What a corrupt business model. tk purportedly maintains your elevators, but in reality, all they do is respond to service calls. No preventative maintenance at all.
It's like hiring someone to maintain your car -- but instead of faithfully doing oil changes, they just come out to repair things after the "check engine" light comes on. When you need a "new engine" due to lack of maintenance-- too bad, so sad for you.
One of their selling tactics is to cite how many repair mechanics they have. ..If you had someone really doing preventive maintenance, there wouldn't be such a need for fixit crews.
Their contracts are a rigged game. They agree to maintain your equipment, except for certain exclusions, including exclusions for water damage, for example. In my case, they advised we needed new doors, and wanted to charge $120K for doors.
So wrong in multiple ways.. First, the doors should have been maintained as part of the contractual obligation. tk should have replaced them. But no, tk said the reason the doors needed replacement was owing to corrosion caused by rust. (Never did tk do any rust mitigation as part of maintenance. ) Instead, tk's contention was that the doors suffered from "water damage" owing to rust, as a reason not to assume responsibility for the doors. In their way of thinking, humidity equates to water damage.
We hired a good independent consultant to negotiate on our behalf -- succeeded in getting the price down by about half. Then new nightmare's ensued owing to faulty installation...
About a week after the new doors were installed, a paper carrier got stuck in one elevator at 5 in the morning. The fire department used jaws of life to break into the doors and release the trapped person. We made tk pay half of the insurance deductible -- but in reality, they should have paid all.
In summary: thyeesnkrupp neglects your equipment, finds an excuse that YOU, the customer, must pay for new equipment despite their obligations, send a boob to do the installation, the installation causes more problems, you get to pay extra for night and weekend emergency service. Pretty sweet business model for them.
Caution: It's widely known (among people familiar with the industry) that the vast majority of "consultants" are in bed with the elevator companies.
Everybody shares in the bonuses and celebrations when they talk you into new equipment -- including the tk mechanics, your account rep, the outside consultants, etc.
One truly independent consultant in our area is in Hollywood, FL. Hint: Name of consultant's company is similar to longstanding TV show with "CSI" in the name.
Sadly, this business model is fairly common -- at least among the national companies. I'm so happy my building's contract with tk is coming to an end. I'm searching for an honest regional elevator service company that will diligently and proactively maintain my elevators and honor their contractual commitments. read more
