0800 Repair - National Repair Service

0800 Repair is a franchise style business that carries out appliance repairs nationally in the UK using a combination of employed service engineers, franchisees and subcontracted independent repairers.

The business is actually owned by an entity known as The Pacifica Group which incorporates Custom Support Solutions (CSS), JTM Contracts, Fixzone and the Appliance Network with each of the companies performing a different role within the group but, with a huge crossover between JTM Contracts and 0800 Repair. That said, JTM Contracts appears to be the branding used for commercial contracts whilst the 0800 Repair branding is used more for promotion to the public and smaller contracts with landlords etc.

The business name is based on the American idea where you would dial the numbers as letters on your telephone keypad with the "Repair" being the telephone number preceded by 0800. Whether this model will catch on in the UK is open to debate.

They also use black and yellow vans with huge model screwdrivers mounted on the roof as shown in order to stand out.

0800 Repair do not presently appear to offer a fixed cost appliance repair service but they do offer a fixed cost labour charge like most independent repairers.

0800 Repair Online Marketing

The business is pushed heavily online with most major affiliate schemes supported and numerous dedicated landing pages in an effort to catch "local" business from more targeted searches. Online promotion would appear to be the only marketing employed to any degree other than some locally run television advertising.

Like its competitor, repaircare, 0800 Repair pushes heavily online and appears to have a large marketing investment online into various marketing campaigns and website development.

0800 Repair Online Reviews & Complaints

Like most repair services 0800 Repair has had its share of negative online reviews and, also like most, seems to have some positive reviews that seem to have been planted by SEO or marketing companies.

However for the most part reviews do appear to be negative but like others please do bear in mind that this company will carry out thousands of repairs per year and a few bad reviews are to be expected. we would therefore advice that some degree of caution is required when reading these reviews online.

If you have any experience with 0800 Repair and care to share them we would welcome your comments either below or in our forums.

0800 Repair Appliance Repair Franchises

The model that 0800 Repair appears to have adopted is one of franchising certain areas to an individual or company who then have sole rights within the territory set out.

Whilst this caused much conversation when launched within the industry it seems to have fallen from grace somewhat with 0800 increasingly employing engineers where they have the call volumes or density to support a direct employee or, they subcontract the work to a local repairer.

Franchises where said to cost in the order of £12-22,000 depending on the area required and level of support or training needed. With the low profit margins in the appliance repair industry (especially for contract work) many within the industry have stated that this level of investment cannot be supported and that the model is unworkable.

Reports in early 2012 would seem to indicate that the number of franchised repairers has fallen.

0800 Repair Appliance Repair Trade Perception

The relationship between the independent trade and 0800 Repair can be best described as "strained".

The independent repairers view this service like others as attempting to capture their core business and, very often, pass this work back to them at a much reduced rate. The service that customers then receive is reflected in the rate paid to the attending engineer and this can be considerably less than the customer has actually paid.

Meanwhile and, confusingly, the sister company to 0800 Repair which is JTM Contracts passes out work to many independent repair companies on a subcontract basis and has done for many years although the focus seems to be shifting toward the 0800 branding for all repairs in recent times.

Some factors, such as misleading advertising and claims have been challenged by trade members within the trade forums leading to changes being made to 0800's marketing. There are notes to state now that this applies only to employed or franchise 0800 Repair engineers and not to subcontractors.