AHM Installations | RETAILER PROFILE


L to R: MD Charles Symcox, director Julie and chairman Simon


Displays from the AHM Installations showroom in Maidstone


are their least-sold products. Simon elaborates: “We put one in recently for a customer with a muscular-wasting disease and he particularly wanted a walk-in bath, but he couldn’t bend down to pull the plug out, so we fitted an automatic waste disposal system and he just presses a button and it does it all for him. We did that adaptation ourselves in-house because no one else did it.”


Referrals


They have to be in a position where they feel confident, because the last thing we want is to install a toilet and get a phone call from a son or a daughter telling us that it needs to be higher.” Simon’s son and company MD Charles, an ex-military


officer who


joined the company in 2014, also empha- sises the need for patience: “You have to cross a number of barriers with the customer, because some of them are quite guarded, and if you don’t get there in the first visit and they want us to come back, it’s fine. It is


April 2023 •


definitely a tiptoeing process.” At AHM Installations’ HQ near Lincoln, there used to be a showroom, but they decided it wasn’t really necessary for the business. Simon explains what may at to


first seem go against established


I felt that a lot of people in this sector were being used and abused and that went against the grain with me


Simon Symcox, chairman


practice: “We have a different way of doing business. When I look at most companies selling kitchens and bathrooms it is all about the products. That’s not what we do. Talking to us is what it is all about.” Years ago, AHM also had a big showroom


in the


Lincolnshire Co-op, but they decided to


pull out. But why was that? Simon recalls: “We realised that sales were not product-based. People would come into the showroom and look vaguely at the products on offer, but then once they started talking to someone, they completely ignored it.” Products are displayed, however, at their showrooms in Wellington, Somerset, and Maidstone and AHM also works in conjunction with eight mobility centres around the country. Usually they display a walk-in bath and have showers with seats and grab handles, but it is the walk-in baths that always seem to


capture people’s


attention. Simon tells me they often decide that is what they want. However, he says they usually don’t end up with a walk-in bath and they


So how do most people find AHM? Simon says they do some low-profile advertising in local magazines and newspapers. They also get referrals from charities, suppliers and their mobility centre partners. “To me the tell-tale sign is referrals,” he admits. “It is a pat on the back and I know referrals in this sector are few and far between. Because not everyone wants to give a referral as they don’t want everyone to know what is going on with their bathing.” They also do a lot of work with armed forces charity SSAFA. “Essentially that is a big part of what we do, making things right for the people who have fought for us and guarded our country.”


An interesting point made by Charles is how people tend to delay the decision-making process. He says: “Everyone leaves it until the last moment when they can barely get themselves in and out of the bath.” As Simon says: “There is always a


trigger. Maybe because someone has had a fall or they couldn’t get out of the bath and ended up in there overnight. And someone finds them in a totally distressed state and thinks they


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