snowball fights in hell

eastcoastbernie

eastcoastbernie

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1,231
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Me: Cambs Boat: SYH Levington
www.ritzystitches.com
Well, several weeks ago I took my outboard engine to Seamark Nunn for a service.

I handed it over and was told the service would be around £100 plus parts plus anything they found wrong with it. I hestitated, thinking the price was a bit steep, bearing in mind the engine is probably worth £100 tops and I hardly ever use it.

The bloke said, 'would you like us to give it a look over first and let you know the cost before we do anything?' I thought that would be helpful and agreed to leave my outboard with them and wait for them to phone me with the cost.

After a few days, they phoned me with a quote of £150. I said I thought that was more than I wanted to pay and not to do anything with it. I remembered that many years ago, Seamark Nunn had quoted me for a job and when I went back to pay for it, I was told it had taken longer than they had estimated and they charged me 50% more than their original quote. I was worried that the £150 might escalate into £200 or more by the time I came to pick it up.

So I then posted on the forum for suggestions, and decided to collect my outboard from Seamark Nunn and make other plans.

Easter Saturday I went to collect my outboard. The bloke played with his computer as I asked for my engine and then said 'It took half an hour for us to assess your engine, so that will be £24.00'.

I had no alternative but to pay up but feel totally ripped off. When I quote/advise/assess in my business it's all done for free. I suppose that's why I shall never be a rich woman.

But there will be snowball fights in hell before I go to Seamark Nunn again.
 
eastcoastbernie said:
I had no alternative but to pay up but feel totally ripped off. When I quote/advise/assess in my business it's all done for free.
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Hi Bernie,
I know what you mean, I have my own business and we always quote/assess/prototype at our own cost.
eastcoastbernie said:
I suppose that's why I shall never be a rich woman.

But there will be snowball fights in hell before I go to Seamark Nunn again.
Click to expand...
Maybe not (rich financially) but you have the knowlege that people like working with you, and I'm not likely to go to Seamark Nunn based on your experience either - so they're not exactly helping themselves ...
 
I have been quoted an assessment fee for things which is then part of the cost of the service. In some ways this is fair - say you knew it needed some attention but weren't sure what was wrong then you take it to Seamark and they have a look and tell you what needs fixing and you take it away and do it yourself. A free diagnosis - great for you but they could keep very busy doing that and get no income. So a better way is for them to say it's £24 to assess it and if you have the work done then that's part of the £150 service cost. Not telling you first was wrong - so fair complaint.

Quoting for work you might do is one thing but doing work for nothing is quite another thing.

Sorry to be so reasonable Bernie :) X
 
I run my own printer repair business and do onsite visits and inspections and quotes for free with no obligation to have any further work done and no commitment to a contract with my company.

I think seamark will be one to avoid in the future for me too !

Thanks for letting us know
 
eastcoastbernie said:
Well, several weeks ago I took my outboard engine to Seamark Nunn for a service.

I handed it over and was told the service would be around £100 plus parts plus anything they found wrong with it. I hestitated, thinking the price was a bit steep, bearing in mind the engine is probably worth £100 tops and I hardly ever use it.

The bloke said, 'would you like us to give it a look over first and let you know the cost before we do anything?' I thought that would be helpful and agreed to leave my outboard with them and wait for them to phone me with the cost.

After a few days, they phoned me with a quote of £150. I said I thought that was more than I wanted to pay and not to do anything with it. I remembered that many years ago, Seamark Nunn had quoted me for a job and when I went back to pay for it, I was told it had taken longer than they had estimated and they charged me 50% more than their original quote. I was worried that the £150 might escalate into £200 or more by the time I came to pick it up.

So I then posted on the forum for suggestions, and decided to collect my outboard from Seamark Nunn and make other plans.

Easter Saturday I went to collect my outboard. The bloke played with his computer as I asked for my engine and then said 'It took half an hour for us to assess your engine, so that will be £24.00'.

I had no alternative but to pay up but feel totally ripped off. When I quote/advise/assess in my business it's all done for free. I suppose that's why I shall never be a rich woman.

But there will be snowball fights in hell before I go to Seamark Nunn again.
Click to expand...

Andrew Nunn posted on here relating to a HH radio problem, lets hope he sees this ;)
 
MoodySabre said:
I have been quoted an assessment fee for things which is then part of the cost of the service. In some ways this is fair - say you knew it needed some attention but weren't sure what was wrong then you take it to Seamark and they have a look and tell you what needs fixing and you take it away and do it yourself.
Click to expand...
Yes, but cost free estimation is the way lots of businesses work. Whenever I get a sparky round to my house to quote, I always get them to explain to me how they propose to do it, and am never charged for so doing. Ditto when I make a proposal for one of our systems at work - the client expects a full requirements analysis and then a quote to cover work, not the cost of doing the proposal itself (and an estimate of charges is what Bernie asked for)...
 
