******** are a waste of space & time

[Philip_374242473]

I blanked it out to save the mods doing it, but they have just closed down several branches, so that should be enough.

My tap broke in Feb, told it would take 8 - 10 weeks. Made do with no tap in bathroom at easter, got a call from the N.wales Branch whilst i was away to be told tap was now in.

Told the 1st service was due in a few weeks, would book it in and have both done at the same time.

Heard that this Branch was closing, phoned them, to be told "they definatly weren't".

Phoned up Tuesday to book the van in, to be told it had closed down and it was all going through Delemere.

Phoned Delemere who told us they had taken on all ongoing jobs from Wrexham, they would look into our warranty claim.

Got call back today, cannot find the tap anywhere, will be another 4 weeks.

So, between Swift, who did NOT reply to my e-mail, when i was asked by Ash, on this forum, to send him all the details & Discover, who couldn't organise a s**g in a w********e (excuse the profanities but i'm a tad livid) it will have taken 18 - 20 weeks to replace a broken tap on a 8 month old caravan.

ACCEPTABLE ?????? I think not.

But what can i do ????

 

[SwiftGroup_374327846]

Phillip,

I am sorry that we haven't responded to your email and I agree this needs sorting.

If you can email me aspacey@swiftleisure.co.uk with your details and chassis number I will arrange for one to be sent out. Unfortunatley though we have tonight closed for whit holidays until the 1st June, but i will sort it if you send me your details as soon as I am back,

Thanks

Andy

 

[Guest]

Wow! I wish I lived in England with all these holidays. Today is the 21st May and nothing is to be done until the 1st June. No wonder the UK is in such a mess. Many truly international Companies have holiday cover.

 

[SwiftGroup_374327846]

Hi Scotchlad,

Even caravan manufacturers are entitled to some holidays you know. But clearly a weeks holiday shutdown is to much for you! Our dealer network is available.

Ash and me will be around to try and help our customers throughout at anytime, regardless of our holidays.

Andy

 

[grandadbaza]

I dont know how anyone can critisise Andy and his team from Swift for having a holiday , I have and so have many other people have had problems answered and dealt with at weekends and evenings , give them a break these lads are doing a great job at sorting the problems we have ,most manufacturers dont monitor the forums and come to peoples help ,

Have a good holiday Andy,Mick,Ash and the rest of you

Baza

 

[paddy1]

Yes i agree thats the first thing i noticed when i joined forum, Swift group are always answering peoples problems keep up the good work Mark

 

[trucker]

Im afraid Scotch Lad you are wrong on this one, re Swift. These lads do alot of good work on this and other forums, Andy has helped me before on an evening and E Mails over a w/e. They do a fab job.

Keep it up lads

(dont see Baily on here these days) certany not on a w/e

Kevin

 

[DeliDave]

I had a topic reply and email from Andy of Swift on a Sunday night,firmly believe that they do it for goodwill and interest,completely unpaid outside their working hours and also take a lot of aggressive posts in their stride.I think they should be well thanked,dont imagine Ford or Vauxhall would be answering problems in their spare time

 

[jane_374418335]

we also had a good response from ash as we have been waiting for our abbey freestyle van to be repaired from sept and ash after receiving the chasis num sent us an email telling us what information that had about it more than our repairers had bothered to do jane

 

[Guest]

If anyone feels I have unfairly criticised Swift then I do apologise. However, I only commented on their own message which clearly stated they would be not doing anything until the 1st June. As I am also here in Scotland we do not have any Whit holidays at all, Edinburgh had a local Monday last week, and that was it. Even the old idea of a trade fortnight seems to have died the death due to competition and I would have thought in a recession, it would have been all hands to the pumps, or we all go down. This is the start of the holiday season and as Swift are in the leisure business it would seem logical to arrange things to concentrate on your busy times, but maybe I have the wrong idea. I also had the dubious honour of working in an industry that was 24/7 every day of the year so am maybe biased a bit.

As for manufacturers giving support I can state that mine, based in Germany air freighted me a part within 48 hours of my e mailing them, this was after the UK dealer had stated he could not do anything. Unfortunately, my manufacturer is now bust but that was due to a parent group over extending themselves and there is hope the brand will be resussitated after the recession

 

[Heethers]

Scotch Lad, you have to remember some companies make their workforce take a weeks holiday all at once, commonly known in the engineering industry as shutdown week, this enables the maintenance department to overhaul, inspect equipment that is usually in production which cannot be maintained due to production runs, not sure if this is the case but maybe Ash or Andy may confirm.

