Our video guide to stairlifts transcript

1. Stannah, a family business

Patrick Stannah – Divisional Director

Well it was founded in the mid 1800s by Joseph Stannah who started a pulley and hoist company.

Andy Knowles – National Sales Manager

In those days they were manufacturers of passenger lifts which were quaintly known as moving rooms.

Brian Stannah – Joint Chairman

Our heritage is lifts, in the early 1800s it would have been cranes in the City of London and in the docks.

I joined my father in 1958 and I think he had about 24 employees and today we’ve got about 1,600.

Jon Stannah – Managing Director

I am very proud to be the fifth generation working in the business and I feel a kind of responsibility to sort of build on the past work of the previous Stannah’s.

Gary Hopkin – Regional Distributions Manager

Loyalty is a strong word but that is certainly what you feel, you feel part of the company.

Steve Leathley – Engineering Director

I have worked here nearly 18 years now and it is a good place to work.

Jon Stannah – Managing Director

Every product that goes out the door has our name on it.  Product safety and product quality is absolutely paramount to us, and hopefully our customers can see that in the design of our products and the performance of our products.

2. Design

Patrick Stannah – Divisional Director

A key thrust of our design is to really try and understand what it is our customers want.

Shelley Cole – Marketing Manager

We have worked very hard with our design agency Seymourpowell to really ensure that the products are designed around the customer and their needs rather than an engineering need.

Andy Knowles – National Sales Manager

Our latest chairs have a very, very unique control which is very similarly shaped to a computer mouse and has been designed along those lines, and that can be used by most people and can be operated with their fingers, the wrist, even somebody’s arm.

Jon Stannah – Managing Director

We wanted also to make the product totally intuitive to use, so people didn’t have to think how to turn it on, it was just obvious because it’s a bit like operating another sort of household domestic product which they’re used to.

Steve Leathley – Engineering Director

We spend a lot of time talking to customers making sure that the products that we develop are right for them really.

3. Measuring and fitting the stairlift

Patrick Stannah – Divisional Director

We have a number of demonstration sites across the UK.

Andy Knowles – National Sales Manager

And we would be quite happy to arrange for you to go and try one.  Even we’d be happy for one of our Sales Consultants to come and pick you up and take you to try one.  When our Sales Consultant actually visits your property to actually assess the staircase and assess the individual he would then be able advise on which is the best product for you.

Gary Hopkin – Regional Distributions Manager

We can fit to most stairs.  We will send out a Consultant they’ll measure the customer and the site because both are as important.

Shelley Cole – Marketing Manager

On curved staircases we make the rail to fit the particular staircase because each staircase is different in its design, and by making it bespoke it really ensures that it fits the bend as tightly as possible, and makes the ride as smooth as possible for the customer.

Gary Hopkin – Regional Distributions Manager

All our engineers carry dustsheets, and every engineer has two pair of shoes, so we’ll wear a pair of shoes outside and we have a clean pair of shoes that we’ll wear in the house.

Patrick Stannah – Divisional Director

Most people have the misconception that stairlifts are fitted to the wall and that is not the case. Stairlifts are screwed down to the stair treads.

Gary Hopkin – Regional Distributions Manager

Dependant upon the model it can take about 2-3 hours to install a stairlift - that depends on the site and any options we are fitting.  Plus the handover, the handover is as important as the installation because the user needs to know how to use the stairlift, and sometimes we take a long time to explain that.

4. Key benefits of using the stairlift

Andy Knowles – National Sales Manager

Our new stairlifts our Solus and Sofia model is the first stairlift to actually have a seatbelt which has been specifically designed for a stairlift and that can be used very very easily by most of our users just with one hand.

Gary Hopkin – Regional Distributions Manager

We have a feature called a two-way power swivel so if you’re getting off in a tight space we have now got the feature where the lift will swivel into a hallway to give you more access.  That’s done electrically so there’s no effort involved in that.  But on a powered swivel if you swivel at the top to get off and leave it swivelled then someone downstairs can use the remote control to electrically swivel it, bring the lift down and they can use it as well.

Jon Stannah – Managing Director

And to be able to fold the chair, the arms and the footrest in one easy movement is something that I don’t think any other stairlift manufacturer has been able to achieve.  I think that goes some way towards making it the easiest chair to use on the marketplace.

Patrick Stannah – Divisional Director

A Stannah stairlift does allow people to really just continue to live the life that they have been used to living for the last twenty or thirty years or however long it is.

Brian Stannah – Joint Chairman

There are tremendous social benefits of staying in your home because you are surrounded by neighbours that you have been friendly with years, with your loved furniture which perhaps wouldn’t fit in another location perhaps with your pets and animals which you might not be able to take into a flat.

