Clarification of New Payments & Charges

[gloryboy]

no point in my fsm ringing me until there is a written document to discuss.

who decided on the figure of £250 and how?

are we paying a percentage of smaller claims or all the claim if it is under £250?

whoever writes these letters should put their name to them and not just pass it out under 'The Hillarys Team' this is not that much clearer than the pi** poor effort that was sent out a few weeks ago.

[hereticus]

phugly said:

stonehills said:

What I can not understand is the line in the last paragraph which says,
What we have attempted to do is to introduce changes that will reward good adviser business practice, but discourage bad habits.

I have read this letter several times now and I also fail to see where the rewards to good advisors are. All I see is an attempt to get money off advisors cos they dont seem to be getting it from customers.

As one who was on the seminars I can vouch that a reward system for consistent high business was discussed, but a penalty system of this sort wasnt. It appears to me that management are trying to lay the blame for this on those that took part in the seminars with possibly the aim of dividing this forum.

With regards to clarifying the other payments, a verbal explanation is not good enough. With something this important it must be put in writing and sent to every advisor

Agree totally, Pete. Those of us who put so much into the seminars, and have tried to keep the mood positive in anticipation of progress, are now being made to look rather naive.

The only reward that I can identify is that we will be paid for DOR visits, but excluding the first one. Service call fees have been clarified to some extent, but not improved in any way. In return we pay much more for a mismeasure, we will be docked £ 20.00 if another agent is sent in to one of our jobs, and we suffer the first £ 250.00 of any damage with FSM's acting as judge and jury over what constitutes negligence.

To then tell us that none of this will be properly clarified in writing, and that we will be given a verbal explanation by phone, only adds insult to injury. Sadly, and on the back of four months of trying to be upbeat, I am not impressed.

[hereticus]

Gloryboy says "whoever writes these letters should put their name to them and not just pass it out under 'The Hillarys Team' "

Couldn't agree more. The very idea of the Hillarys Team makes we wince every time I see it. Does it imply collective responsibility - nope. Does it mean all the management have been involved and are all of one total accord - doubt it. Could it even mean that there is proper teamwork and cooperation between indivuals and departments - get a life !

At the seminars, and at Team Meeting afterwards, we were told that there would be an end to 'spin' in communications. The use of the 'Hillarys Team' signature at the end of every communication is the ultimate form of spin and is simply camouflage for those who do not wish to be held to account.

[keenasmustard]

invoices should from now carry a customer satisfaction tick off box covering all these points.thus making it a legally binding that all was OK, so making it impossible for late claims against advisor's and Hillary's.
Hillary's can't expect us to accept anything else if they want us to fall in line
getting back to the way it as been done to us is a bit nuts and what you would expect from school boys not proper business men who are supposed to be running a £100,000000 show?
they are from how i read it saying this is what we asked for and its not and they know it.
I for one don't want a phone call from my fsm explaining this latest demand,what I do want is it in writing either from him or john risman and signed just to make it official.

[tojaws]

For me the second to last paragraph says it all.

A Translation -

"If you get together and complain at seminars etc. Then Hillarys will penalize you all"

Some rewards system that.

The last paragraph is a bigger load of spin than the government ever came up with.

[hereticus]

Just out of interest, can we try to put a measure on how big a problem this might become.

In fourteen years I have broken two glass lamp shades and one ornament, all of which I just made good from my own pocket without trying to claim through Hillarys. I also once spilt coffee over a customer's rug but she was cool about it because the kids had already ruined it anyway.

I have broken two panes of glass, which Hillarys coughed up for and, according to the mailer today, would continue to do so. I have also (only a couple of weeks ago) shorted out a customer's electrics by drilling through a cable, which I handled on the spot but again Hillarys would still cover.

So, in reality, I should have nothing to worry about from the new measures except, of course, that sod's law dictates that something will happen to me, or to one of us, in the next few weeks.

I don't particularly object to the principle of accountability in cases of 'clear negligence' because I don't consider that I am ever negligent - I just have the occasional accident. This is really aimed at the minority of advisors who treat customer's homes and property with contempt and get away with murder, but it seems that rather than targetting them specifically we are all going to be at risk.

I think really that there are two aspects of this penalty that I find hard to accept :

- full amount of claim up to £ 250.00 for each and every advisor and for each and every claim does not reward good practice and does not recognise that accidents happen. I would much rather see it at £ 50.00 maximum for the first claim, £ 100.00 for the next, £ 250.00 for the third and subsequent claims, with a period of six months of no claims dropping it back a level, and twelve months without a claim clears the slate.

