[Ian Rochester]

Just wondering who on here is a Woolsafe member and whether they are getting much work from the WOW warranty work?

[derek west]

Just had my first warranty clean book in to keep his warranty and also got our first "other carpets" to match the new one when we went round, its not braking the bank but its cost me nothing so far and ive still got 3 more warrantys to run out over the next couple of months so might be in profit soon 

[Ian Rochester]

Derek

We've had 5 warranty jobs in the past year and just done our first annual clean yesterday for 4 carpets. 

However, I have also just received the invoice for renewing the annual Woolsafe Approved Service Provider membership. (£148+vat)

I've started getting quite ruthless over the past few months with our marketing and advertising and if it's not giving a decent return on investment then we stop it!  So far the Woolsafe marketing and WOW work is not proving to be the golden goose that was promised so I'm seriously wondering whether to continue running with it or not.

Interested to know if anyone else is getting a decent amount of work through it

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I've had work from people looking on their website I do push the badge in conversation people seem to like it and respond to it I can't say the same for tacca or ncca iicrc when I was a member, the WoolSafe name does add credence I can go into carpet retailers and they acknowledge me more but I don't do the wow warranty it wasn't for me.

Shaun

[CleanerCarpets]

after 12 months if you arent seriously in profit from 'a referral scheme' why would you need to ask the question 'is it worth it?'

of course it isnt and it never will be - it will never have the WOW factor! You will just spend time, money and effort on free warranty call outs and then do just enough to cover your yearly cost - no advertising scheme is worth anything unless you make a healthy return

you want to be busy making profit, not a busy fool working for nowt

[Paul Moss]

Derek

We've had 5 warranty jobs in the past year and just done our first annual clean yesterday for 4 carpets. 

However, I have also just received the invoice for renewing the annual Woolsafe Approved Service Provider membership. (£148+vat)

I've started getting quite ruthless over the past few months with our marketing and advertising and if it's not giving a decent return on investment then we stop it!  So far the Woolsafe marketing and WOW work is not proving to be the golden goose that was promised so I'm seriously wondering whether to continue running with it or not.

Interested to know if anyone else is getting a decent amount of work through it

Ian your very astute,  I've just terminated mine after 12 months for the same reason. A nice to have but in business terms  the return does not justify the input for a number of reasons.

[Paul Moss]

after 12 months if you arent seriously in profit from 'a referral scheme' why would you need to ask the question 'is it worth it?'

of course it isnt and it never will be - it will never have the WOW factor! You will just spend time, money and effort on free warranty call outs and then do just enough to cover your yearly cost - no advertising scheme is worth anything unless you make a healthy return

you want to be busy making profit, not a busy fool working for nowt

Nail on head

[simonmnickson]

Woolsafe Approved Service Provider membership. (£148+vat) 


So if they have 1000 people daft enough to pay for the privilege of delivering free spotters that cost them time and money not to mention they then have to pay yearly for it as well.
Most will have seen through this at the start but lets say 1000 daft deluded souls - that's just short of a £150,000 earner for Woolsafe and a good belly laugh too. 

For the overwhelming majority this was doomed form the start and a very ill conceived poorly veiled plan to make more money out of wool safe registered carpet cleaners and not out of the domestic clients.

[Hilton]

We gave up membership of Wool Safe many years ago when they started approving any company that manufactures cleaners that were prepared to pay for the privilege .

[John Kelly]

I think you are being very harsh on Woolsafe. This scheme was devised to try and provide more work for Woolsafe members. It didn't just appear out of thin air. I would imagine months and months of work, including visits, meetings etc would have taken place to get retailers and manufacturers on board with this.
I doubt there are more than 100 WOW operastors probably a lot less so to say it is a lucrative earner for Woolsafe is a bit far of the mark.
That it hasn't worked as well as some people had hoped is a shame.

[derek west]

I've delivered 5 bottles and had 2 jobs totaling £410, i have 3 warrantys running out in the next 3 months. so hopefully they will keep up the warranty and book me in to clean. £410 aint breaking any records but chances are they will  use me again next year and the year after. For the peanuts it costs for a years membership, i'll give a few more years to see where it goes.
Totally understand if you're not getting much to pull out though.

