Chris' Blog: Manufacture Update

Can't find their way out of a per sack with a road map

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:30:40 GMT

Today was a day when I don’t think Invacare could have found its way out of a paper sack with a road map. I have talked to many of you who believe that I have given Invacare a higher grade or rating because I favor them over other manufactures. Well that’s not the case. Invacare manufactures quality reliable equipment and I use their products the same as I do others. I will never let a manufacture dictate what I write on my blog. I don’t sugar coat things I tell it the way I see it and how it is.

This morning when I got up my phone was telling me I had a voicemail message. I looked to see who had called before I checked the message. Once I seen who had called I called my voice mail to retrieve the message. The message was from a customer, close personal friend and my attorney.

The call was to tell me that his armrest had broken when he attempted a pressure relief. He then followed his voicemail up with 4 or 5 emails. As I was walking into my office he called and told me what had happened and we needed to come pick the chair up and fix it. He also proceeded to tell how he could no longer trust this chair because on Wednesday of this week the other armrest had broken while doing a pressure relief. I guess I better set the stage. This customer is 57 years old and weighs approximately 170 pounds and has been in a chair for 43 years. He is a retired attorney and one of the most brilliant legal minds I have ever met. His old chair was a 15 year old Quickie 2 and he has performed this pressure relieving movement the same way for as long as he can remember.

He needed a new chair and had some positioning needs that lead us to choose an Invacare Crossfire T6. Yes I know the very chair I gave rave revues a few weeks back. The ergo seat is still the best frame design I have seen in a long time. He received his new chair approximately 5 weeks ago and until Wednesday the chair was working great and then it happened. First the right armrest bolt sheared off and he came into the office and we replaced the bolt. Thought it was strange that that would have happened so soon after receiving the new chair. Then less than 48 hours later the other arm breaks. The bolts sheared off in the exact spot and bent the back mounting bolts.

I called Invacare to report the problem and was told they had never seen this happen, that certain funding sources purchase hundreds of these chairs and they have never seen this happen. I explained that this is a close friend and attorney and he was going to sue and we needed to get the problem fixed ASAP. I spent 4 hours on the phone trying to run down someone at Invacare who could address this issue and failed to hear from anyone except my rehab rep. He called everyone he knew to call but was unable to get anyone to call him back and get them to call me.

What do they expect the customer stay in bed till Monday? Hire a maid to come wait on him all weekend, cook his food clean his house and so on. What if I had not had a loaner chair to put him in while trying to figure out what is going on before he suffers serious bodily injury? I called my rep and left a very harsh message and will expose Invacare on this issue. Everyone needs to know what has happened. Has anyone else been having this issue and just not reporting it to Invacare? Please speak up, your customer may be in danger of injury and if he had not been on guard due to the previous issue and been in the area he was in, he would have had a major problem. I am “PISSED” and I am going to have some serious conversations with Invacare and they will make it right.

I don’t care that it is Friday; it shouldn’t matter when this happens. Invacare needs to exam their policies and have a better plan to handle these types of issues. Please let me know if you or any of your customers have had this or an issue like this. Trust me Invacare will be reading this and they need to hear from you.

Chris

PS: I have road maps if you need one!!!!!

A Good First Step

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:58:43 GMT

I went on a fact finding mission and explored a number of manufactures websites. I was looking for information related to the manufactures quality standards and how each manufacture was responding to the April 1st. April 1st is when the RESNA ATS/ATP deadlines into affect. Pride Mobility was the only manufacture that had standards posted that I could find. I viewed Pride Mobility, Quantum Mobility, Invacare, Sunrise Medical, Permobil, Omega Trac, Shop Rider, Merits, Balder and many others. I was able to find Pride's standards for consumer power internet sales and Quantum Rehab sales standards. If any of the other manufactures have standards posted on their websites, it is hidden and not readily available.

This tells me and others that while Pride may have issues they let their stance be know to dealers and customers. By having these standards posted customer know that Pride is trying to ensure the quality of their products. I would really like to see Pride and others take a stance on dealers that sell consumer power products. There are alot of dealers that are here today and gone tomorrow, they sell what is in their best interest and not the customers and are trying to ensure that no rehab product is sold over the internet. I have had many conversations with Invacare and they have closed the loop hole in their system that allowed a rehab chair to be sold over the internet, but their needs to be more.

Setting a LAP (lowest advertised price) for internet sales doesn't do anything to ensure the customer gets the right product and so on. Closing the loop in your system doesn't ensure that the customers get's the proper equipment and neither does the ATS/ATP certification program. I know a number of ATS's that if I had a spinal cord injury they would be the last person I would want to fit my chair.

