The Mind Boggles
Last week our geyser/boiler blew and was replaced and fitted by a service provider appointed by our insurance company. I was impressed they got the job done the same day except the geyser they fitted was slightly bigger than the one we had and they struggled to make it fit through the trap door in the ceiling. The result was a damaged ceiling which I told them they had better fix which they said they would.
I received the bill from the plumbers for the insurance excess which I refused to pay until they repaired the ceiling. Today they were back on site again hoping to do a patch job which I refused and demanded a like new ceiling like it was before they arrived.
They know all it takes is one phone call and their service provider days are numbered so off they went and returned an hour later with a different crew. After removing the damaged ceiling they got on with painting the walls and fitting a new ceiling which is almost done and will be completed tomorrow.
I never expected for them to paint the walls so this is already exceeding my expectations and yes they will be paid their excess of R1000 ($50) when they have completed the ceiling. The ceiling took 3 hours to get to this point and the geyser /boiler replacement took around 5 hours so this company is in this job for 8 hours already and guess another 2 hours to still complete.
You do wonder if they had taken more care when installing the geyser then maybe they would be making profit. There is no ways this job has returned a profit after what they have broken and now replaced. This team has spent double the time and labor is not cheap as this is a 3 man team.
When you are running any business your profits are purely based on costings and how long each job will take will depend on whether there is any profit left. As a service provider they will have set rates depending on the type of claim and this being a geyser/boiler exchange would be a bread and butter type payment doing multiple replacements daily. I just cannot see a company like this lasting very long even though their work is rather good if you exclude their mistakes. Big mistakes as how can you break things like a ceiling when this is your job.
Employees can make or break a company and the staff on this job definitely cost them any hope of making this a profitable job and will definitely cost them far more. If they learn from this as a once off then fair enough, but I do think this has happened before because the interior decorating crew were on site within an hour of realising this was no patch job. This was frustrating for myself watching this company because they actually have a chance of succeeding and it is hard to see them failing so badly.
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STOPAn experience like this teaches us that professionalism isn’t just about speed of execution but about attention to detail and correcting mistakes as soon as they happen.
Making no mistakes by taking your time doing it correctly first time is the only way to work.
Thank you for sharing this detailed experience. It's clear that while the company delivered in terms of speed and ultimately went above expectations by painting the walls and replacing the ceiling, the lack of initial care cost them both time and profit. Your insights highlight an important lesson for any service provider — attention to detail and proper planning can be the difference between a profitable job and a financial loss. Hopefully, they take this as a learning opportunity to improve their processes. It’s encouraging to know they still delivered quality work in the end, even if it came at a higher cost to them.
Yes if they took more care and actually removed the geyser/boiler through the roof externally and replaced the new one the same way. This is how most companies do the swap out and maybe their lack of experience has cost them here.