Has anyone got an updated phone number for (Oddy) James Gillett at South West Restos, please?
The contact number on his Facebook page is no longer recognised and I can't seem to find another number for him.
Has anyone got an updated phone number for (Oddy) James Gillett at South West Restos, please?
The contact number on his Facebook page is no longer recognised and I can't seem to find another number for him.
I can't seem to find his other FB page, there are lots of James Gillets on there. I'll try the number in the pm anyway.
I shouldn't worry too much Rob, I am not on FB either and have no desire to be. I think it has killed off Forums like this just like cheap Supermarket Beer did to the Pubs way before this Plauge to hold. I am having to resort to reading threads over 10 years old on here now due to lack of new posts.
i dont do much on facebook, sadly its become a business necessity, i do have clients that only ever communicate via FB, and plenty that i got only through FB, its a double edged sword though, one keyboard warrier and you could be in trouble, its also too easy for people to fire off messages asking for quotes for work you will never get, there isnt a magic price list that i can just look up a cambelt price on any vehicle, i have to look up job times, ring round for prices do an estimate and post back the reply, the vast majority of the time nothing comes of it, thats another 15mins i could of been doing something useful wasted. if try and save time and short cut the process and give a rough estimate youd be amazed how often the answer comes back, "ok, so and so garage is £10 cheaper!" and i never hear from them again, id lay odds the other garage wont of been, either they wont of done as much for the money or when the customer collected there were a load of " extras" on the bill.
So true, I work as a work shop manager at a Scania garage her i Norway, an there is customers an truckdrivers who ask about a problem or want an appointment on Messenger. I even had this on Snap Chat! What happened to lift off the phone.... Facebook is absolutely nothing compared to a forum either....
Hehe, try Audi or VW, they really blow your hat of. It is actually cheap to fix a Scania, a diff for a Opel Mocca is 10000 pounds, Scania starts at 4400 for the tandem one. And you hopefully make some money on the truck.
And this leads to my problem as a customer.
If there's one thing I hate, its messers, so any enquiry I make is genuine and likely to convert into business, but half hearted responses (likely due to the business fed up with timewaster enquiries) put me off and I go elsewhere.
But, like a conversation on another thread, there are companies that don't advertise, and have no online presence, yet are always overwhelmed with work!
i dont advertise any more, my ethos being instead of constantly looking for new customers, just look after the ones you already have, if you do that you will get more anyway.
for a while i was one a website where potential customers could search for quotes, it was complete waste of time, i spent hours pricing work, most of the time people were just using me to price check other garages, or they were asking me to price stuff with far to little detail or something your couldn't possible price without actually having the car there.
i answer as many enquiries as i reasonably can, but if someone is serious they will usually pick the phone up!
You are in the fortunate position of having bricks and mortar, despite the overheads that brings.
For tradesmen such as plumbers, builders etc, especially those just starting out, it can be very tough.
I went through sites like Rated People and My Builder to try and obtain quotes for a garage build (since none of the 20+ physical companies I contacted for quotes actually turned up). I had no idea at the time that every tradesmen I entered into communication with was charged £15 by the website just for the lead.
This is quite common and they are charged whether you go ahead or not.
You can imagine someone with a crappy £150 job trying to get quotes from 10+ tradesmen through those websites and not realising every one of them gets charged the fee just for responding to you.
Obviously once tradesmen build up a regular customer base they leave those websites, but probably have little choice but to return when work dries up during recessions, Covid etc
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