On my way home in the car this evening I rang a friend of mine in the industry to have a catch up on various bits and bobs. However it ended up me moaning about various issues that we have ongoing. He knows who he is, so if you’re reading this, sorry for the negativity!

I did say to him that being an installer is very hard work at the moment. Home owners are becoming ever more difficult. Diversification has led to so much choice we don’t really fully understand each product range we do. And it was then he asked me if I thought installers were trying to do too much. On reflection, yes, some installers might be doing too much when it comes to their product offerings.

Endless product choice

12 years ago when I started at our family run installations business, the main choices were pretty straightforward. Windows and doors came in White, Light Oak and Rosewood. Windows were windows and you sold them on their security features, reinforcing and a little bit on the design too. Doors were either molded panel doors or what we call PVCu engineered doors which are doors made from midrails and mullions with glass and panels glazed into them like a window. Conservatories had the same colour options and the roof was either polycarbonate or glass. These were simpler times.

Pricing was a doddle back then. Product permutations were limited and you could be confident that the price you worked out was right and the home owner and yourself were 100% clear on what was being quoted now.

Fast forward back to today and the choice available in just windows and doors is mind blowing. Colour, wood grains, flush sashes, timber alternative PVCu, vertical sliders, aluminium, spraying, composite doors. The same goes for the glazed extension market. The amount of products and options within those products now available is staggering. The end result for us at the moment is quoting has become infinitely more complicated and risky as home owners request quotes for large projects in a wide variety of options. This then delays us getting our quotes to customers because it simply takes up much more of our time.

Then when we do send our quotes out, there are that many variations and optional extras that I wonder if home owners will actually understand fully what they’re potentially buying. Of course it’s not the home owner’s fault for wanting options. If you’re going to spend £10k+ on new windows and doors you’re going to want to know your options. It just happens to be there are tons of them now.

It is our fault as an industry however. In the rush to be different to their competitors, fabricators and systems companies have flooded the market with a seemingly endless conveyor belt of new products.

As an installer, this poses a problem.

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What to choose to sell?

With a market full of products, how does an installer choose what to sell to their home owners? The difficulty is as an installer is that you worry if you don’t provide a product, your competitors will and you could lose sales and market share. So you decide to do pretty much everything to cover all bases and hopefully pick up those niche sales along the way.

The end result of this however is total information overload to the point where installers perhaps don’t really know everything about what they’re selling. Which is dangerous considering that installer may be quoting for a very large prestigious contract. I’ll admit that at our place we have quickly expanded our product offering in the past couple of years, and it’s mind blowing. I can also say that we probably don’t know as much as we should about each of the product ranges we now offer. Not ideal. But a mix of high lead levels, reduced time during the day and a plethora of products has led to us crossing bridges when we get to them and relying on our suppliers to be on hand to help.

Not so long ago I did write that installers should be pretty much selling anything and everything, and in my heart of hearts I still believe this to be the case. If you as an installer doesn’t, another company will and you will risk losing market share and sales. No one can afford to be losing business at this moment. So how do we get round this?

Better fabricator/installer communications

To help installers cope with the sheer overload of product options out there, I think fabricators need to dedicate more time, staff and departments to helping their installers successfully sell their products.

I have seen products launched without the marketing and technical specs to go with it. That’s no help to an installer who is being asked to sell that product with nothing to back it up on paper at their end. When products go to market they need to have a full suite of marketing literature and technical guides on product and installation so that the installer can feel confident about selling and fitting the product.

It’s probably time to reassess the relationship between fabricators and installers in the industry. The products have changed, but I feel like the relationship between supplier and installer needs a revamp now. I’m not sure what form this should take, but things like more regular visits by sales reps, more training courses, fully equipped online resources for information and FAQs, rapid social media channels could all help create a better bridge of support and information between fabricator and installer.

So if we ask if installers are doing too much, I would probably say yes, but that this is the new norm. Product choices are here to stay. Fabricators need to think of better ways to equip installers to be ready, and installers need to evolve quickly to be able to confidently provide all their product options.

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