Clearview National April 2019 - Issue 209 | Page 22
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Smile, you’re on TV
How the new television campaign from
FENSA will be making door and window
installers a lot happier this Spring…
» » IMAGINE A REFRIGERATOR DOOR,
adorned with the ubiquitous multi-coloured
magnets and Post-It reminders. The message
on the first yellow, sticky square reads ‘Having
your doors or windows replaced?’ in dark
blue handwriting, that is peeled from the
fridge and replaced by another that advises
‘Remember to look for a FENSA approved
installer’. Meanwhile a cartoon window fitter
(that goes by the name of Harry) comes to life
on the appliance, and cheerfully strolls across
the white door with a window on his shoulder.
Using a bright blue ‘A’ magnet as a stepping
stone, he narrowly avoids the third Post-It
reminding us that FENSA approved installers
‘comply to building regs’, are ‘energy efficient’,
and will be ‘registered with the local council’.
Harry measures up his job, fits the window
– as the sketch he works within transforms
to a jolly-looking terraced house, with his
van parked outside and a little girl and her
dog waving from the living room window
– seconds later the homeowner’s FENSA
certificate arrives through the letterbox as
promised. A final shot cuts back to the fridge
door, now with a FENSA APPROVED label
on it and a final memo of ‘Remember to ask
for a FENSA certificate’…
Door and window fitters will be very
familiar with FENSA, but for many
homeowners, the certificate they receive
after an installation won’t really mean a
lot to them. Or, even worse, they are so
unintentionally ignorant to the importance
of a FENSA certificate when they get their
doors or windows replaced, that they won’t
even realise they should get one. For this
reason, the decision by FENSA to create a
commercial for consumers is a very significant
step, and one that will in turn, greatly benefit
installation companies of all sizes from large
national brands to small local companies. Not
only this, but by highlighting the seriousness
of a FENSA certificate to homeowners, the
organisation is hoping to gradually raise
industry standards as a whole, by virtue, and
promote decent installers, over the minority
of ‘white van man’ outfits that undercut
reputable businesses, but by providing shoddy
22 » A PR 2019 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M
Anda Gregory
Managing Director, FENSA
Chris Beedel
Director of Membership, FENSA
work, ruin the hard-earned reputation of the
majority.
Anda Gregory, Managing Director at
FENSA explains: “FENSA is 17 this year,
and has progressed a great deal since 2002.
It is the biggest and best known Competent
Person Scheme in the UK, with over 6,200
approved installers (30% of which have been
part of FENSA since the very beginning),
with over 2.2 million windows and 350,000
doors getting certificates every year. For all of
these impressive figures however, research has
shown that when it comes to consumers – and
homeowners in particular – there is a general
air of confusion about what FENSA is, what
power we have as an organisation, and most
importantly the requirement of a FENSA
certificate for their doors and windows.”
In short, homeowners require a FENSA
certificate for the replacement of external
windows, doors, roof windows, and roof lights
to prove that the installation is compliant with
building regulations, is energy efficient, and
has been registered with the local council. A
FENSA certificate is essential for the buyer
when a house is being sold, and also shows
that insurance is in place for the guarantee
given from the fitter. For fenestration
companies, it is quite easy for us to get our
head around FENSA certification, but as with
all things, when you do something so often,
it is easy to forget to explain it properly to the
customer. All-too-often we may assume that
the customer knows as much as us about the
process, and presume that it needs no further
explanation. In reality, this may be the first
time the homeowner has purchased doors or
windows, either since FENSA started, or at all.
Even if they have replaced doors or windows
before, who can honestly remember what
certification they got last time, or even where
they put it, if they did get one? This lack of
knowledge can lead to simple ignorance at
best, but at worst, means they could be taken
advantage of by fitters with less-than-noble
intentions.
Anda continues: “When we were
conducting research last year, more than
90% of our existing approved installers rated
the organisation’s performance as acceptable
or higher, but only 16% rated the way we
promoted our work as ‘very good’. This,
coupled with the fact that only 35% of those