LOOK! This is your greatest problem when it comes to Repairs and Maintenance. Do you know what this is? This is a Hobart 60-quart mixer. New, this thing costs between 15 and 25 thousand. This mixer was given to me free by a major pizza chain in Texas. Why would someone give me a mixer worth thousands of dollars for free? The easy answer is because it was broken and not working. But still: they gave it to me for free!!!! I plugged this mixer in and sure enough it didn’t work. I opened it up and found a broken wire and in 15 minutes I had it working. Nothing else was wrong with it. This mixer is now on EBay for sale for $5,000.00.
But now let me tell you what really happened with this mixer. This mixer was in that pizza shop and it broke. They called their repair guy that they like very much and have been using for many years who they trust and who only charges them $50.00 per hour and he looked at it.
He discovered that he could not figure out what was wrong because he never had any training on this item.
So, what he should have done for his client was to tell them that he was not able to fix it and that they should call someone else more qualified to look at it. BUT if he did that he would not be able to charge them. So, probably here is what probably happened. He looked at the mixed and discovered that he could not fix it. He didn’t want to tell them that so instead he lied. He told the manager that, “This thing is just too old and there is so much wrong with it that it would not be worth repairing and to repair it would be more money than what it was worth.” “You should probably just get rid of it and buy a new one!”
So of course, this is THEIR repair guy! He is really nice and he only charges $50.00 an hour so he must be right.
The $50.00 an hour tech wrote a $200.00 bill for trying and failing to fix it, The manager gave the machine to me for free, The manager spent at least $10,000.00 on another machine and I make $5,000.00 on a machine that needed a $100.00 repair.
Who wins and who loses?
This happens every day in the restaurant business. When you do not deal with professionals: you get screwed.
And let me give you the best free advice you have ever gotten in your life: listen because this will save you thousands and thousands of dollars. Whenever anyone from any company tells you this: “Oh this thing is just too old to repair. It will cost you more money to fix it than it would to buy a new one!”
At least 95% of the time when you hear those words it means that their “so called” technician has no idea how to fix your problem and he is just too dishonest to tell you to tell you the truth because he is more concerned about his ego than your dollars. He would rather you spend thousands and thousands of dollars rather than tell you he is not smart enough to repair your appliance correctly.
I’m Ted Baker, owner of the Restaurant Repair Company. If you have any questions about this article or anything else in a restaurant don’t ever hesitate to call me at 866 979-7947 or email me. My advice is always free and in 7 major cities in Texas we are Open 24/7.
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