[stuart_clark]

I became a Woolsafe approved operator in 1999 and at that time the membership cost about £40 but within a couple of years the y had quadrupled the membership fee, and with that I ended my membership as I didn't think I eas getting value for money, I have been a member of the NCCA since 1995 and although I dont think you get much for your money, I do get customers using me because I am a member


Stuart

[CleanerCarpets]

I think you are being very harsh on Woolsafe. This scheme was devised to try and provide more work for Woolsafe members. It didn't just appear out of thin air. I would imagine months and months of work, including visits, meetings etc would have taken place to get retailers and manufacturers on board with this.
I doubt there are more than 100 WOW operastors probably a lot less so to say it is a lucrative earner for Woolsafe is a bit far of the mark.
That it hasn't worked as well as some people had hoped is a shame.

to be fair John, if it took months and months of work and meetings to get it into fruition then its laughable they did that. To flog a scheme that was so obviously flawed just shows either the lack of intelligence, a complete out of touchness with the cleaners actually doing the work or total arrogance (or probably all 3) But of course they have probably been rewarded for their efforts - have the members though?

all it takes is a proper brain storming session on an idea with all involved - including the pointy end cleaners not just the managers of Woolsafe and retailers. Ever seen 'The secret millionaire'? - The man managers become out of touch and implement ideas that they think are great and then when they go under cover find that half the time they just can't be implemented.

at the end of the day we are all in business to make profit to survive - how many of these schemes come and go with the members out of pocket?

if it was such a WOW programme - then why not implement a simple guarantee? at the end of the day Woolsafe are offering the buyers of the carpet free warranty call outs and then actually charging its Woolsafe members the honour to be able to do that!! Great, come join us for a fee, then go out and drop off bottles and do free call outs!!! Oh by the way, you may just do enough work on top of that to cover our fee!! So why not guarantee the cleaners as well a return on investemet like - if you don't do £500 of work from it in the year (which you should be doing a month from an advert) then we will refund your membership costs

that sounds better to me - but i bet you wouldnt see them for dust...................

its like the letting agents who call and ask you to advertise on their customers welcome packs with a promise to recommend you and get you work. What they are actually wanting is for the advertisers to pay for the printing costs of it and more and then not get a penny of work back!!

you pays ya money and takes ya chances - just do your homework and dont get suckered by people who tell us its all so easy making 200k as a cleaner but actually gave up cleaning themselves in preference to an office

[Ian Rochester]

I really don't mind paying out £148 as a punt to see if something that looks good on paper is going to work in practice, we've all done it and you can easily pay out several £,000s for web advertising and get little or no return from it.

I'm more interested in knowing if anyone is getting jobs every week from it?

I theory for every Woolsafe WOW warranty carpet that is sold in this country (there must be hundreds or thousands every week) then it should follow that there is a new customer for whoever is the WOW operator in that area!!  By the look of it there's only been 5 wool carpets sold in all of Northumberland in the past 12 months!!!!!

One mistake they are making is by allowing the customer to register their carpet when they get home on the computer......... they won't, they can't be bothered.

It needs to be done at the time of purchase in the shop, this then sets the ball in motion and it is then up to the operator to convert these guaranteed referrals into profitable customers.

[derek west]

I really don't mind paying out £148 as a punt to see if something that looks good on paper is going to work in practice, we've all done it and you can easily pay out several £,000s for web advertising and get little or no return from it.

I'm more interested in knowing if anyone is getting jobs every week from it?

I theory for every Woolsafe WOW warranty carpet that is sold in this country (there must be hundreds or thousands every week) then it should follow that there is a new customer for whoever is the WOW operator in that area!!  By the look of it there's only been 5 wool carpets sold in all of Northumberland in the past 12 months!!!!!

One mistake they are making is by allowing the customer to register their carpet when they get home on the computer......... they won't, they can't be bothered.

It needs to be done at the time of purchase in the shop, this then sets the ball in motion and it is then up to the operator to convert these guaranteed referrals into profitable customers.

Totally agree Ian regards, some not being bothered and a good idea getting it done at source, I'll put that to Steve at the TACCA day, Its early days so i'm sure woolsafe are open to good ideas like this.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Another way of looking at it is to bring added perceived value by charging for it a nominal fee say £10 the customer would then register it and use it, I'd imagine that woolsafe want names and addresses for data as well.

Shaun

[Radek Jablonski]

However, I have also just received the invoice for renewing the annual Woolsafe Approved Service Provider membership. (£148+vat)

how much is a registration fee after a course?

[Mike Roper]

Not one referral / job from it. Still got 2 boxes of spotters on my shelves. Not at all bothered as so busy I wouldn't have time to run around dropping spotter bottles off and doing stain removal jobs.
Mike

[Kev Loomes]

I advised about getting it registered by the retailer only, for that exact reason Ian. Retailers won't do it because they don't gain anything from it - they can't be bothered to spend 'their' time making it easy for the custy. I think WOW were just trying to make it easier for retailers - knowing that they hadn't really got any work to do (and thus 'push' it more). But this is where it's hurting - custy's forget/can't be arsed.

So with retailers and custy's not being arsed, that's why the registrations are not getting through in any real numbers.