As with any complaint there is always two sides to the story.
We have been in contact with this customer regarding the site attendance in dispute. Basically on a routine site maintenance visit (Fire alarm System) an issue was found on an existing installed system cable to the basement area of the premises.
As per our normal practice a brief inspection was carried out which showed that the fault was with the existing system cable in the basement area, a written proposal and price was given to the customer for two engineers to return to site and install a new system cable from the system control panel on the ground floor to the basement area. The customer agreed the proposal costing and two engineers (1 x senior and 1 x junior) were booked for half a day site attendance.
Our engineers attended site and as with any work engineers will check through the devices to make sure that all are intact and connections in the bases are sound, which they did, this involves taking heads down etc (more than 10 minutes). Whilst undertaking this first function an engineer found a broken wire behind a detector base. The broken cable was reconnected and the system control panel fault light cleared. The engineers tested the zone which was pronounced fully functional.
The customer has alleged that we have over charged her and that our engineers were only on site for 10 minutes (in fact this time frame keeps changing depending on which letter/correspondence or conversation you have with her) and that only one engineer was on site also, this we strongly refute. Our original cost for two engineers to attend site and supply and install the proposed new system cable was £435.00 + Vat as no system cable was installed our invoice was for reduced to £385.00 + Vat.
The customer has also alleged that we have breached trading standards in charging an unreasonable amount for our engineer’s attendance. As with most companies, time is booked to undertake specific works and a price is agreed, hence the quotation being sent out and accepted. Should a job take longer OR is completed under time the price remains the same. It is without doubt the customer would not be complaining if the job had taken all day and was then only charged for the half day as agreed.
We do our utmost to give our customers a good and reliable service but unfortunately it would seem that we have been unable to please this customer on this occasion.
Alan Dadley
Managing Director
Davenheath Ltd
