20
SEPTEMBER 2015 PRO INSTALLER
PRO NEWS
www.proinstaller.co.uk
SPOILT FOR CHOICE
Getting To Grips
With Deposit
Protection
Many tradesmen and companies like
to ask for a deposit from customers.
This can be either for advance
payment for materials to help with
cash flow or, more usually, to secure
a commitment from the customer so
that they go through with the work.
However, many people
are reluctant to pay
a deposit because
they worry about the
safety of their money.
What if the tradesman runs off with
their deposit? What
if the company goes
bust before starting
the job?
“These are fair questions,” says Harvey
Ellingham, founder of
the Home Improvements
Guarantee scheme. “You
might only have met the
customer a couple of
times but you’re asking
them to part with maybe
thousands of pounds up
front. That’s a lot to ask,
so giving them peace of
mind can really help seal
the deal.”
The deposit protection
insurance, which is part
of the Home Improvements Guarantee package,
insures the deposit for
60 days from the date of
signing the contract. If
for any reason the start of
the work is delayed, the
insurance can be extended so that the deposit is
covered until the work
has started.
If anything happens in
the meantime – from the
tradesmen “disappearing”
to the trading company
going bust, or the work
not beginning on time,
the insurance will cover
the cost of sourcing another tradesmen of the
same standard and paying
their deposit, ensuring
that the customer is no
worse off as a result of
their experience with the
first company.
“It’s a great way to be
able to offer peace of
mind to customers. They
may be on the verge of
signing up but if you are
able to demonstrate that
their insurance is covered,
it makes the tradesmen or
contractor look responsible, and it demonstrates
a conscientious attitude
towards the customer. We
find it helps get a lot of
customers over the line.”
Next month, the Home
Improvements Guarantee
Scheme will discuss and
offer advice on dispute
resolution.
www.homeimprovementsguarantee.co.uk
All colour options for
Synseal’s Global conservatory roofs and
Global Summer hybrid
orangeries are now
available directly from
stock, to reduce lead
times for these popular
aluminium and PVCu
glazed roofing products
which are supplied as
made to measure kits
to thousands of industry installers through
Synseal’s extensive
network of fabricator
partners.
In addition to White, the
stock colour range now
includes Anthracite Grey,
Black/Brown, Chartwell
Green, Cream, Golden Oak
and Cherrywood.
“While traditional White is
clearly the favourite finish
for all our footprint styles of
conservatories and orangeries, the continued surge in
demand for alternative con-
temporary colour options
is only going to increase as
more and more consumers
look for something a bit different,” comments Synseal’s
Head of Marketing Mark
Schlotel.
“Our Business Improvement team has been
working hard to refine our
production and warehousing processes so that we can
efficiently hold more colour
options in stock to ensure
our roof kit lead time from
placement of order to delivery is just five days. Swift
turnaround in customer
service is crucial to help our
installing customers to make
the most of market opportunities.”
For more information visit
www.synseal.com or email
[email protected]
Restoring
Heritage
The classical character
of a traditional Lancashire civic building
has been restored with
Heritage Vertical Sliders manufactured by
Glazerite Windows Ltd.
The windows, installed at
Chorley Town Hall by Bolton-based CarMan Plastics,
were designed to replicate
the existing rotten and unrepairable timber sashes using
traditional features such as
deep bottom rails, continuous sash horns and white
woodgrain.
“The hardest part of the
job was matching all the
windows,” said CarMan
Managing Director Manny
Beattie, “they wanted to
replicate the old windows
as closely as they could,
even some that were arched,
but Glazerite came up with
the right windows and the
customer is very pleased
with them.”
He added: “We’ve been
buying from Glazerite for
a couple of years now and
they are brilliant; we’ve
never had any problems at
all.”
Chorley Borough Council
will not only be saving on
heating bills with the ‘A’ Rated PVCu windows but there
was an added cost saving
as the building was already
scaffolded for other maintenance work that was going
on at the same time.
Glazerite’s Peter Smith said:
“We have supplied a number
of commercial contracts for
CarMan so we were very
happy that we were able to
help again. Matching the old
frames proved quite a challenge but we were able to
meet that challenge and with
all the benefits that come
with the VEKA VS system.”
For more information visit
www.glazeritewindows.co.uk