The Importance of Customer Referrals and Thoroughness

Last Saturday night my family and I realized that our upstairs central air conditioner unit was not working. After 16 years, it had given up the ghost. Mind you, temperatures here in Central Texas were over 100 degrees, dropping to 80 early in the mornings.

Sunday morning, I called the HVAC company I’ve used for years. The service tech confirmed the diagnosis and I asked him to have a sales rep contact me on Monday. I then called a good friend and asked who he had used when he had replaced the unit on his father’s home several months ago. On Monday, I called that company. Their sales rep could see me on Tuesday.

I learned from both reps that business was slow due to the economy. The two bids came in about $300 apart, but I knew that I could have gotten the high bidder to match the low. Price was not a factor in my decision.

Ultimately, I went with the second company over the first for two reasons. First, my friend had told me that he had used that company on both his home, his father’s home, and his mother-in-law's home. No problems incurred. Additionally, I was familiar with the brand of air conditioner the company was installing and I had confidence in it. (I knew less about the brand the other company would install.)

Second, the first sales rep didn’t enter my fenced-in backyard when he did the walk-around to give me a quote on weatherization. His bid also included a mistake on one of the rebates. And, the day before, the service tech had told me that someone had installed the wrong part on the air conditioner, which may have shortened its life span. The only techs that had inspected or worked on that unit were from his company.

Both sales reps focused on the numbers -- dollars spent, rebates earned, and efficiency ratings for the equipment. Neither spent that much time talking about the units themselves. If I were selling air conditioners, I would have spent a few minutes talking about the benefits of the unit they carry and any advantages it might have over the competition. I care more about the unit I’m buying than I do about the service company installing it. It’s the unit that will be keeping me cool or warm, not the service company.

My advice for small business owners:

1. If you’re selling a product with less name recognition, train your staff to spend a few minutes talking about its strengths.
2. Make sure your people do their job right. I think the service tech who installed the wrong part did it because he thought he was solving a problem. Unfortunately, he contributed to the creation of another. And I’m not going to reward a company for doing that.
3. The sales rep was not thorough, either. He missed an entire side of my house and made an error on the bid.

 A business can’t afford to lose business for these reasons in an economy like this.

Regards,

Glenn

The day this post is published marks the fifth anniversary of this blog. W00t! My thanks to all of the readers who have conversed with me and stretched my learning. Thanks also to the fine folks at Allbusiness.com. (If you haven’t checked out the rest of the site, you are missing out.)

Be cool. Follow me on Twitter. I’m txglennross.