NigelH

 

[James_374408700]

NGH,

Yeah thats right. Perhaps they may even have started Quality control training during shut down week ! Lol

Jim

 

[SwiftGroup_374327846]

Hi NigelH,

Your correct its a full shutdown week for us across the business, there are a few essential staff and maintenance in but thats all,

Andy

 

[WilliamLX]

I have to admit I was rather surprised to hear about the frequency in which the various Caravan manufacturers completely shut down their factories for holidays! I can understand this for Christmas but Whit?? I doubt if very many UK citizens outside of England even have heard of Whit. I even lived and worked in England for 4 years and never got a Whit holiday???

Even if the caravan production line stops for a week, the department responsible for supplying spare parts should not. Sadly caravans do not take a week off from breaking! I have said it before and I will say it again, a touring caravan is an expensive buy, and the fact that the industry is on a different scale than the car industry does not excuse the poor level of customer service that all the UK caravan manufacturers seem to think is ok. Perhaps they will waken up once significant levels of import caravans start to hit the UK market. However I am inclined to think that just as was the case with the UK car industry, that they will treat customers like this until they have no customers left.

 

[SwiftGroup_374327846]

William,

It makes a lot of sense in a manufacturing plant to have complete shutdowns. This gives opportunities for maintenance. Our supplier base on the whole do similar.

Your dealer is available for parts and Customer support and we also have some staff in next week to support,

Andy

 

[ProfJohnL]

Whilst many of are in general disappointed with the quality of the products from UK caravan manufacturers, I have to say that even continental manufactures do have their share of problems. But as the proportion of continental vans is still quite low in the UK, the numbers of issues will also be correspondingly low.

I have to congratulate Swift in allowing their employees to support their products on forums such as this, I wish more would do so - Perhaps Swift might like to share their perspective of how such interaction helps. Both the company and the end users. Others would do well to follow suit.

But getting back to the headline issue, Without knowledge of all the dealings it is difficult to apportion blame for the initial delay. Eight to ten weeks does seem a disproportionate length of time for what is a fairly standard bit of kit.

Was it the dealer not ordering, was it swift not supplying. During these rather troublesome times cash flow has been a nightmare. I do remember times when due to unpaid bills some companies were denied deliveries until it had been paid. In the light that the dealership has downsized there may have been a situation like this.

The reason this can hit end users is that the dealer does not carry a a special stock of parts just for warranty, but usually any parts needed are used form normal trading stock, on the basis that either the manufacturer will replace the parts or provide a refund in the near future. If a dealer is already in difficulties and has not paid the bills, the manufacturer cannot supply parts not even for warranty. And any refunds will used to offset unpaid bills.

This effectively denies end users access to their legal rights. Perhaps it is time that every dealer lodges a proportion of the profit from their caravan sales with an insurance scheme to ensure that the end user still has full warranty cover, even if the seller goes out of business.

 

[Chrisbee]

Whilst many of are in general disappointed with the quality of the products from UK caravan manufacturers, I have to say that even continental manufactures do have their share of problems. But as the proportion of continental vans is still quite low in the UK, the numbers of issues will also be correspondingly low.

I have to congratulate Swift in allowing their employees to support their products on forums such as this, I wish more would do so - Perhaps Swift might like to share their perspective of how such interaction helps. Both the company and the end users. Others would do well to follow suit.

But getting back to the headline issue, Without knowledge of all the dealings it is difficult to apportion blame for the initial delay. Eight to ten weeks does seem a disproportionate length of time for what is a fairly standard bit of kit.

Was it the dealer not ordering, was it swift not supplying. During these rather troublesome times cash flow has been a nightmare. I do remember times when due to unpaid bills some companies were denied deliveries until it had been paid. In the light that the dealership has downsized there may have been a situation like this.

The reason this can hit end users is that the dealer does not carry a a special stock of parts just for warranty, but usually any parts needed are used form normal trading stock, on the basis that either the manufacturer will replace the parts or provide a refund in the near future. If a dealer is already in difficulties and has not paid the bills, the manufacturer cannot supply parts not even for warranty. And any refunds will used to offset unpaid bills.

