Last customer of the week

[usaf hvac retired]

About 3 months ago, I helped the install crew put in a Trane heat pump, and matching A/H. All went well, the finished job looked good, the customer was happy, paid his bill and Life is great. This afternoon just before quitting time the dispatcher calls me and wants to know if Ill run an after hours warranty call to the same customer. She says he has no cooling and was rude on the phone. So I get there, the guy is super nice, offers me a coke, and says the A/C has worked great until it just quit working about 3 hours ago. I graciously declined the coke and told him I would rather get right to work... OK, T-Stat has no power, I go to A/H and check Power...Nothing... I look over at the subpanel and see the circ. breakers for the cond unit, a/h and hot water heater all in the OFF position. What the hell???...I turn on the breakers and everything fires right up. Well the customer is standing behind me and says "Oh I guess I forgot to turn them on after I changed the filter THIS MORNING". "Sorry about having to call you out for that"... I tell him Im glad thats all that was wrong but I would still have to charge him a $39.95 trip charge... Of course he asks about warranty, and I told him if it was broke we would fix it , but it wasnt broke...only off... So he says "OK Ill pay you". When we get to the top of the stairs I hear him say "you need to take your A$$ outside" I thought he was talking to his dog , but I dont see a dog, so I say "excuse me " and then he says "Get the f&#% out of my house ,Ill bring a f&#%ing check out to you.. I go out, write a quick invoice, he hands me a check, refuses to sign the invoice or take a copy and slams the door.
What do you all think ? Should I have given him a "freebie"? After all he did buy an entire system from us 3 months ago...Ive been doing this job for over 20 years, but I cant ever remember a customer turning on me like that...And it is bothering me or else I wouldnt have wrote this long post.
Thanks for "listening" guys, I feel better now

[midhvac]

You did exactly the right thing.... at the wrong house

You're lucky the butthead didn't attack you.

[JasonHoustonTX]

I feel for ya man. I had one exactly like that. You are correct by charging for that. It cost money to come out to find a home owners problem is his own fault, no a warranty issue.

If you do everything for free, you will not be able to keep your doors open to warranty his system in the future if needed. One way or the other the customer has to pay for everything. Cost must be passed down, its pure business.

[htg guy]

I would have done the exact same thing! In fact I do it all the time. If I'm called out it does'nt matter what the problem was, they get a bill for a service call. If its bothering you that much give him a call and try to explain that he called you for a call which was nothing thats covered by warranty and your boss has a policy where calls require payment unless its something covered by warranty. The guy screwed up and he should pay for your time reguardless of what he thinks.

[a\c don]

If the customer created the problem, oh well.

Time is money.

[appltech1]

Dr Jeckle, Mr Hide, I think you gave him a break. i think i would tell the Co. i work for if he ever calls again you can send someone else.

[hack hater]

Hopefully the boss is on your side and maybe call this joker and say he doesnt appreciate the way his guy was treated and will drop him as a customer

[sctech]

you certainly did nothing wrong & really he should be charged. As for myself , well even though something like that he should pay for if a customer has bought a new system I'll give him a free be like that once but throughly exsplain that these kinda things will not be covered under warranty in the future.Now as for how he spoke to you that was completly out of line. When customers cuss me the call is over & I refuse to go back. Another thing that really sucks about this situation is that now no matter how good the installation job this customer will remember this situation most & when he speaks to people about your company (maybe potential customers) it probably wont be a positive conversation. From my view even though no doubt he should pay for the call, its just not worth the $40 . And again not saying you were wrong in charging him.

[otto]

I would have let it go with the warning that non-warranty service woill be chargeable in the future. Also tell him that he doesn't need to turn off the breaker when changing a filter.

As for the verbal abuse, it should not be tolerated. The guy seems to have a problem when things don't go his way.

Sucks to be him!!!!!!

[Stamas]

We would have charged him 3X that.

[usaf hvac retired]

[QUOTE. Another thing that really sucks about this situation is that now no matter how good the installation job this customer will remember this situation most & when he speaks to people about your company (maybe potential customers) it probably wont be a positive conversation. From my view even though no doubt he should pay for the call, its just not worth the $40 . And again not saying you were wrong in charging him. [/B][/QUOTE]

Thats exactly why Im having second thoughts about how I handled the situation.

[aznrgmgr]

This is a tough one.

First you absolutely 100% in the right.

However, you are at a crossroads. Do you want to be right (and keep the check) or do you want to return the check and keep the customer for life?

The guy's td-off because he made a stupid mistake and it cost him money. Every single time you go out to service his unit it is going to remind him that he screwed up and it cost him money.

It's business pure and simple. 1 bad reference can cost way more than $40.

I'd call him first and explain that there was some type of misunderstanding, ask if I could come over to personally return the check and clarify that warranty calls do not cover customer caused situations.

The last thing I would do before I left would be to tell him that you didn't appreciate the abuse and from this point forward you REALLY wish he would take all of his future A/C business including warranty issues somewhere else.

9 times out of 10 this guy is going give you back the check, offer to give you another soda, and apologize for being rude! In the process, he will feel bad about the incident and think he owes you and your company big time. This guy is set-up to be a customer for life. Not only that, he will tell all his friends how great you were for not charging him when you could have.

You are at a cross roads, it's up to you! JMM

[Frank_G]

If you didn't charge him, it would happen again! As long as he thinks you'll respond for whatever stupid thing he does to sabatoge the system, he won't think twice about calling for service.

Don't fret about it any longer.

Frank

[Dowadudda]

I understand your thoughts. But. Number one. 40 bucks is cheap. My charge would have been 120. Second. This guy is a jerk. No matter what. You did absolutely nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Zippo. And the minute you start letting the customers run you and your business, you'd better just close up shop, cause you just drew a line in the sand that says, "run me over". Standing your ground, taking payment was the only thing to do. But I am more concerned with the fact your asking a question about whether it was right or not. Please read on.

About him telling his freinds. Think about this. Birds of a feather flock together. His freinds are a-holes too. So those customers are not needed in a moving forward business.

I want to pick on you for a second. I mean this with all the respect in the world. So please, if it doesn't sound respectable, just know that it's not meant to hurt you.

Here is an example of our industries troubles. We are allowing the respect of what we do, what were about, how we conduct ourselves to be driven solely by what the customer's actions seem to be. We collectively are bending over and being too accomadating to the general public at large. The fact you had to ask this question, and many questions like this that come up on here, tells me, that our heads are not screwed on straight and the owners and techs need some reality based dollars and sense and business classes.

Example. