hearthlist Digest #48 - Thursday, November 6, 1997
(back) Subject: Home Depo & Quality control From: Craig Issod <[email protected]> Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 21:15:01 -0400 Two items of interest: First, I'd like to announce that Martha, my spouse of 25 years, won a seat on our local town council. It's her first foray into politics, and she was quite busy shaking hands, attnding debates and putting up signs. It all paid off with the biggest upset in Medford History....she received more votes than ANY of the 6 candidates (for 3 seats)... in a town that is 2/3 republican (and she ran Dem)... It's a historical event for many reasons...she's one of the first women ever on council, one of a few Democrats and the first person EVER of jewish heritage to hold the title. Congrats to Martha! Home Depot had Englander (Oh no!) My dad stopped into Home Depot to buy some of their millivolt thermostats ($7.95 each) and took a look at their new hearth displays. The Englander stove is there in force - wood, gas and pellet models. He came back after the visit and said " These were the ugliest stoves I've ever seen, worse than those steel boxes you sold 18 years ago!" It's good to know that Home Depot is so progressive in Hearth products. Manufacturer Warranties - Gas Products The explosion in gas sales has brought a large increase in the amount of service work and warranty claims in our store. I can't help but think that many manufacturers are a bit slack in their quality control. Some fireplaces and stoves do not light the first time out, and need an entire new gas valve or other major componet. It would seem that this type of a failure rate would be impossible if any company did a reasonable amount of testing on the assembly line. These callbacks result in a large expense for our store and poor customer relations.... for example, a typical scenario: 1. Customer calls and says they had unit installed by their contractor and unit does not light. 2. We try to diagnose over the phone for 15 minutes, implying that the contractor should know what they are doing. Homeowner informs us that contractor has already spent an hour trying. 3. We drive 45 minutes to job after procuring certain parts (thermocouple,etc)...only to find out the entire valve is bad from the start. 4. We order the valve, wait a week, and return to install it and make the unit work 5. We then spend a few weeks waiting for a payment which does not nearly cover our time and trouble. This does not allow for the fact that the customer...and us (as a customer of the vendor) are unhappy.... It seems like such a no-brainer...why don't companies spend a little more time at the factory making certain these things work. I can easily understand a 2 or 3% failure rate, even after testing. But it seems stange for products not to work right out of the box. Could it be that it's actually cheaper for a manufacturer to skip the quality control and deal with each case on a one-by-one basis - with a "limited liability (that means making the retailer and customer eat $$) policy? If they take a shortsighted view, this is probably correct. But sooner or later the market will react. To be fair, most companies we deal with seem to have improved this reliabilty. Vermont Castings Stoves seem to almost always work the first time. Same with Heat N Glo and others... Customers expect a lot. If you buy an Andersen Window and have a latch problem, a factory rep will be right out. I had a chip in our whirlpool tub, and a repair guy came right out and fixed it. Buy a hearth product that doesn't work and you get: You have bad gas pressure... It's the installers fault Return it to the factory We don't pay travel We expect our dealers to incur that expense We only pay "x" etc. Hearth industry manufacturers should build more customer service dollars into their cost-of-product calculations. This type of high quality service will MORE than pay for itself in referall business. ------------------------------------------------------ Craig Issod HearthNet at http://www.hearth.com [email protected] Everything your Hearth Desires ------------------------------------------------------ Buddha says "avoid error" ------------------------------------------------------