Friday, December 3, 2010

a provender franchise - "professional support"

Professional Technical support……..

Where to start?  Perhaps with the much-lauded CMS (Customer Management System) all Franchisees had to compulsory purchase from the Management Office – cost: $ 400.00 plus GST.

Fist, my copy was handed to me with a brief explanatory note which also stated my log-in name and password.  Small alarm-bells rung loudly when I was informed the password could not be changed.  No-one could answer why not, and soon the topic was changed to, well, the weather or something.

The programme itself.  It was build on the relational database platform (MS Access) and, in reality, showed only information relevant to a current transaction.  No history, except for the previous four weeks and then not even cumulative (quite relevant if one wants the history of a customer).

Soon, the logging in via the net became a problem.  No-one could tell me why although at one point one of the staff in the Management Office disclosed (in writing) that the IT outfit that had developed this programme had ceased to exist and no-one could figure out what the difficulty was.  In the end, it stopped working altogether, so I gave up trying.

Although, I threatened to not pay any more bills until this problem was fixed after which I received a call from the Managing Director himself, explaining these two issues (bills for stock – management support) were totally unrelated and that non-payment was a serious enough reason to call in the debt collectors…. When I confronted him saying I had paid $ 400 of my very sound money for something that was defunct, he just waived it away and said these thing happen in commerce adding there would be a solution, free of charge, just around the corner.  It appeared a "long and difficult" corner to take: nearly 2 years later it still had to eventuate.

The next one is more serious.  Provender desires to be the largest snack and beverage (vending) retailer in New Zealand.  It lures people into believing they [Provender] are “winners” with all its’ support staff highly trained and totally dedicated to supporting the Franchisees.  Reality is different.

1. Provender buys second hand vending equipment and then on-sells to its franchisees, at a massive profit.  According to law, it does not have to provide any warrantee with equipment it sells: it is deemed an internal transaction, and the equipment is second-hand.

2. The supply of spare-parts for any equipment purchased from Provender is left (by Provender) to third parties.  The claim to having a team of dedicated and “trained staff” is a myth, a hollow phrase.  The full extend of “technical expertise” is to provide contact details of where to obtain support, parts, service.

3. Also the supply of equipment is fraught with difficulty.  In many instances the shipment is incomplete and does not match what was ordered, acknowledged to be supplied, and, PAID FOR.

4. Equipment is delivered in sub-standard condition, often not even cleaned to the minimum standard as specified by the manufacturer.  In some instances, equipment was faulty and did not operate properly due to defective components.

When I purchased my first coffee machine ex-Provender (described an “ex-demo” unit) it was delivered without the stand.   The response: “You can get for around $ 45.00 a kit-set from Bunnings.”  Ludicrous, as the kit-set was not large enough to accommodate the coffee machine.

Further, this machine had some 8,000 servings in its memory (each serving is recorded for routine maintenance purposes), a faulty key-pad (several key-selections such as “soup” and “hot water” were not working, as were the two main cleaning functions – flushing out the hoses, a daily hygiene requirement).

Finally, I discovered that a large deposit of coffee grind had been left in the machine.  The cause was in a poorly adjusted coffee-grinder.  This was not rectified until some weeks later by the “highly trained, technically competent” staff member visiting Christchurch.  Even then, a routine maintenance check some months later by an approved service-agent revealed the adjustments made were inadequate and superficial.

By the way, this machine was sold to me for around the $ 150.00 below the price of a new machine, which would have carried a 24 month manufacturers warrantee………….  found out later.

More on the Professional Support in the next installment!

No comments:

Post a Comment