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MoodySabre said:
I have been quoted an assessment fee for things which is then part of the cost of the service. In some ways this is fair - say you knew it needed some attention but weren't sure what was wrong then you take it to Seamark and they have a look and tell you what needs fixing and you take it away and do it yourself. A free diagnosis - great for you but they could keep very busy doing that and get no income. So a better way is for them to say it's £24 to assess it and if you have the work done then that's part of the £150 service cost. Not telling you first was wrong - so fair complaint.

Quoting for work you might do is one thing but doing work for nothing is quite another thing.

Sorry to be so reasonable Bernie :) X
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Quite agree Roger. If I had said 'There is something wrong with my outboard motor, please put it through its paces and then tell me what is wrong with it so I can mend it myself or give it to someone else to fix' I would have expected to pay a fee.

As it was, I said 'Please service my outboard motor'. When they quoted, it was in the form of £100 for a service, plus £20 for an anode (if it needs one), plus £3.00 for an impellor (if it needs one) plus anything else they thought needed doing. I was on the point of asking for my outboard motor back, when I was asked if I would like them to have a look at it in their workshop and come back to me with a quote. I was under the impression that they were going to give it a quick once over in the workshop, see if it needed anything extra to the service and let me know. I think from my general demeaner - having said I didn't think the engine was worth more than 100 quid - they would have anticipated that if they wanted more than £100 for the service, I would be walking away.

Furthermore, had the bloke said 'We can assess it for you before we do any work, but you should be aware that we will charge £48 an hour for our engineer to carry out such an assessment' I would definitely have walked.

Maybe I am oversensitive, but maybe you are looking at it from an accountant's point of view. If you are a professional - an accountant, solicitor, etc. the only thing you have to sell is your expertise, so whenever you spend time on behalf of a client you charge for it.

The rest of us work differently. Perhaps you would be surprised to know how much of my time I spend measuring, advising, quoting, showing samples, etc. It's not unusual for someone to spend an hour in my unit trying on various items. Sometimes they walk away without buying anything. Sometimes they buy something of very low value. I can't charge them for the time I've spent on them.
 
Furthermore, had the bloke said 'We can assess it for you before we do any work, but you should be aware that we will charge £48 an hour for our engineer to carry out such an assessment' I would definitely have walked.
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Accepted.

I have spent many many hours talking with prospective and active clients without charge. It wasn't all gravy!
 
eastcoastbernie said:
Maybe I am oversensitive, but maybe you are looking at it from an accountant's point of view. If you are a professional - an accountant, solicitor, etc. the only thing you have to sell is your expertise, so whenever you spend time on behalf of a client you charge for it.
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As someone who is a partner in their own accountancy practice, I would say it is standard procedure for us to review a clients requirements and quote in advance at our own cost. We realise that doing so is how you get clients. No-one would come to us if we said an initial consultation would cost £x. Similarly, if an existing client wants to speak about expanding the services they use, we would discuss this for free.

You were a potential client of Seamark Nunn and, as such, you would have hoped they would have dealt with you similarly.

In addition, a charge out rate of £48 per hour equates to around £100k a year, which the engineer is not going to see much more that a quarter to a third of so the actual cost for half an hour of his/her time is only £6-£8. The point here is that quoting for jobs is part of time you write off in the hope that the actual job comes in and you can recover the cost in that and future work for the client/customer.

(Can't believe someone out there is getting worse press than accountants! :eek:)
 
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wingdiver said:
As someone who is a partner in their own accountancy practice
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Bit late coming out aren't you - thought the coast was clear......:D

(Can't believe someone out there is getting worse press than accountants! :eek:)
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The good thing about solicitors is that they take more flak and make accountants fees look cheap (well, reasonable).:)
 
Outboard servicing

Quite important for users of forums to recognise that whilst they can be a very useful tool and a fantastic source of information, they do only show that person’s view, whether it is correct, incomplete or in-accurate. With reference to this posting, some companies do not offer free estimates, maybe because they involve real costs over the clerical side of the quote, but yes, the company should ensure that every customer is aware of their policy. This may or may not have happened in this case, not possible to know for sure, but maybe also the customer should ask if this cost is not mentioned or indeed overlooked. This would certainly have sorted this issue and allowed the customer to walk, a lot earlier on. Some good later postings about how to avoid this happening again, but really not sure about the quick-maths having any relation to the costing of a workshop in the marine world.
 
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