with calls from said former client asking for help as his new service vendor couldn't do the work.
I was even expected (via mobile) to talk an engineer from the new vendor through a service on a fixed fire suppression system, as the engineer "hadn't seen one of these before". At which I laughed hysterically and hung up.

I then penned a quick E-mail back to former client entitled:

As ye have sown so shall ye reap.(it was "Harvest Festival" time of year)

and wrote him a brief ditty

"We plough the fields and scatter
The good seed in the bin.
We buy the cheapest chaff in
Expecting we shall win.

When it all goes wrong and the rot sets in
And our harvest falls to bits
We'll blame everyone else but ourselves
For we're self righteous g**s"

The guy never bothered me again............wonder why ?? 

Not saying this is Davos' (or his employers') problem, just wanted an excuse to post one of my better e-mail responses.

[Thomas Brookes]

I have had those sort of phone calls a few times, the last one was at 1am from a pub we used to service before a big pub chain took it over.

I politely told them they need to get their new supplier out, and they said they dont come out after midnight, So I told them that I could have been there in ten mins if they were one of our contracted customers but seening as they were not I was staying in bed.