Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

The_Real_Cheddar_Bob

I have recently been approached to be a UW sales representative. This is the link i have been sent:
https://www.uwopportunity.co.uk/download

i'm not sure about what to do, any advice from both sides?

Cardew

rjwr wrote: »

I have recently been approached to be a UW sales representative. This is the link i have been sent:
https://www.uwopportunity.co.uk/download

i'm not sure about what to do, any advice from both sides?

There is plenty of advice(from both sides!) in this thread and elsewhere on the web.

What is not in dispute is that acceptance means you will be selling some of the most expensive gas and electricity in UK. (check this on ANY comparison website). Target customer base initially is family and friends and anyone who trusts you.

NigeWick

rjwr wrote: »

i'm not sure about what to do, any advice from both sides?

I used to be a distributor and it is not a get rich quick scheme. I'd say 90% of people do not make any money at it, invariably because they do not put in the required consistent effort to grow their business. I was one of that 90% and can admit to my failure. It can not be done by doing twelve hours on a Sunday and nothing the rest of the week. There has to be a consistent unrelenting hour or two every day. The training used to say "try your family and friends first as they trust you." Utter balderdash, the hardest people to sell to are my family and friends. When I started I did put the effort in and began to earn more than I spent on advertising, fuel for the car, internet access & etc. My problem was that I was comfortable so did not need the extra money that the business can offer. That said, after I stopped putting the effort in, it took about two years before enough customers dropped out so that it was not worth my while remaining with the company.

Further, when I started, the services on offer were quite good value but over the course of time they became less competitive. The only things I have with UW now are the pre payment card and my wife's PAYG mobile phone. Because of the little use of the phone and amount we spend in Sainsbury's and other affiliated stores, the company puts between about £4.50 (usual) and £65 (twice in the last year) into our bank account each month.

Should you decide to give it a go, my advice would be to try and used the internet for finding prospective customers.

GoodKingNige

I’ve recently become aware of this scheme/company/club/whatever you want to call it.

I’m a professional marketer – but I pride myself on being honest and open with everyone (well, almost everyone – I don’t have any ethical difficulty with fleecing the taxman which is a club I never agreed to join but into which I’ve been press-ganged; I’d much rather choose how I spend my “social budget” than have it dictated to me by a bunch of faceless, unaccountable beaureaucrats who didn’t even have the courtesy to ask me if I wanted to join their club). That limits my options for the businesses that I’ll agree to work with as they have to share my values. Sometimes I get it wrong and promote companies that I later regret dealing with, although I usually spot this fairly quickly and move away from them.

To clarify my values as a marketer:

1. I’ll promote pretty much anything if I honestly believe that it is offering a product which has merit for the consumer. It doesn’t have to be the best possible deal available – that’s for the customer to decide themselves – but it does have to be a serious contender for the title
2. I won’t knowingly mislead any of my customers (either directly or by proxy) – if there’s something in the small print that I (as a customer) would want to be drawn to my attention, then I’ll want that drawn to the attention of the customer. You won’t find any advertisements from me with barely readable white lettering at the bottom of the screen with words to the effect of “the value of your investment can go down as well as up, full terms and conditions available at ….” which disappears before you can read it
3. I always use my own contact details in promotional literature – if there’s a problem with a promoted company or product I want to know about it, and I’ll take responsibility for it to the limit of my ability. Most businesses I deal with provide their own promotional literature but I always attach my own details and emphasise that if the customer is not getting satisfaction from the business, they can contact me instead

Anyway, to cut to the quick – after being convinced that there MIGHT be some merit in the UW business model by friends of friends I’ve decided to do some detailed research, and the best way to do that is to get my hands dirty. In short, I’ve signed up as a distributor. Whether I actually do any promotional work for UW will depend on the next few weeks and how I feel about what they’re offering.

I’ll be keeping a diary of how it goes – and I’ll share it on here as much as I can (without compromising my own position vis-à-vis the protection racket masquerading under the name of “Inland Revenue”).

I hope that this will turn out be informative to everyone.

So, Day 1. £25 spent on securing my position as a distributor.

GoodKingNige

OK – so moving on from my last post.

The sign up process has been relatively painless – the person acting as my mentor (ie the distributor one step ahead of me in the chain) has been pro-active (he calls me, I’ve not had to call him) in making sure it’s all going smoothly.

The online tutorials – the first stage in the training – have far too much irrelevant stuff in them, which makes it a bit tedious. Through large chunks of it I was screaming at the screen “yes, yes – I’m sure it’s all very interesting that you’ve got yourself financially sorted by becoming a UW distributor but frankly, I don’t care. I’ve already signed up so there’s no benefit in you telling me how wonderful this opportunity is – now, can we just get down to the facts? Please?”. It’s as irritating as those TV quiz show hosts who insist on reciting the rules of the game before every question (Alexander Armstrong take note – just because you’ve got repeated initials doesn’t mean you have to repeat yourself more often than a baked bean/brussels sprout hybrid).

