Jason Huby, Huby Domestic Appliances
Wed 22nd January 2014
My day at work starts good and early at 7.30am, making sure the engineers are fully prepared for the day ahead and checking they don’t have any queries. I also process the jobs from the previous day, so everyone can start the day afresh.
One of the first things I do is to source any parts that we need, so that we can get them as quickly as we can. We don’t want to keep our customers waiting. This might take me five minutes or five hours, but I will always find the part. There is satisfaction in a job well done, and it keeps our customers coming back to us, which is great.
I get deliveries from manufacturers throughout the morning, so it is like having Christmas every day with all the parcels that arrive for me. Then it is onto the invoicing, which is the most vital part of the day for us, and for any business.
We get 200-300 calls a day from people with broken appliances, so I am booking jobs for eight engineers, to ensure everyone gets seen as soon as possible. You don’t want the washing piling up, and neither do we.
The most important thing for us is engineers getting to customers’ houses - that is what the business is all about. So I do everything I can to keep those cogs turning, from dealing with flat tyres to updating the IT system.
Late afternoon, I get the jobs printed for the following day and go through all the paperwork. Then I check through the parts that have been ordered, so the engineers are fully-equipped for the job when they arrive at the customer’s house.
We are the first independent appliance repair company to have a laptop system. This enables the engineers to request their jobs to their laptop, which they can do whenever they wish. It has been a great addition to the Huby’s service, and benefits everyone.
It can be anywhere between 6pm and 8pm when I get home. But, even then, I’ll get the laptop out and carry on working. Some of the third parties we deal with are big networks and their jobs need to be closed within 24 hours, preferably the same day. It is all part of the service we offer at Huby’s.
It is not all work though, as I have installed a home gym which I use three or four times a week to keep me in as good a shape as my business. And I have a lovely garden, so I like to spend time amongst the flowerbeds doing the gardening. I also play a bit of golf. But there is nothing better, after a long day at work, to settle down in bed for a good night’s sleep.
