Im having some issues with national companies wanting us to do some rather shady work. I really don't care if their signs are crap and stay that way, but the problem I have is we are in a rather small community and word of mouth is our best source of marketing. We recently did a repair on a set of channel letters for a national company on a nationally recognized chain store. These channel letters are shot, the faces are cracking, not sealing whatsoever and they keep burning up transformers due to water, bird nests, squirrel nests, etc.
Some say so what it's job security, but when we have to keep returning to the store to fix something for a second and third time we are the ones who look like idiots. We try to explain it to the store manager but they don't have a clue what we are explaining, all they know and say to others is this company has been out here 3 times to fix the same problem. This makes my company look bad. I don't want to turn down the work since they do pay for it every time we fix it, but how can we get them to let us fix it the right way.
This is how we deal with it. And it works.
We are licensed MASTER electricians in western PA. We document the problems with photos and forward them in an e-mail.
( For documentation)
We site the NEC code violations and we make them aware that is our legal responsability to disconect the primary power if they dont fix it. They must pick one
We always get the approval
If the chanel letters were UL with the faces fastened. Then the weather tight enclosure is not weather tight when the faces are loose and falling off.
Besides that loose faces are a public safety issue as well
BMW650
Is this a persistent problem with one national vendor or multiple that you supply your services to? Obviously, you always want to value your revenue stream against your "brand liability"...here's an approach. Not sure what type of equipment you use for service...but how about getting authorization/notify (depends on if you want to push back).. FROM your vendor to brand your truck(s) to represent "them" when you are on site...great marketing for them...(since you work in a small community I doubt if having their name out there occassionally would attract any new business for them)...reduces the dreaded "grapevine" that persists in any business environment...AND...it is a cheap fix...mags/sintra...whatever...
Just my thoughts...
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