- FSM's acting as judge and jury does not fill me with confidence, because no doubt they will be working to targets and trying to interpret everything as negligence. Perhaps they will send another advisor in for a second opinion and then charge us for his service call visit as well ? And what about an appeals procedure if we feel that the FSM has not given us a fair hearing or made a reasonable judgement ?

Perhaps we need to wait for a test case - one of us is going to fall foul of this before too long - and then share the experience as it unfolds.

[reginald]

Hereticus you say that in 16 years you have only broken 2 lampshades and 1 ornament, you are very lucky that the customers did not complain ,because if they had then under the new system then that breakage could be taken as due to your negligence and then YOU would be liable for a £250 excess. I have also had very few breakages and claims but I have found that ANY ornament broken is always a family heirloom and "very valuble" I can see NO rewards under sillarys new system but I can see lots of punishments.. If hillarys continue in this vein then after 27 years working for them it will be adios and good riddance

[BlindWizard]

I agree with what you say hereticus, I haven't had a claims either but accidents do happen and now we have to pay for them. Your suggestion of £ 50.00 maximum for the first claim, £ 100.00 for the next, £ 250.00 for the third and subsequent claims sounds fair to me but wouldn't meet what I believe Hillarys objective is which is to recoup as much as possible of the £125,000 that they paid out last year in excess. I don't fancy being the first test case, do you ?

In the letter it says "The spirit of the new amendment is to encourage good practice and ask Advisors to take responsibility for any damage caused through clear negligence......" Well how about Hillarys paying us for the first DOR in the spirit of encouraging good manufacturing practice & quality control and to ask management and factory workers to take responsibility for badly manufacture blinds caused through clear negligence or lack of care. If they do that then I could believe they are trying to improve service and not just take more money from us.

[hereticus]

Blindwizard - good point !

I personally understand why Hillarys are reluctant to pay out on the first DOR, because it is wide open to abuse and some advisors would exploit it to the full. But surely the same principle should apply to good advisors who suffer the occasional misfortune.

So, if a blind is badly made - that's OK, mistakes happen, human error, etc. But if an advisor has a minor accident, then that's negligence, first time, every time ! Sounds like the odds are stacked one way.

[gloryboy]

hereticus said:

Blindwizard - good point !

I personally understand why Hillarys are reluctant to pay out on the first DOR, because it is wide open to abuse and some advisors would exploit it to the full. But surely the same principle should apply to good advisors who suffer the occasional misfortune.

So, if a blind is badly made - that's OK, mistakes happen, human error, etc. But if an advisor has a minor accident, then that's negligence, first time, every time ! Sounds like the odds are stacked one way.

definately a trend in the new way of things where agents are always to blame straight away, hillarys get a comfort zone and get out clauses all the way home!

[JoY]

So..... what are we going to do come the 29th May?

It seems no-one is happy.

Suggestions?

[greenpesto]

First we had Chinese Wooden Venetian Blinds

Now we have Chinese Style Civil Rights .....

e.g. "The 'people' have spoken ... you are guilty unless you can prove otherwise ... but you can only have legal representation if you pay for it & we the 'people' select one of our adjudicators"

In other words .... we are 'Stuffed!!!!!'

[JoY]

duncanh said:

I agree with what you say hereticus, I haven't had a claims either but accidents do happen and now we have to pay for them. Your suggestion of £ 50.00 maximum for the first claim, £ 100.00 for the next, £ 250.00 for the third and subsequent claims sounds fair to me but wouldn't meet what I believe Hillarys objective is which is to recoup as much as possible of the £125,000 that they paid out last year in excess. I don't fancy being the first test case, do you ?

In the letter it says "The spirit of the new amendment is to encourage good practice and ask Advisors to take responsibility for any damage caused through clear negligence......" Well how about Hillarys paying us for the first DOR in the spirit of encouraging good manufacturing practice & quality control and to ask management and factory workers to take responsibility for badly manufacture blinds caused through clear negligence or lack of care. If they do that then I could believe they are trying to improve service and not just take more money from us.

£50!!!! I don't want to pay anything for a genuine accident. That is why Hillarys have PL insurance!!!!

Scrap the whole idea... sack the advisors who are wilfully causing damage and let the rest of us get on with the job!!!

We sell the blind...Hillarys supply them...we fit them... Hillarys pay us.

[dibsdobs]

Joy

Come May the 29th, we should all just down tools for 1 week.

Hit them where it hurts.

Get a sign up sheet so we can get an estimate as to how many will join us. If we get enough to make a difference then go for it.

I believe we could all easily miss a week, but it would disrupt them and let them know we are serious.

[JoY]

I think we should all write to John Risman saying we will not accept this new proposal of charging us for accidental damage.

Of course..no need to sign it ... just put that it's from "The Advisor Team"

And send all the letters FREEPOST c/o Colwick Towers