DR. PHONE FIX AIMS TO REPAIR BROKEN CELLPHONES QUICKLY
Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today, the Starphoenix talks to Warren Michaels, director of brand and business development for
Dr. Phone Fix, which recently opened two locations in Saskatoon. The first Dr. Phone Fix was opened just over two years ago by Piyush Sawhney, after he came to Canada from India seven years earlier. Sawhney has worked in the cellphone industry for the past 15 years and now has 24 Dr. Phone Fix locations in Western Canada.
Ambitious plans include opening 40 locations by the end of this year, including one in Regina. Then the goal is to continue opening one store every two to three weeks and to have 200 stores across Canada within the next couple of years.
Sawhney and Michaels, along with other company executives, were in Saskatoon on May 17 for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at their store in the north end. Michaels, who grew up in Moose Jaw, was pleased to be back in Saskatoon again after originally starting his career here as a broadcaster for CKOM back in 1966.
Q Could you tell us about Dr. Phone Fix?
A Dr. Phone Fix is Canada's fastest growing cellphone and electronics repair company. We're opening up stores at the rate of one every three weeks. In terms of awards, we're a finalist or a nominee for 13 of Canada's top business awards in 2022. For example, the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur Award is one of them. The Alberta Chambers of Commerce have various awards and one of them is for fastest growing business; we're a finalist for that. The company is a pretty hot business story right now in Canada.
Q What makes Dr. Phone Fix stand out?
A People can't survive without a cellphone today and people want their phones fixed and they want them fixed fast. That's what we pride ourselves on is fixing them very fast with friendly service and the lowest prices, usually, in town. The way we achieve that is we have special supply chain arrangements in a planned system that enables us to have the parts. Some of the (other) shops don't have the parts in place so they sort of say, “We'll repair your phone, but it will take us a day or two.” Well, we can do it right then and there. Most repairs are done that same day. The whole idea is to be fast, friendly and reliable. And we guarantee our service for life.
When a cellphone breaks, most of the time we're able to transfer the data out or to fix it completely and people walk away with a phone that looks brand new, even though they came in with one that looked like it was toast.
Q Do customers pay for a diagnosis for a cellphone problem?
A Some stores charge to diagnose your problem. We don't. It's free. Some stores charge to clean the ports on your cellphone. And people will bring a cellphone in and think it's broken. And we will clean the ports, and it works. No charge. We clean ports for free. There are certain services that we do for free, as a courtesy. It's something fairly simple for us to do, but it's something that people don't necessarily know how to do or have the equipment to do. And they don't know that that may be the reason that the phone isn't working. And we do. So we do that for free.
Q Do you buy and sell used cellphones?
A Yes. There are a staggering amount of cellphones around that are not in use in Canada. There are a bunch of cellphones that are in drawers and so on as people buy new cellphones and replace the old one. What we're trying to do is get people to keep their phones in service, or if they don't like that phone anymore, or don't want that phone anymore, sell it to us and we'll fix it up and give it to somebody else who wants it. We put them through a test and replace all the parts. I use a refurbished Apple 7 from our company. When I got it, it looked like it was brand new. It was in a box with cellophane wrapping. We're the second largest seller of refurbished phones in the country. We also sell accessories, pre-owned phones, tablets and computers. And we fix ipads and computers and accept trade-ins.
Q Do you recycle phones and phone parts?
A We're partners with a non-profit organization, Call2recycle. They are the federal government's chosen battery recycler. Other provincial governments are a part of that as well. We're the only company in Canada in the cellphone repair field that is a part of Call2recycle. As a result, we recycle batteries, which is more important than just preventing waste because every battery contains silver, gold, cobalt and copper.
These are all precious metals that are mined in parts of the world where things are pretty tough. And, in fact, the mining process sometimes is a bit challenging. Anything we can do to recycle these elements then reduces the amount of mining in sometimes poor conditions. From a green point of view, we are quite proud of our commitment to try to save the planet.
In fixing the phone, what we are doing in some sense is diverting those phones that are now broken from the e-waste garbage dump. And then we're also helping customers by fixing their phones so they don't have to buy a brand new one.