This effectively denies end users access to their legal rights. Perhaps it is time that every dealer lodges a proportion of the profit from their caravan sales with an insurance scheme to ensure that the end user still has full warranty cover, even if the seller goes out of business.

Dealers and manufacturers suffer from cash flow problems just like everyone else. Most production lines use the "just in time" method of stock control, thereby not having to use up valuable storage space or have "dead" money lying on the shelves. However, that does not excuse them from suppling spare parts for their product within a reasonable timescale. Any spares department worth their salt should know what the fast moving items are and hold a small stock for immediate dispatch with slow moving items available within a week or so.

The truck dealer I work for has a 93% first time pick. If the parts aren't in stock they will be delivered to us the next day. If the central warehouse doesn't have them, they are flown in the following day from europe.

If we were as apathetic (or our QA/QC as bad) as caravan manufacturers we would be out of business within a month.

It's good that Andy at Swift tries to help when he can but where is Philips tap?

 

[Chrisbee]

Dealers and manufacturers suffer from cash flow problems just like everyone else. Most production lines use the "just in time" method of stock control, thereby not having to use up valuable storage space or have "dead" money lying on the shelves. However, that does not excuse them from suppling spare parts for their product within a reasonable timescale. Any spares department worth their salt should know what the fast moving items are and hold a small stock for immediate dispatch with slow moving items available within a week or so.

The truck dealer I work for has a 93% first time pick. If the parts aren't in stock they will be delivered to us the next day. If the central warehouse doesn't have them, they are flown in the following day from europe.

If we were as apathetic (or our QA/QC as bad) as caravan manufacturers we would be out of business within a month.

It's good that Andy at Swift tries to help when he can but where is Philips tap?

 

[cava55]

Dealers and manufacturers suffer from cash flow problems just like everyone else. Most production lines use the "just in time" method of stock control, thereby not having to use up valuable storage space or have "dead" money lying on the shelves. However, that does not excuse them from suppling spare parts for their product within a reasonable timescale. Any spares department worth their salt should know what the fast moving items are and hold a small stock for immediate dispatch with slow moving items available within a week or so.

The truck dealer I work for has a 93% first time pick. If the parts aren't in stock they will be delivered to us the next day. If the central warehouse doesn't have them, they are flown in the following day from europe.

If we were as apathetic (or our QA/QC as bad) as caravan manufacturers we would be out of business within a month.

It's good that Andy at Swift tries to help when he can but where is Philips tap?

I wated 3 months for my bits to come from swift group ! hows that good service.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello K

As I wrote above, in some cases it is the dealer that has failed, but tries to pass the blame onto the manufacture.

For example, I used to work for a major supplier, and from time to time they would receive a complaint from an end user about spare parts not being available. Often it was stated that the dealer the end user was using had told them that the manufacture was delaying the order.

Whilst for reasons of commercial confidence, we could tell the end user the full truth, but quite often the fact was the dealer had not placed an order. Or as explained above the dealer's account was frozen.

I do not wish to suggest that this is the case every time, but it certainly occurred more often than you might have expected.

When ever you have a problem with obtaining spare parts, always badger the company you have placed the order with, even ask them if their account is on stop with the manufacture, They must tell the truth, and that offers you the chance to take your business elsewhere.

 

[Lutz]

To elaborate on John's comment above, the situation is even more evident when imported products are involved. Customers often rant about poor quality or poor service of the foreign manufacturer although, strictly speaking, the manufacturer has absolutely no liability. It is always the importer that carries full responsibilty and, in more cases than not, the importer is completely independent and not a subsidiary of the manufacturer. Any contact that you may have will, in the final instance, if the dealer doesn't provide a satisfactory solution, be with the importer and not with the manufacturer, even though he may carry the same name. It is the importer who has to make sure that the product fulfills the requirements and demands of the market where it is sold. If the importer is a relatively small business, he may not have the resources to ensure that this is the case and he may have to rely on support from the manufacturer, but he still carries full responsibility. Of course, his contract with the manufacturer may allow claims to be passed on to the latter, but this is entirely an internal issue between importer and manufacturer.