The fifty percent rule

By Ian Price, BiKBBI Inspector:

In my experience 50% of kitchen, bathroom or bedroom installation issues originate at the point of sale – I know, I know, controversial! But, my comments are based on experience as an Installation Manager, whilst working for retailers.

We have all seen it, haven’t we? Not enough tiles, the gas meter where the new dishwasher is supposed to go, the sloping ceiling and my personal favourite, the high pressure tap on a low pressure system – classic errors that begin in the showroom. Nevertheless, errors that cost time and money.

So, if 50% of issues are caused at point of sale, the other 50% has to be made up by external influences such as deliveries, stock issues, damages and perhaps the installation.

Now consider this, of the second 50% how much of that can you really influence?

Probably not a great deal and the time and effort taken to eradicate that 50%, given that some of it will be attributed to SLA’s agreed by you with your suppliers, or are systemic of lowered prices and heightened volumes, you may well find yourself not actually having the time and money to renegotiate contracts or refit your showroom.

So, you don’t bother, you just call it “the cost of doing business” and get on with it. But, what about the other 50%?

What if you could positively influence that?

What if, with some fine tuning of process you could take out 10 -15%, then look at the sales formatting and find a further 15-20%?

Before you know it, you up-skill your sales team and give them the confidence and right level of knowledge to engage your customers, leaving them blown away and in awe of the service, accuracy and breadth of knowledge!

Think about much could that save you, in both time and money. Then look at the repeat business off the back of those great sales that are sold with efficiency, confidence and enthusiasm.

It is as important to you as a private enterprise, as it is to all of us as an industry, that we strive to improve where improvements are needed, and go after skills gaps where opportunities exist.

We owe it to ourselves our team members and most importantly to our customer, and if we are honest, I bet we can all see them, we would be kidding ourselves if we said we can’t.

Please take the time to look at your business and step outside of the daily operation. You could even ask a friend or neighbour to do a mystery shop for you, you may be surprised by what you see!

After all, tomorrow will be the same as today, unless you do something differently.