Steve Leathley – Engineering Director

When you see these products installed and you see someone actually getting upstairs or downstairs painlessly for the first time for some years it makes it all worthwhile.

5. Safety

Patrick Stannah – Divisional Director

It is very important that a company like us and a product like ours, provides peace of mind, not only for the user of the stairlift but also for the partner and for the sons and daughters in the family.

Steve Leathley – Engineering Director

Well safety is everything for Stannah.  We not only prove to ourselves that we meet every single standard across the world, which we do, but we also encourage people like British Standards to come in here and audit our products so they can also verify that we meet these standards.

Gary Hopkin – Regional Distributions Manager

A fear of a lot of people is little fingers going inside it while it’s moving, but we have got safety sensors all around the lift. The moment anything gets where it shouldn’t go the lift stops.

Jon Stannah – Managing Director

We have a unique key design for the stairlift which enables customers to intuitively turn the lift off at the top of the stairs, and they can see when it’s turned off.

Gary Hopkin – Regional Distributions Manager

And then we can then remove it and take it away and without that nobody can use it.

6. After sales service

Jon Stannah – Managing Director

In the UK we offer a two-year warranty on our stairlifts which hopefully gives people total peace of mind when they buy our products.

Steve Leathley – Engineering Director

But in the event that the user ever does suffer a problem they are able to contact Stannah 24/7, 365 days a year. Stannah’s customer service is such that they’re always on hand to help the user at all times.

Jon Stannah – Managing Director

We provide a network of Service Branches around the country to provide service for people, and indeed should they need us unexpectedly we will always be there within a few hours.

7.Customer Testimonials

Cyril and Marge’s story

Marge

We purchased it for my husband Cyril due to him having a stroke about 9 years ago. We thought we might move but then it was such a lot of uprising. 

The men came round from Stannah to check the hallway for measurement and it was impossible to leave it how it was because of Cyril’s legs so they had to take the banister rail out and make a new one which they did and it’s absolutely brilliant. They were really caring.

Very clean work.  Very clean workers cleaned up immaculately after.  He knew the colour I was having because I already got the new paper to go up and he picked me the chair to match, which I thought was lovely.  Absolutely wonderful. I can’t fault them. 

I do think it’s classy, definitely. If he’s sitting on there I would like to guide it up but he says no I can do it, I can do it, guides himself. The chair comes in handy when Cyril gets up out of bed he can take his time get to the chair and come down on his own.

Before I had Stannah I was Cyril’s stairlift, I used to put my hands under his bottom to literally get him upstairs. It’s made a big, big difference to my life.

Daphne’s story

Daphne 

Well, my partner told me there was a very pretty place to retire to and I came to see it and looked at horror and thought “I can’t buy this house because I can’t climb stairs.”  I had lived since 1959 in bungalows and then I saw an advert I think, obviously, and I thought,  “Yes, I can. I can have a Stannah stairlift”, which is exactly what I did. 

And I still can’t climb stairs and I sail away up to bed at night and come down in the morning.  I was able to buy this pretty little place which I’d fallen in love with. 

I was very interested that Stannah of course is a family company, they didn’t force-sell the equipment, they gave me a choice and a choice of colour and they said “Well this is the date we can give you” and they arrived. They were very, very efficient with very little mess, the staff were very good and very polite. 

I am impressed by Stannah - I think they’re excellent, I don’t think you could have a better company to deal with.

Martin and Sue’s story

Martin

For 15 years I have been walking around on a bad knee, at that time I didn’t know any different so I used to struggle up the stairs.

Sue

I had to obtain two quotation so I chose Stannah and another.  I phoned Stannah and they booked an appointment, well Shaun phoned back and he was here within a week or so and then Shaun came back to do the measuring and what impressed me was he took so much care.  When the fitters came the rails were exactly to this house.  It’s a precision job.

Martin

It took about 4 hours that’s all.  And I said “Well, I’ll hoover up”. He said “No, don’t bother, we carry our own hoover.”  Very impressed. 

He gave me a demonstration and I was, well, taken back, especially when he showed me the remote control I thought “Here we go”.  I can be half way up the stairs or half way down the stairs. If I forget anything, I just turn the handle the opposite way and off I go again.

Sue

If someone came to me for advice I would say, you know, without delay ring a reliable company and Stannah would be the top of my list.

Martin

I really could not believe I could get on there and to walk straight off onto a landing, I had never done that, that is super duper duper.  I would recommend Stannah to anybody.