T
Tile Shop
So.... Signed up to the forum, looked at loads of threads (found the one about poor workmanship absolutely hilarious)and have decided this is a must for tiling info and offer some input of my own.
So about me. I'm not a tiler, and I've only ever done about 15 very basic simple tiling jobs for myself and family.
I actually work for one of the online tile shops / trade distributors (would rather not say which one if thats ok). Started off sweeping the warehouse, one saturday around 18 years ago and just gone up and grown up since then. Most recently I have been a Team Leader for the online department.
The staff turnover was unbelievable so of course, having so many new staff with limited training selling tiles, adhesives, preps, tools, that they had very little knowledge of, caused a few "issues". It annoyed the hell out of me, and the bosses.
So finally I have been given the go-ahead to set up an internal "Technical Support" department, consisting of just me, helping the online department to start with, but the branching out to the rest of the business (Trade Sales, Showrooms and the ASM's) as it becomes bigger and hopefully more successful. The aim is to train up the new starters to they have what i consider to be enough basic knowledge to start them of, and progress to more in-depth training as they settle in. I will also be the the main goto person if anyone has any technical related questions they can't answer.
Ok so I've had 18 years experience in the product and know quite a bit about how our customers should proceed with the products we supply. But I am probably nowhere near as clued up as the Pro's who frequent this site, in the exact "how too's". Hence why I've joined.
This department isn't fully set up yet as I need to get myself trained up to a standard worthy of confidently being able to give professional instead of half-arsed advise to our staff and the public. So I've set up various training sessions at/with BAL, Schluter, LTP, Palace and Mapei to start with. This on top of going out with one of the best tilers in our area to get some first hand experience..... (yep, a pen pusher is gonna get his hands mucky).
So here I am and looking forward to browsing the forum some more, and reading/learning about some of the things you guys have to put up with every day.
Bye for now....
PC
So about me. I'm not a tiler, and I've only ever done about 15 very basic simple tiling jobs for myself and family.
I actually work for one of the online tile shops / trade distributors (would rather not say which one if thats ok). Started off sweeping the warehouse, one saturday around 18 years ago and just gone up and grown up since then. Most recently I have been a Team Leader for the online department.
The staff turnover was unbelievable so of course, having so many new staff with limited training selling tiles, adhesives, preps, tools, that they had very little knowledge of, caused a few "issues". It annoyed the hell out of me, and the bosses.
So finally I have been given the go-ahead to set up an internal "Technical Support" department, consisting of just me, helping the online department to start with, but the branching out to the rest of the business (Trade Sales, Showrooms and the ASM's) as it becomes bigger and hopefully more successful. The aim is to train up the new starters to they have what i consider to be enough basic knowledge to start them of, and progress to more in-depth training as they settle in. I will also be the the main goto person if anyone has any technical related questions they can't answer.
Ok so I've had 18 years experience in the product and know quite a bit about how our customers should proceed with the products we supply. But I am probably nowhere near as clued up as the Pro's who frequent this site, in the exact "how too's". Hence why I've joined.
This department isn't fully set up yet as I need to get myself trained up to a standard worthy of confidently being able to give professional instead of half-arsed advise to our staff and the public. So I've set up various training sessions at/with BAL, Schluter, LTP, Palace and Mapei to start with. This on top of going out with one of the best tilers in our area to get some first hand experience..... (yep, a pen pusher is gonna get his hands mucky).
So here I am and looking forward to browsing the forum some more, and reading/learning about some of the things you guys have to put up with every day.
Bye for now....
PC