My point to all this is we all need to be working together and ensure that our products and services are what the customers need, it works properly, the chair will work in their environment and the dealer services what they sell. CMS is trying to regulate our industry because we are failing to regulate ourselves. Their is so much fraud in our industry that CMS is paying for chair's that the customer never recieved, it doesn't work in the person's home, it's to big or to small or it isn't the right chair. I talked to a dealer last week that was asking what to do about an ALS customer that recieved a JET chair from the Scooter Store. This is what we all need to be working to ensure doesn't happen.

Alright manufacture's dealers want to know what we can do to stop the insanity. Protect the customers and not just be selling chairs to be selling chairs. I'm not against consumer power sales, that will always be the largest part of our industry but we need to have better regulations and competitive bidding is not the answer and we all know it. If you have a standard of quality, post it so dealers and customers can see it and read it.

Chris

Information

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 02:43:27 GMT

Well its time to talk about more rumors in the industry. As everyone knows the 2 big manufactures have service tech's in the field that you can contract with to do your customers repairs. Pride Mobility has an internal team that works with what they call FST's (field service tech's) and Invacare recently purchased Roadrunner. So I made some phone calls 2 these manufactures and had some long discussions with Invacare but did not get a return phone call from Pride. The rumor around the block is that Invacare purchased Roadrunner to get one close step closer to selling direct to the general public. Well I don't buy it and neither should you. The reason according to Invacare was to offer dealers an option like Pride does that allows smaller dealers to have certified tech's work on their equipment for them. I don't agree with either one of these programs. I believe that a dealer should service what they sell, not contract their service out to someone they don't know. They are putting their reputations on the line and this business practice tells everyone including the customer they are only there for the sell. I understand why each of these manufactures are doing this but that doesn't make it right.

Pride recently introduced their standards of quality which I believe is a good thing. Some other manufactures have tried to have standards but they seem to alter their standards to fit their business. Permobil has exclusives dealers and if thats the way they want to run their business that's fine but it's funning that they have all these standards but some of their exclusive dealers can't take care of their customers and are coming to use to get their equipment repaired. What all dealers should do is practice free trade, sell to dealers that are trained, certified and equipment to sell their equipment to the cusomters and not develop programs that will let certain dealers not have a service department. We have referred a couple of our customers to Pride's FST department for one reason or another and none of the customers we referred to this service have had anything good to say about it.

Invacare says the reason they purchased Roadrunner was to have control of this business and better the services Roadrunner provides, it's not to sell direct. Look here are the fact's, there is no way Invacare or Pride could sell direct and sell as many chairs as they do through their dealer network. Some manufactures are looking for ways to increase their sells and will look at these purchases and start rumors that make absolutely no reason for this. Well enough of the rumor mill, don't worry Pride nor Invacare are going to start sell direct. Well this has been conveyed by Invacare but as I said Pride never returned my call. What if they started selling direct? How would your business model change and would you continue to sell their products? Invacare sells many other products besides chairs, would you sell their beds, commodes and other homecare products? Send me your feed back, tell the manufactures what you think. If you don't want to post a comment on the blog send me an email at chrisb@mymobilitymatters.com. Manufactures are viewing this blog, let your voice be heard.

Chris

Information Update

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:09:26 GMT

When I started this blog the intent was to have a forum where everyone could express their views, talk about products, provide independent information to end users or customer, product evaluations and get feed back on current issues we face. Well things have started out on a positive note and hope this forum will contiune to draw interest and give people a voice. The only way manufactures know what we problems we are having or where they are falling short is for you to speak out. It's our voices that have lead to product development, new product design and advances in current technology. I am finding that alot of people viewing my blog are not providing feedback. I don't expect everyone to have the same view as mine but in order for your voice to be heard you need to comment on the information being brought forth in the blog, so please send me your feed back. You do not have to leave your name but your feed back is greatly appreciated.

I posted some product evaluation recently and will continue to provide those product evaluations. My comments about Pride products got response in emails, comments and phone calls. This is why your feed back is important. I had several phone conversations with folks from Pride about why I said what I said about their products. The end result were positive. Pride has said they they are going to work on product quality, dealer relations and work to support the high end rehab dealer. Pride has developed standards on their high end products and assurred me that they will not sell any high end rehab type chair to any internet dealer. They are support legislation that will create a rehab carve out in the competitive bidding. They will not sell high end rehab products to dealers that are not qualified to sell and service those products. They are working to increase their quality control measure to increase product reliability and added value to th dealer and customer. I am working to set up meetings with Pride to discuss what they are doing and how we can provide feed back to them to make their products better. I also told Pride that I would not sell myself out to any manufacture and would give only independent reveues. I will update you as those meetings move forward and will continue to ensure that you have the most up to date information about any product you would like us to review.

If you have issues or questions you would like me to ask Pride when we meet, comment to the blog or send me an email at chrisb@mymobilitymatters.com , and let your voice be heard.

Chris