my colleague Jason Knott is doing a feature on CC for Dec. CE Pro/Retailing and would like some true scoop from the field. Who has had contact with them -- either you've run into a competitive situation or they contacted you to do some installations, or you've just heard some stuff....

Please post here or contact jknott (at) ehpub (dot) com.

Thanks for any help.
-julie

might check w allaspectsgirl

[Link: remotecentral.com]

Great, dishez, thanks. Allaspects, we'd love to talk....I passed your info to Jason, or you can contact him at 508-663-1500 ext. 228

Well, I don't know if this is what you want. BUT I lost a job to CC. Hang an LCD, bracket, recvr, spkrs, sub, DVD, cd player, cable box, progamable remote. Nothing fancy. Anyway, they tell me I'm crazy on my price and asked if could I match the $75 CC was charging for install. I laughed and walked.

My Electrical division was doing the wiring on this place so I had the chance to watch the final product. CC installers show up and are gone in about 60 minutes. I get a call from the builder BEGGING me to stop by as the clients can't make anything work. No orientation from CC. Anyway, I get to see how my price was high. The slap in a combo player and an LCD on a stand. They didn't have enough cables so they plug a few in. The stuff wasn't even close to being connected right. The end result. They ruined the audio outs of the combo player and had to be replaced. I end up fixing the fiasco as a personal favor to the builder as I was quite content with "Oh well, you got exactly what you paid for."

I made the client happy in the end but just couldn't believe these guys wouldn't even check to see if the installed gear would work. I hope this isn't typical but afraid it may be.

How did they do that?

CJ

In Chicago, CC refers most of their installs to an outside firm instead of trying to do it in-house. This has worked pretty well for them and the jobs the outside firm does are pretty nice. If the job grows and is beyonf their comfort level, they have reffered us to handle a few with matrix distribution.

they were hooked up to the audio outs of the TV. Might have been a defective unit but I would say that caused the damage.

We have got follow up calls from many customers after CC installs. I just finished one a few days ago. The lady called us to remove her plasma and speakers so the painter could paint and then we went back when they are done. She also asked if we could check the surround speakers and sub since she never hears them. The system was an Onkyo receiver and speakers/sub, Panny DVD/VCR, SA HD cable box, Hitachi TV with external processor. Here is what we found.

1. Cable box connected via component and LR audio to the TV's Processor
2. DVD/VCR connected via composite and LR audio to the TV's processor
3. The only thing connected to the receiver were the speakers and antennas
4. No outlet for the plasma, power cord ran in the wall
5. Speaker wires not in wall rated and so thin you could use them for floss
6. Center speaker mounted with double sided tape and resting on top of plasma
7. Never predrilled the holes in the studs and the lag bolts split the studs, you could see it from the big hole they made behind the plasma.
8. She had paid $450 for their installation

We told her if she wants surround sound then put it in Dolby Pro Logic when listening to the radio. Only kidding:-) She was appalled to find out that her cable box and DVD were never even connected to her speaker system and she had been listening to TV,DVD/VCR through the TV speakers all this time.

We re-installed everything, braced the split studs, our electrician installled an outlet, we connected everything to the receiver and set it up properly. Upgraded her cables and sold her a programmed remote control. And now we are the heroes.

I'm not sure if it is one particular installer at CC but someone could make a living just coming in after his work and correcting everything. I hope they continue this practice.

Bob

Does Best Buy count?

I just got a job that the client had originally gone to Best Buy for. New house, plasma, surround, 7 zone audio, flat screen in the MBR and a cat6 network. All controlled centrally from a media server with multichannel amps.
The Geek Squad spec'd the equipment, they farmed out the wiring to a sub who took 3 mo. to provide a quote and their network guys never did get a price to him for the network. Apparently their subs aren't allowed to do networks.
So he called me, I gave him a price within 4 days and got the job.

Sounds like they have coordination issues.

Best Buy, Tweeter, electrician, alarm guy, neighbors kid, etc. they all count. When and if they mess up I look at it as food on my table:-)

Bob

I think this will continue to be the reason that large multi-faceted companies can not sucseed in the custom install field. Mostly entry level employees that are stuck to covering floor shifts rather than devoting time to clients. Smaller firms have that "single person contact" that is so vital in this industry. We take time to learn new cutting edge products, create bids rapidly, give demos, and stop by @ 9pm on Saturday when the client cant figure out their remote. Not to mention we have no interest in selling "the product of the month" or some spiffed item.

/Rant Session

Julie

How's the article coming? Can this ever be spun into something that won't put you in court?

So we are working on a house at teh end of the culdesack... next house over is CC.

Me "Huhh... look at that... I have never seen a CC install truck before."

Wirerat "Cool... there is our next job..."

Me "What are you talking about... where are you going???"

Wirerat walks right up to the front door and walks in the house. Customer is standing there hovering over the CC boys. Wirerat says right to the customer...

"When they are done screwing this up... come over to our project right there, so we can schedule you."

I was laughing so hard as he did that.

Wirerat "We fix there stuff all the time... all those times we call you into program stuff and we look cheeseed... your fixing there stuff. Hell we could just follow that truck each day and have tons of small jobs."

Next week... we were in that house.

I have a personal friend that I met after she had a CC install. She called me one day with no sound on her system. I swung by and was not impressed. She had called CC many times for a service call but they had never once responded, after waiting for two months she called me.

Her system consisted of a 50" Plasma on a wall mount, AV receiver and dvd player, monster power conditioner and a directv receiver. All components were mounted in a closet and then ran through the attic to the TV on the other side of the room.

She also complained that the radio didn't work, picture on the TV was very poor and the sound when it did work was "odd".

The radio antenna was of course still in the plastic bag, everyone on TV was blue and the sound was odd because the only two speakers in the system were in-ceiling speakers in a room 15ft high and were about 10ft BEHIND the listening position, about 20ft way from the TV.

The TV was mounted at the top of a 20ft high stairwell that overlooked the room making access to it virtually impossible. I could however see the monster power conditioner readout bar velcroed to the wall but almost falling off, one of the two strips had come unstuck. I figured that when this piece eventually fell with the power cord still attached it would swing down into the stairwell neatly decapitating some unsuspecting stairwalker.

I reprogrammed the remote to send the receiver discrete power commands to stop it switching off when everything else was turned on, ran a THX optimizer disc to bring in the TV picture a bit better, connected the radio antenna and was done in about 30 minutes.

I came back later to calibrate the TV and bring tools for mounting the power conditioner.

CC charged $15K for this setup. Not an exhorbitant price but enough that one would at least expect a higher level of workmanship or indeed safety. It seems that this was a sub-c install but shouldn't CC at least QC their installs or even respond to customer service calls?

This applies to California:

[Link: www2.cslb.ca.gov]

type in any of the folks discussed in this forum. CC, BB, Geeks, firedog.....None have active contractors licenses in CA. At least Tweeter has a C7 license...good for them!

Law is simple, if you sell the service, you need to be licensed with the CSLB.