Word: repairman
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...straight to the top-write the company president. One St. Louis man gets super service by calling the repair-shop owner, threatening to come down and "punch the first person I see in the nose." Others try the food gambit, laying on sandwiches, beer or liquor for the repairman. And when all else fails, a wife can call the repairman's wife. Says one Milwaukeean: "I asked her how she'd like to keep house without any kitchen water: Did she have some influence on her husband? Did she? Boy, he was out the next day and fixed...
...National Appliance and Radio-TV Dealers Association. In a recent sampling, 70% of the members polled reported an increase in broken appliances from the factory. Railroad-salvage salesmen bucked them on to cut-rate retailers, and the discounters in turn passed them on to the public, leaving the independent repairman to handle any troubles...
...repairman's biggest, loudest beef of all is directed squarely at his meal ticket-the appliance-owning U.S. public. "The public has more chiselers and stupid jerks in it than any place else," says an angry Pittsburgh appliance dealer. "Everyone wants a bargain, but when the cut-rate, $100 TV set goes fizzle and the repairman's bill comes to $25, the customer refuses to pay." Manufacturers are partly to blame; while the auto owner has learned by long experience to expect occasional repairs, few appliancemakers emphasize the question of service. Even so, say repairmen, the public usually...
Failure at the Top. In the middle, between repairman and customer, are the manufacturers and big utilities, whose sales and reputations suffer with each new breakdown or complaint. Repairs is one of their major problems, and they are the ones who are working hardest to solve it. Says Judson Sayre, president of the Norge Division of Borg-Warner Corp., waving a letter from a Cleveland housewife: "Look at this stack of repair bills she enclosed. I don't blame that woman one bit. She's unhappy. I'd be unhappy too. It's a failure...
...brainier gadgets-all of which will present a tougher repair problem for the U.S. serviceman unless they are designed to be fixed easily. The progress is slow, but there are clear signs of advance. Westinghouse's new washer-dryers have a hinged panel on the front so the repairman can get at the motor in a jiffy; before, it took two men just to pull the appliance away from the wall. Motorola, G.E., Admiral, RCA, Zenith are redesigning their radios and TV sets, using more transistors in place of tubes, so that they will be more rugged, last much...