So, just to keep you up to date on all that is happening right now in 2025.
What a challenging year we had throughout 2024, adapting to a marketplace responding to the difficulties of endless price hikes! As some of you may or may not know, this company has now completed 26 years of trading and is heading for 27 years. I think that is some achievement. I was also 64 years old last May and have been in the service industry for most of my working life. On reflection, the clue is in the title 'SERVICE'!
I have been serving peoples needs / wants /demands for a very long time now and as an engineer, much of that time is spent crawling around on hard floors and squeezing into seemingly impossible spaces. Contortionist seems a more appropriate title! That said, I am fit and healthy and still crawling around on floors!
In 2023, I decided to 'future proof' my working life by taking an NVQ and became a qualified assessor. In short, when I finally get too creaky to crawl around fixing things, I will be able to demonstrate my constant evolution and ability to stay up-to-date with accredited certifications. As and when I can no longer do the contortion thing, I have the qualifications to change course, (into a more upright position). I might even get to take a lunch break!
In January 2025, prices inevitably had to go up, just to keep pace with inflation. We held off for quite some time before doing this, because we do appreciate the 'knock-on' effect to our end-users. But we still had our own costs to cover and with more gas-exam renewals in the January, combined with a slow-down in work, price-increases were a necessity, not a luxury. Similarly, all spare-parts suppliers increased their prices, and continue to pass on their cost increases. Some increases are inevitable and a commercially necessity! So in January 2025 we made a small 2% increase on our labour rates, which is far smaller than we would have liked, but without our clients, we have nothing to do. It's our way of trying to ensure that the work is still there to do!
The tail-end of last year and the beginning of this one saw a marked downturn in the repair & maintenance side of the business, which has only just started to make a small recovery. But as a company that follows the 'quality' route, rather than 'cutting-corners-to-save-money', we will continue to be there for you, doing what we do best. To provide quality and reliability in everything we do.
Thank you for custom and for reading this. Please remember to support your local small businesses.
Regards
Anthony
