How to treat your technician

  1. When it's 105 out and I've just come out of your attic please do not offer me anything to drink. Us heating and air techs have a special gene that lets us recycle our sweat when licked of off our bodies in a timely manner. Heat stroke is a Zen experience!
  2. By all means tell me that you want to pay my after hours fee and then wait till I'm five minutes from your house and call and cancel. We have a special deal with the gas companies where we only pay half price.
  3. When I tell you that a part costs x dollars, please exclaim as loud as you can "For that!" There are no overhead costs associated with running our business, that's why it's called HVAC. You know, heating, ventilating and charity.
  4. When I tell you the price for a new system, please tell me how Joe down the street just got one for half that price. I'm just curious, did Joe get the Ford model or the Mercedes model or did BillyBobs heating, ventilating and charity install said system?
  5. When I tell you the price of a new system, please tell me how you can get one off of that internet thingy for half price. Those internet models install and warranty themselves I heard.
  6. When I tell you the price of a new system, please tell me that you want to get a quote from 10 other companies and make a decision five years from now. Our business is inflation proof.
  7. When I show you the problem with your system and you're standing right there, please tell me you want to call 5 more companies for a second opinion. All these certifications we have mean absolutely bubkis.
  8. When I ask you who put your system in and you tell me a friend of a friend so your cheap ass could save money, please get mad as hell when I tell you that that's what happens when you hire hacks. Oh wait, that's right, you hired BillyBobs heating, ventilating and charity. So sorry I insulted you, my bad.
  9. When I disable your system because your heat exchanger is cracked, please go completely off and tell me what a crook I am. If I don't hear what a crook I am at least once a day I start getting a complex. Besides, I heard that a little carbon monoxide, in moderation of course, is a Zen experience.
  10. When I have you scheduled for 10:00 and you are not there, please expect me to wait an hour while you do whatever it is you have to do. You are the only customer I have that day and I have nothing better to do anyway.
  11. When you see my van driving down the road, please do everything you can to impede my progress. We all attended the Skip Barber racing school and you are helping us keep our driving skills up to par without having to go back and pay that damn racing school for a refresher course each year.
  12. Please answer your door in the most revealing clothing you have and then offer to pay for the service call by "unconventional" means. Hey, all of us have screwed up marriages anyway, we only married our wives out of charity.
  13. Please argue with me about how much the office said the service charge would be. I've only worked for said company four years anyway, what the hell do I know.
  14. When I am looking at your system, please have your engineer neighbor there so he can make suggestions every 2.5 seconds. After all, all of these certifications we have, well, we had to eat a lot of cracker jacks to get them.
  15. After I have just fixed your system, please fiddle with the thermostat and turn it off. It's ok because we all have ESP and will know that you just turned the thermostat off. Besides, I really didn't want to give you the "complete system evaluation" that you're paying for anyway.
  16. When I tell you that your system is low on refrigerant and will need 5 lbs, please ask me to add only two pounds so you can save some money. You have a special system that will cool without the required amount of refrigerant, all I have to do is throw the kaniflin valve counter clockwise and this will allow the system to run correctly and as an added bonus will seal the leak wherever it is.
  17. When I tell you that your duct work is improperly sized, please ask me why someone would do that. I can surely answer that question because as I said earlier, we all have ESP.
  18. When I ask you to explain what your system is doing or not doing, please start out with "it was working yesterday" with the tone in your voice like you expected it to ring you up and let you know that at exactly 5:04 tomorrow it's going to croak.
  19. Please do everything you can to get me to warranty something that is not covered under your warranty. Remember, I am running a charity, not a business.
  20. When I am diagnosing why your new system does not heat or cool properly, please start out with "well the salesman said?" That's why they are called salesmen!
Reply to
Stormin Mormon
Loading thread data ...

If this is your piece, I'd give you 94% (the indentation is strange though).

Reply to
bob_villa

How to treat your customer:

1:) When your sleazy multi state wide HVAC corporation with know nothing techs buys out the little guy with a great reputation who is retiring, make sure to send mailings to all the little guys customers offering annual "maintenance" on their central A/C unit for 3 times the price what the little guy offered it for last season. Make sure you do as little as possible during this maintenance and always find an expensive problem to fix, no exceptions!

2:) If anyone calls you for a new system quote ensure you respond no earlier than 6 weeks later, or 5 call backs, whichever comes first, at 3 times the local going rate. Only offer quotes for the most expensive, most profitable system, even if it is totally above the homeowners budget or needs, and is the least reliable on the market. Extra brownie points if bright stickers attached to equipment by manufacturer stating "For Professional Use Only".

3:) Make sure all your company trucks leak oil and transmission fluid on the customers driveways. Extra points if the tech blocks the garage and no one can get in or out. The truck or van must be so badly rusted out that duct tape is required to hold it together. Broken windows are covered by cardboard or plastic bags. Plus if back doors are pushed in and rusty dented from backing into phone poles and gas pumps.

4:) Before staring work all techs must first use the customers toilet to relieve themselves of that morning breakfast of burritos and Guinness. Make sure your work shoes are crusty with dog dirt. Belch loudly when flushing. Leave grease or quick dry sealants on towels. Oogle the customers daughter as you exit the bathroom. If a dog or cat is present, make sure you kick it hard so it knows you are the boss.

How to treat the techs who work for the HVAC mega corp.

1:) Instead of paying your good techs what they are worth, fire them for trumped up reasons the first chance you get. Make sure they can not collect unemployment insurance. Replace them with non English speaking immigrants fresh off the boat for 1/3 the salary. They must bring their own channel lock pliers and duct tape. Extra points if they are Rastafarian and sport dreadlocks. Unusual tattoos a plus! Warning! Gang colors require higher salary!
Reply to
Steve Stone

And inspect both the tech and his assistant to be sure at least one of them has his pants half way down. I threw a carpet cleaning crew out of my house last year for that and told the head office to never send that POS kid back again.

Harry K

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

sure at least one of them has his pants half way down. I threw a carpet cleaning crew out of my house last year for that and told the head office to never send that POS kid back again.

Not carpet cleaners, but I've seen the droopy drawers thing in two restaurants.

Not appetizing.

. Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .

formatting link
. . . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .
formatting link
. .

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

All of this, alas, is true.

A good home repair company is a jewel beyond price. Too many people start their own businesses not because they're good at it, just because they couldn't hold a job under anyone else. At best, their business model is based strictly on whim. At worst, it's whim plus incompetence.

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

In my case, my old boss had a moderate case of manic depressive. And no one else was hiring.

- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .

formatting link
. .

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I hear you. After working for a couple of extremely badly managed small companies, I went to work for a big one. I figured with more layers of management, there'd have to be more accountability. No, it makes no difference. And the only difference between the private and public sectors is that 'private' means their screwups and corruption tend to stay private. No FOIA, no legal right to access to their workplaces.

Our local public utility got into hot water with a several hundred million dollar cost overrun to upgrade one of the nuclear plants. They pushed for a huge rate increase to cover it. The PUC and consumer advocates protested it, saying it was the utility's poor management to blame for the cost overruns, so the utility should eat the bulk of the costs, not push them onto the end users. It ended up in front of an administrative law judge, who agreed with the PUC, finding the utility's management incompetence to be the reason for the overruns. And so the usual thing happened - the manager in charge of the project resigned. Guess where's she's working now? She's in charge of the construction of the new nuclear plant down in Georgia. A classic example of failing upward.

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

There was no failure or management incompetence. The "right" people made a lot of money on that deal.

Now roll over, bite the pillow and take it like a man.

Reply to
Mindy

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.