Pass the bucket.....
A long, long time ago, when I had hair, I wanted to buy a Xerox plain paper copier for the office. You didn’t have a lot of choice in those days and Xerox had the market pretty much sewn up in their favour. The day of the Xerox salesman’s visit was something to remember – he turned up in a new Audi Quatro, had a mobile phone the size of a housebrick on its own portable base station (the first I’d ever seen) and he opened the conversation off by telling me how busy he was and how I was so lucky to find a slot in his precious diary. Verily, he was a legend in his own head. It was a done deal of course – he had something I needed, he represented the market leader, and he knew it.
In no time at all I had signed-up for said copier machine on such terms that kept me bound to Xerox in serfdom for years to come. The only joy my near future held was to escort this ego-maniac off my premises and start the day afresh. But – he hadn’t finished with me yet, oh no! Then there was the small matter of the ‘paper agreement’ where I was obliged to buy the paper for the copier from him as well. “Huh?”, I said – “…hang on a minute – I thought you told me it was a plain paper copier? Plain. Paper. Copier.” The smug look on his face told me he had an off-the-shelf answer to everything. “…ah but – this plain paper copier will only function properly with Xerox plain paper, otherwise I can’t guarantee this, that or the other, blah-di-blah, null and void, blah-di-blah, big technician’s bills, blah-di-blah, nasty things will happen if you don’t comply, blah-di-blah…”. I was over that proverbial barrel, good and proper.
Of course, I got round it by keeping an opened packet of genuine Xerox ‘plain paper’ handy for when their maintenence guy ever came around, but used any old stuff I could lay my hands on day to day. It cost me a fraction of the price, it worked 100% well day in and day out, and I got a daily buzz out of getting my own back on a corporate bully. I learned a lesson back then – that market leaders in equipment manufacture will sometimes shamelessly trade off their name and maintain their grip on their customers by injecting the fear factor that they can’t guarantee what might happen if you don’t keep everything ‘in-house’.
Thankfully these archaic business practices have largely gone the way of the Betamax these days. Or have they?
Dear patient hoist user – does this sound familiar in any way? I am not even going to attempt to go down the road of talking about being tied-in to hoist servicing contracts – thats another discussion for another place – but every now and then when I speak to users of certain brands of hoists I get the distinct feeling they have to accept their hoist manufacturer’s slings because they’ve been told that bad things could possibly happen if they don’t. Or words to that effect. It doesn’t happen too often, luckily – there are some pretty liberated and savvy sling specifiers out there – and the list is growing – but once in a while it rears its ugly head.
If you don’t happen to have a marketing background, this practice has a name – F.U.D. (‘Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt’). Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt if you’re curious. So, if you ever have a meeting with me and you’ve just told me that you can’t even contemplate an alternative sling range other than that of your hoist maker and I go all quiet and thoughtful on you its probably because I am thinking “oh dear, madam – you are a F.U.D. victim” or, “oh dear, sir, looks like you’ve been well and truly FUDDED”.
Here is an interesting statement (not mine, alas!) that sums it all up nicely: “By spreading questionable information about the drawbacks of less well known products, an established company can discourage decision-makers from choosing those products over its own, regardless of the relative technical merits. This is a recognized phenomenon, epitomized by the traditional axiom of purchasing agents that “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM equipment”. The result is that many companies’ IT departments buy software that they know to be technically inferior because upper management is more likely to recognize the brand”. I love that quote. Substitute all that IT and software stuff for patient specific slings and you get the picture.
Ok, if FUDDED, how can one start the refreshingly liberating process of un-FUDDING oneself? Its not difficult at all. These points might help….
* The reason you can’t obtain patient specific sling types such as amputee, sit-to-stand, toileting from your present supplier, or have access to a full range of sizes, is that they are protecting their sales of expensive ‘washable’ slings. Feeling aggrieved yet? PolyWeave don’t sell old-style ‘washable’ slings, so we haven’t got an old-style sling market to protect.
* Lisclare’s PolyWeave patient specific slings are covered by Department of Health’s Master Indemnity Agreement (MIA), which means you can at least try a sample with complete indemnity and your career intact. Our Master Indemnity Agreement reference numbers are: IFA822 – Goods on loan from Lisclare to a trust (Form A) and IFB822 – For use with samples given to the trust by Lisclare (Form B). Put simply, we’re ok to try because the Department of Health say so!
* PolyWeave patient specific slings are manufactured to the same exacting ISO standards as the slings you presently use – which means that at the very least they are as good as the ones you presently use. You’ll find out how much better they are after you try them.
* Yes, we do have a Statement of Compatibility – and your hoists are on it.
* We’ll give you total support with sling field trials. 100% dedication to the task.
* We take the view that you can use any sling with any make of hoist, just as long as the sling type matches the spreader bar config. We also take the completely un -FUDDED view that all brands of disposable slings are good, its just that we passionately believe that we’ve got it right due to the fact we are totally dedicated to our range of patient specific slings and because we don’t make hoists or old-style washable slings we don’t have existing markets to protect. How refreshing is that!
