AI isn’t the greatest threat to civilisation - flatpacks are.
People are saying Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the greatest threat to life as we know it. They’re wrong. The greatest threat to human civilisation is hiding in plain sight in our living-rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms and back yards – flatpack furniture and its weapon of mass construction, the Allen key.
They’ve been responsible for relationship break-ups, parental tantrums, and more shattered chattels than a Rolling Stones tour.
But there’s hope for those traumatised by the thought of a weekend confronted with a knocked-down bookcase and a diagram that can only be decoded by a person with a degree in deciphering Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics.
Director of Kitset Assembly Services, Jennifer Lees has seen it all, and more. The company and its franchisees across New Zealand are the go-to team for taking just about anything out of cardboard boxes and packaging crates and putting them together.
“Our motto is, ‘Saving marriages … one assembly at a time’,” she says with a laugh. A kindly one, of course.
It’s not just furniture: “Fitness equipment, a garden shed, saunas, barbecues - the list of products that are delivered in flatpack form nowadays is massive and constantly growing. We’ve even put together an X-ray table.
“When you talk about flatpacks, people just think it’s furniture – but it’s gone so far beyond that. It’s literally anything in and around the house or office.”
The current must-have kitset? “Little cabins have become really popular in the last six months.” Lees does point out that her team will only put them together – council certification and legal issues, like renting an extra room, are over to the customer.
There are any number of reasons why homeowners – and others – don’t want to do it themselves. “Some people can’t assemble a barbecue; they may not be physically able to.
“But the time factor is probably the biggest one for most of our customers. People just can’t find additional time to spend their whole weekend assembling one little object where one of our Kitset team can come and do it in 3-4 hours.”
Or it’s just too hard. She recently answered a Facebook plea from a woman who’d bought a queen-size bed, with storage underneath, in a sale: “During unpacking I realised that it would be harder to assemble than I thought. The instructions made me dizzy and I will not even attempt to open any of those bags with screws that came with it. I give up as I value my sanity very much and admit that I was too ambitious. Kitset team, please get in touch.”
That’s the nuts and bolts of the company’s business. “Our team of assemblers are very, very well practised and they love doing it, which is another reason that most people steer well clear of it – it causes much consternation in relationships.
“I will never tire of the phone calls we get on Monday mornings from frustrated wives or partners: Please, can you come and sort out what my husband started over the weekend?”
It’s especially so in the weeks leading up to December 25. “We call November the beginning of ‘Trampoline Season’. Everybody wants us to put them together, so it looks like Santa delivered the trampoline to the backyard on Christmas Eve.”
Lees and fellow director William Flew took over the company in March 2017 with just four assemblers. Today there are over 35 franchises as far south as Invercargill, offering assembly nationwide.
“We’re very particular about the people that we choose as assemblers. They must get the fact that we stand by the service we provide our customers, to be able to come into someone’s home and act in a professional manner, to be a cost-effective service – and do it with good humour.
“They come from an extraordinary set of backgrounds, looking for a lifestyle change. We actually have builders come on board, believe it or not; engineers, bus drivers, sales managers, fire fighters, pilots and an aircraft engineer. They are individuals who just want to be able to work with their hands, rather than sit behind their desk. They get out, they get to talk to people, and they’re not just building the same thing every day.
“They really do want to help people get what they want, and it’s very important to us – and to the customer – that it’s done with good humour, because they’re often going into a nerve-racking situation.”
Lees says there are still franchises available in many parts of New Zealand. “We’re looking for awesome individuals to join the team who want to be in business for themselves, but not necessarily by themselves because we do have a fantastic support network for them.”
The company provides an intensive four-week training period with new team members, which includes situational awareness – like how to ensure the customer is comfortable with having them in their home or how to handle going into a store to assist a retailer who’s had several attacks on their business.
“Security is very important to us. We have photographs of the team online; every single one of our ‘Kitset Krew’ can be verified on our web page, or they can call our customer experience team, and they carry identification. Oh, and they arrive in a very bright green van – there’s no mistaking that.”
Every franchise is supported by proprietary software that handles everything from the job booking to invoicing and customer feedback – which has attained an amazing 96 per cent positive rating over several years.
But for Lees and her diverse ‘Kitset Krew’, it’s all about the feelgood factor of helping folk out of a jam: “Our guys are the heroes in these stories. I know it sounds a little bit trite, but not all superheroes wear capes!”
Get a KITSET ASSEMBLY SERVICES estimate here