CABL Forum - Re: Home Theater Installation Price cuts..

Hey Tyrone,

Could have said NONYA! but what the hell, Heres that "why" and the "what".

Akai had offered 2 tiers of installations.
1) Hang flat screen under 36"
2) Hang flat screen over 36"
Thats all.

This introduced another good idea because you can't promise a customer a PREMIUM HTI without seeing the home. Right?
You can't see the walls, the room, crawl spaces at the time it is purchased through the store. The customer is oversold the Idea that "anything" could be done because he paid 500 clams at the store for just that. He doesnt understand why his Island wall on a concrete/tile slab floor cant be wired, goes back to the store and throws a fit. Threatens to take back his 6 grand in electronics in his extreme buying frenzy. Tech gets questioned, people get angry.

So, the idea was to promise something we could do before arrival. Hang a TV. If anything else was needed, the installer responsible could quote a price depending on the integrity of work involved or come up with suggestions for proper alternatives. This is on a one-on-one level. I saw one installer create a whole string of installations just by word of mouth. This is the difference between career HT people and others.

However, this posed a problem. Customers were also calling asking how to install this themselves. I really couldn't help them for free. Inundated with calls at my office, Akai built a support staff to route calls to. Thats about the time the installations stopped. The outside party (non-affiliated) call center had proved to have been a big henderence. I became a wall mount dealer and made a killing for a while.

I didn't fail this. It wasn't presented right and soon after Akai went out of business in the US market. If it were a huge brand name, it would have been a much different story. Akai products werent exactly cutting edge. They had a huge return rate. I had to hire a team to upgrade the firmware for around 3,000 42" plasmas before they hit the floor in '05 for instance.

Now, to further answer your questions, I am not calling you an idiot. Everyone has a right to be an idiot. You sure took your job serious enough to feel like I was attacking you. BUT it all depends on what you call good money. Im not gonna ask you about your relationship on what YOU feel is a good price, but believe me man- there is SOOO much more potential for GOOD techs with head on thier shoulders, not feelings on your sleeve instead.

But really, the unique thing about this forum is ONCE YOU TURN YOUR COMPUTER OFF, IT DOESNT EXIST ANYMORE!!!!! It's just a tool.

INSTALLATION

CONSTRUCTION / TECH

OFFICE / OTHER

Re: Home Theater Installation Price cuts..