Recently I carried out a poll to ask readers what they thought was the biggest problem facing the window and door industry right now. I provided six answers, or rather six problems that I believed to be the most pressing issues at this very moment for our sector.
Well, after a few weeks of voting, these are the results. Perhaps one or two results we weren’t expecting.
Poll and results
I asked this question to readers: What is the biggest problem to face the industry right now?
These are the six problems and the percentages each polled via your votes:
Admittedly, there was only one percent between rogue customers and poor customer service, although these two were the most voted answers. However, it is rogue customers that most voters believed was the biggest problem facing our industry right now.
Personally, I am not all that shocked to see this problem come top of the pile. I have written recently that this is perhaps the least protected our industry’s businesses have been, at least since I have worked in this sector. In the 12 years I have worked in windows and doors, I have seen home owners gradually become more and more expectant, with an over-inflated sense of entitlement, and an increasingly unrealistic expectations of what is right and what is not. The internet has given them access better than ever before to our industry, it’s products and detailed information about them. Which is fine, but I also believe it has given a certain percentage of them what they see as a stick to beat us with.
At our place, I have seen year-on-year increases of totally erratic, unreasonable behaviour from customers, either with the aim to unfairly demand money off their invoices, or to be difficult for the sake of being difficult. My frustration is that there is very little in the way of back up for installers and fabricators when they come up against rogue customers.
Following in a close second, poor customer service was voted the second biggest problem by our industry, by just one percent. I thought that this might have come out on top, given the swathe of issues fabrication has right now. But it was a close second, and it most certainly does remain a massive problem that our sector has to get on top of right away. I have never seen such discontent from the installer community, communicated publicly and privately, than I have right now. The window and door industry is under massive strain right now, and there should be no doubt that it is having a large, adverse effect on customer service levels between all facets of the supply chain.
Less concern for price increases
Just 13 % voted to say that price increases were the industry’s biggest problem right now. Prices have been on a fairly steady incline for a good year now, across all parts of the industry. Of course installers do end up with watered down increases, with fabricators and syscos getting hit the most.
That being said, price increases came fifth out of six options on this poll, and demonstrates that things like rogue home owners and poor customer service levels are more pressing issues to resolve at this time. And I understand that. For installers, price increases doesn’t always mean home owners will stop spending on big ticket items like windows and doors. So long as consumer confidence remains solid, relatively small increases won’t put people off. However, rogue customers and poor customer service from suppliers does have an immediate and stinging impact.
For me, this does actually demonstrate a degree of confidence within our industry that it has the ability to cope with price increases. No one likes a price increase, that’s natural. But because of how the votes went in this poll, I am confident that our industry can ride out this phase of price increases in a calm and measured manner.
However, our industry is in flux right now, crisis even, as it battles a number of fundamental problems. Poor customer service, lax quality control, understaffed companies and a market flooded with perhaps far too much choice has created a plethora of stresses for companies across the supply chain.
At next week’s FIT Show, I don’t want to see the “game” changed. We don’t need something new and supposedly revolutionary. What I want to see are measures and plans being put in place and demonstrated to installers to show them that their concerns are being taken seriously and that improvements are coming.
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Jason, in my time at Ultraframe and as Scheme Manager for the Ultra Installer programme, I dealt with many consumers with issues around specification/installation. With very few exceptions, the issues were always around expectations – the consumer thought they were getting something done to a certain standard/spec but this didnt happen. Most of the fault lies with communication and explanation – sometimes there is too much jargon and we ‘assume’ the consumer understands what the retailer is telling them. And sometimes there is the consumer who knows more than the salesperson……and sometimes sales people just ‘wing it’ and get caught… Read more »
One further point that needs making with regard bad customers is in the commercial market . While home improvement non-payers can be a pain in the backside , a decent size commercial contract that meets up with an intransigent main contractor can see you closing your doors for good, and that’s not just in the fenestration sector.
Domestically though, it doesn’t help when nearly every installation company in the country is factually misleading the its customers , but I realise you are sensitive to my rants on that topic at the moment .