Appliance Repair Technician Search

Way back in the depths of time we came up with the idea of an online search for appliance repair engineers where members of the public could locate local service technicians to effect repairs on their products by simply asking with the details of what was needed.

That was in 2005.

In 2010 as we moved the UK Whitegoods website across to a new platform we were forced to completely redesign this component on the backend to accommodate new technologies and systems.

At this point we added a login for the repair companies so that they could alter their details, add and remove brands, mark themselves on holiday and so forth. It was a bit of a leap forward from what had gone before although the basic premise for consumers remained largely unchanged, if enhanced.

In 2016 we are changing it up a gear.

Completely New

The new system is completely new, other than the front end functionality that still allows people to search and find local repairers quickly and easily around them geographically.

Everything else has altered or radically changed.

The new search is built on a completely independent and highly customisable platform that allows far greater flexibility than has ever ben available to us and users before.

It is over ten times faster.

It is scaleable.

It can be used to deliver a customised set of results and used on multiple websites.

In short, we can do almost anything that we like with the search now and, we can offer more to others also.

UK Whitegoods

On UK Whitegoods you will find the full raft of repairer information that we have across the UK, you can search through approximately 2500 repair businesses up and down the country.

Where the repair companies have registered their details, they can receive servicing requests entered there by users, be they domestic or commercial.

Most brands, products and services are available to freely search on.

Whitegoods Trade Association

The search that will be found on the WTA website is customised to suit that particular organisation.

While tis still utilise the centrally maintained database of repair companies that we hold and maintain, it will only deliver results based on the membership.

Therefore, even if there might be another repairer in the areas that could repair the product that the user is searching to have work carried out on, it will not be displayed, only any WTA members that can assist will be returned in the results.

Direct Communication

Where the person searching finds a suitable repair company and, that repair company is also a Rapport user the enquiry is no longer sent as an email.

All the details of the request pops up in the users homepage of their own Rapport installation.

No typing, no errors, no having to re-enter data.

Simply confirm the booking in the diary and, you’re done.

Call History

Now you can see what calls you have received from your account page after you login.

You can see not only the calls that you have been sent through the system but also how many people have called you from the page as well.

In addition, you can see how many times your details have been found from the search.

Total statistic information.

No Match Found

Where there is no matching repairer found on the new system you can now login and see what calls where missed and work out why you are not receiving those service calls on an interactive map.

Then adjust your information to prevent that from happening as required.

Personalised Repair Company Search

Many of the repair companies we fully realise do not have the budget or often the skills to have anything beyond a simple contact form or, phone number and email address on their websites.

We wanted to help them and improve on that. Because we could.

In a bid to help small repair companies become more efficient not only have we linked up the repair search to our Rapport call handling software but, we’ve also designed a simple drop in that small repair companies can deploy on their own websites.

This drop in is easy to install in minutes, all the data including holiday notifications and so on are all controlled via the user control panel or Rapport and will only return results in that repair companies area and with the products they select.

The notifications that they receive from their own website are therefore completely under their own control and bespoke to them.

If you need help to install this we can optionally provide a service to do that for you.

Free

Oh, we might not have mentioned that and it would be somewhat remiss of us not to add that, all this is free to the end users, the people that search for repairers online using this system.

For independent repair companies, it’s also free.

For commercial use or for larger service operators please contact us for pricing.

SMS Notifications

On the new search you can optionally use SMS messaging to keep your customers informed and up to date of the current status of any call placed and, if you use Rapport, you can give ongoing information of the call status, parts and so forth.

This saves time, money and saves phone calls as well as helping your customer.

Although this service does generate a cost, it is very small.

Commercial Custom Search

Of course we can implement this system for brand owners manufacturers, insurers and so forth and it could be adapted and used for other industries also.

For the appliance industry however this means that any brand could have a customised search for service that can display only their own network of authorised service agents.

Or, it might display their own approved service agents but give people the option of other repairers. The authorised service companies can be “weighted” so that they are a preferential result.

It could be made to simply send the query to the brand call centre for processing or a copy to the repairer and the call centre.

You could even direct the enquiry to a third party, such as a service plan or insurance company to process.

The choice is entirely open and the system highly customisable.

There are also different ways that you can use this system, for example and to indicate how flexible it is, you could have your own dedicated platform that we provide that you maintain yourself or, you could allow us to maintain it for you.

A world of choices and a huge degree of flexibility that is extremely easy to both use and maintain.

The real bonus however is that you are providing information to your customers, 24/7 - 365 right where they want it and without calling you and taking up valuable time on the phone dealing with basic service calls.

That, saves your business money and delivers a better service to your customers.