Clearview National January 2020 - Issue 218 | Page 23

INDUSTRYNEWS (L to R) Chris Beedel – Director of Membership, FENSA, Frank Allain – Head of Operations, Installsure, Simon Charkham – Head of Operations, Borough IT, Anda Gregory - Managing Director, GGF Commercial, Dave Mechem – Director of Operations, RISA, Lis Clarke – Operations Director, BFRC “Partnerships with training providers have also been established to offer upskilling for installers across the industry, with more to come in future months. FENSA has also sponsored the Building our Skills initiative to help tackle the skills shortage and FENSA will also be extended into Northern Ireland,” she added. The GGF Commercial Group MD inevitably ended her address with reference to the FENSA TV commercial. Combined with sponsorship, she reported that the advertisements have reached 63% of the adult UK population, with each person seeing the messaging an average of 8.1 times, equating to more than 247million viewings. The TV campaign, together with social media, a new and improved website and increased activity through PR and press advertisements has significantly improved the visibility of FENSA. “FENSA had rested on its laurels for too long,” admitted Anda. “Although brand recognition by homeowners was okay, it wasn’t as high as we needed it to be for the good of our FENSA Approved Installers and there was confusion around what FENSA actually did or meant. This is why we made a hero out of our FENSA certificate, encouraging homeowners to always ask if they’ll get a FENSA certificate when the job’s done when getting quotes from installers. “Our expectations for the campaign had three components. The first was to help our existing FENSA Approved Installers to win more work. The second was to gradually bring more good installers who weren’t with FENSA already into the family. And the final, and most crucial from the point of view of the GGF Group’s mission to raise industry standards, was to help shrink the grey market and make it harder for rogue traders to win work. Given trading standards is underfunded, we needed to find more creative ways to get homeowners to only use legitimate installers ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ through spreading positive messages about our industry.” Anda finished by saying that activity for all divisions will be stepped up during 2020: “Despite the significant achievements of 2019 we have no intention of reducing the intensity of change throughout the GGF Commercial Group, and we will continue with a range of initiatives for each division, all of which will be designed to increase the effectiveness and in turn of course, commercial competitiveness of each brand. Our plans are well advanced to ensure that GGF Commercial Group will enjoy a highly positive and successful 2020.” www.ggf.org.uk C L E A RV I E W-U K . C O M » J A N 2020 » 23