When materials go faulty after install

[n180]

Here's a typical scenario. Not sure what I should be doing or what I'm doing wrong.

Lets say your installing 10 battens with tubelights for a customer. You do the job and customer wants you to supply all parts including the battens and tubes.

You go and buy the lights from your supplier. You complete the job. You tell customer the lights come with 3 years manufacturers warranty. Jobs a good un, you invoice customer, they pay on time and it's all over.

6 months later they ring you and say one of the lights is not working. You go down to investigate, and it's a faulty light. "Well", says the customer, "that's ok, they have 3 years warranty. Just pop down to your supplier and get a new one for us and replace it thankyou."

The customer does NOT expect to pay anything more becasue as far as they are concerned you supplied the light to them, you fitted it, the light had 3 years warranty, so now that it's gone faulty, it's your duty to replace it free of charge.

But's obvioulsy that's a waste of day for nothing. So how to overcome?

1: Keep customer happy and replace everything for free becasue the parts were still under warranty?

2.Lose customer becasue you tell them you are going to charge them?

What's the best way around this sort of problem, to keep customer happy, and not make a loss yourself?

 

[Leesparkykent]

Put a markup on the price to allow for such an event .

 

[Marvo]

It's just the nature of business. As Leesparkyessex says you should be charging a markup on materials supplied and this hedges future expenses due to failure.

When you supply an item to a customer you've added value to that item in several ways. Firstly you're accepting future costs involved if there's a warranty claim, secondly you're supplying the correct item to the customers door and thirdly you're carrying the cost of the item and it's collection and delivery until the customer makes payment.

I'm not sure what they consider a fair markup in the UK, from previous discussions on the forum I got the impression it's quite low. Where I am we generally mark up larger items of substantial cost by around 30-40%, sundries we often mark up over 100% above the price we pay and items we manufacture in-house such as stainless steel enclosures we mark up by around 200% of our manufacturing cost.

It might sound high but these markups are mostly, if not completely, offset by the discount we get from our suppliers which range from 25% to 55% depending on the item so the price we're charging the customer is actually roughly what the customer would get quoted if he sourced the item himself from the supplier.

 

[marc8]

Hi n180
state in your terms & conditions a warranty period for all items supplied & fitted (we offer 12 months), this does not affect manufacturers warranty but does allow after the 12 months for you to charge labour for the replacement of the unit.
also worth stating in terms & conditions your hourly charge & any call out charges.
also send the terms & conditions with your quote & ask customer to sign & agree to your quotation if they do not sign & return have something written in the T&C's that if work is started then they have automatically accepted your T&C's.
as for mark up it is what you feel is right for your company & as above 30/40% is very nice sometimes depending on the job this may or may not be possible.
just one other point when replacing a unit with a new unit the warranty does not start again it only runs the same amount of time as the replaced unit so 8 months in you would only be expected to honour 4 months on the replacement fitting.

 

[richy3333]

Have to agree withMarc8. Having T&Cs goes a long way to avoiding such issues.

 

[The Ghost]

...replacement under guarantee covers parts only not labour... blah blah blah sound familiar?

 

[Octopus]

And very importantly, if the customer supplies the parts, and they go wrong, it's down to them to pay you to fit the replacement which they have sourced

 

[Specialist]

I'd also put in a clause that says quite specifically: Faults caused by 3rd party (Unauthorised) Damage or Tampering & External influences beyond your control, will automatically void the guarantee.

 

[n180]

Thanks guys, some very good ideas and options for me to think about there.

 

[Toneyz]

Assuming its not workmanship to blame , no lamp/tube manufacturer can give guarantee will only give average life span so don't give guarantee on consumable items like this replace these at your discretion & convenience. As for the fitting we install a lot of fitting in schools from major brands that have been specified ,now one of these emergency exit fitting we fitted has gone faulty as it was dispatched over a year ago but falls within the guarantee year from the electrical contractor we work for they have got to replace fitting and reinstall at their cost. The last school we have done we installed £60,000 worth of fittings with LED dimming smart system etc. but they will only give a year against their products.