Overall, I’d say there’s about 4 hours of online tutorial (when you take into account thinking/absorption time) – of which, about 25 minutes is of any use.

I have a couple of gripes about the online training (besides the irrelevant padding) – one trivial, and one which is causing me some pause for thought.

The trivial one first – at the end of each section there’s a little quiz to check how much you’ve taken in. On one of these, consisting of 5 questions, I got all 5 right (they’re not difficult questions) – and scored 86%! That level of maths ability might be ok for Chancellor of the Exchequer but……..

The more serious one comes from a section which lets you put in details of a sample customer to see the possible benefits of switching to UW as utility supplier. I put in details for a neighbour and under the question “Do you own this home?” I entered No. The screen showed me the expected annual savings I could/should see – and at the bottom is a button that says “The legal bit”.

Well, call me anally retentive but I tend to read Terms and Conditions very carefully. And buried in the small print of the Legal Stuff was a statement that

“Benefits: All the Gold bundle benefits shown above are only available to owner occupiers; if you are a tenant and have incorrectly ticked the homeowner box on the previous page, then you will not receive these benefits.”

Maybe this is just a glitch in the training modules? I’ll ask them about it when I go for my formal training.

There is an interesting figure which shows up in the training modules on Mobile Phones. It says:

“According to Ofcom, there are actually 8 million different contract variations out there” – which follows on from a screen referring to pay-monthly deals (on mobile phones).

Is that right? And more importantly, is it meaningful?

Anyway, for what it’s worth – nothing so far is a “deal-breaker” for me and the positive support so far has been well above average.

I’ll continue to keep you posted on how this progresses.

(BTW - this site flags up "neighbour" as a spelling mistake - it wants "neighbor" - any chance you can switch to real English instead of the fictitious "US English"?).

Cardew

GoodKingNige wrote: »

To clarify my values as a marketer:

1. I’ll promote pretty much anything if I honestly believe that it is offering a product which has merit for the consumer. It doesn’t have to be the best possible deal available – that’s for the customer to decide themselves – but it does have to be a serious contender for the title

.

That statement unequivocally rules out UW as a contender!

There are scores of comparison websites for you to check UW's tariff prices against other tariffs. Even their 'double gold' tariff, with all its add-ons, restrictions and exclusions is way more expensive than other tariffs.

Start with the UK average consumption of 12,500kWh gas and 3,200kWh electricity and compare.

P.S. Using Win7/Win10 and Apple this site doesn't flag up 'neighbour' as a spelling mistake for me. Could your settings be incorrect?

GoodKingNige

That is exactly why I’m doing research in depth – comparison websites do a valuable job, but they’re not the whole story. Pretty much every deal has exclusions and add-ons. RyanAir is the classic example. I’ve travelled by RyanAir and it suited me perfectly – cheap, no frills, and I knew about the restrictions and poor customer service; but that was my choice at the time when price was my only consideration. At other times I’ve chosen to use more expensive options because I had different requirements at the time.

I’m not really interested in “average” comparisons – I’m interested to find out if it’s within range in some circumstances. Price is not the only factor in determining who to go with.

No offence Cardew but I think I’ll carry on doing my own research and keep you all posted on how it goes.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

No, it's definitely not about average comparisons. For me, it's about my consumption, and mine alone. Every time I've put my consumption data through a comparison site, UW are way, way behind.

I have no idea what your airline analogy is all about - UW could have the most fantastic service and send me a birthday card for all I care - I'm not going to use them if they are £00's more expensive for the same gas and electricity.

Cardew

GoodKingNige wrote: »

That is exactly why I’m doing research in depth – comparison websites do a valuable job, but they’re not the whole story. Pretty much every deal has exclusions and add-ons. RyanAir is the classic example. I’ve travelled by RyanAir and it suited me perfectly – cheap, no frills, and I knew about the restrictions and poor customer service; but that was my choice at the time when price was my only consideration. At other times I’ve chosen to use more expensive options because I had different requirements at the time.

I’m not really interested in “average” comparisons – I’m interested to find out if it’s within range in some circumstances. Price is not the only factor in determining who to go with.

No offence Cardew but I think I’ll carry on doing my own research and keep you all posted on how it goes.

With respect, we have had many new posters over the years who purport to present a 'balanced' view of UW.

Wouldn't it have been better to carry out your 'research' before paying UW to sell their goods? Incidentally to conform to Martin's rules on UW you have to declare you are a UW salesmen on your posts.

Your analogy with Ryanair is amusing. Far from being 'cheap and no frills' UW's tariffs are just the opposite; one of the most expensive tariffs on offer and pages of special conditions.

As Mandy Rice-Davies would expect, your ringing endorsement of UW will appear after your carefully considered research;)

Quentin

GoodKingNige wrote: »

......I think I’ll carry on doing my own research and keep you all posted on how it goes.

Don't you think this money saving website would have found out long ago if uw was the deal it claims to be - and made sure everyone knew?

(Thought UW had made it a rule to their reps they mustn't post here?)