Supplier Roundtable: Mr. FixIt

Repairs, Warranties 
and the Man in the Middle

The man in the middle is, of course, you, and on both sides are the folks who require your middleman status to bring them together: customers looking for additional protection for, or repairs to, their cameras; and companies that’ll be happy to provide those services and who pledge a no-hassle relationship. Your reward: increased profits and a big boost in go-to-guy standing.

I talked recently with representatives of four companies that have a history of getting the job done. Once again, you’re invited to pull up a chair. 

Mark Treadwell, President & CEO

BJ Adams, Sales & Marketing Manager

C.R.I.S. Camera Services, Chandler, AZ

I imagine retailers comprise the majority of your repair customers?

Mark: Yes, if you take out Pentax . . .

BJ: We are the factory service center for Pentax and also represent Ricoh in a similar fashion.

Mark: . . . it’s about 90% retailers. At least 70% of our revenue is retailer generated.

You offer a complete program, which is nicely laid out at the website. The first item mentions you provide advertising for the retail store. What form does that take?

BJ: We have a basic qualifying statement: “Need your camera fixed? We do that. Ask us how.” There’s imagery of a broken digital SLR and a puppy chewing on a point and shoot, that sort of thing. It can be reproduced as a poster, a countertop [graphic] and a lot of retailers use it for a stuffer; they print it from our PDF and put it in with their finishing. We also have a video of actual camera repair work happening. A dealer can put it on an LCD photo frame or a monitor; some put it on monitors at their kiosks when the kiosks are not in use by customers. 

At the website the dealer portal is the entry to the system.

BJ: The portal idea came from asking dealers about the things that trip up the repair process. A big issue was the whole routine of taking in a camera, sending it out, having the repair place look at it and then send an estimate a week later. Then the dealer had to track down the customer. Maybe three weeks later the customer gets back to the dealer and says go ahead and fix it. So the consumer’s perception is that camera repair can take two or three months. We wanted the online portal to speed up the process, to get the transaction done quickly. The dealer puts in the model and gets a flat rate price that’s designed to cover our labor and parts for about 90% of the repair.

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