The Merits of Professional Cabinet Makers Vis-a-Vis Carpenters (8)
After Sales Service No Comments »To recap on the merits of the bespoke cabinet making company vis-a-vis a carpenter:
Carpenter: Price; an independent tradesman, with low overheads, should always be cheaper than a fitted furniture company.
Bespoke Fitted Furniture Company: Design Service, Product Quality, Showroom Facility, Guarantee, Testimonials, Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Project Management. That’s seven good reasons for spending more and going to the experts. That’s not to say that the carpenter cannot offer any of these benefits but he is unlikely to offer all of them. To read them all, start with my post of 7th July.
And the eighth? After Sales Service.
No matter that the ordering process includes measuring the job four times and that you have received a set of technical drawings, samples and a detailed finish schedule, everybody in the team is an experienced professional and the process has been revised over many years and tested to destruction. Murphy’s law says that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong: A component gets damaged, the paint manufacturer sends in the wrong colour lacquer, a dimension is misread and not picked up. Every snag is unique in some way, otherwise a recurring problem should have been designed out of the system but try as they will to provide the perfect product, customer expectations are as varied as the customers and human errors do occur.
No manufacturer, in any industry, is perfect; it’s not necessarily what goes wrong but how the supplier reacts when it does that matters. Business relationships are not always built on getting it right first time every time but often on putting it right promptly and with minimum fuss.
The independent tradesman, who may have moved on to his next installation by the time you find a problem and may not be able to be as responsive as you would like. Also, it is human nature to react by defending your own workmanship. This is not always compatible with good customer service practice.
When an individual has designed, made and installed the your new fitted bedroom or home entertainment units it can become very personal if you need to report a problem, and with no designer, draftsman or surveyor to blame he may struggle to rise above his own error and give the correct customer service response, which is always: How can I put this right and restore the goodwill?
Also, it is often easier for the customer to report a problem to the administrator responsible for customer service than to confront the individual who made the error directly. If the design, drafting, surveying, manufacturing and installation functions all reside in one person, somebody who has worked in your home for a week or more and who you have plied with tea and biscuits, who else can you complain to and expect a constructive and pragmatic resolution?


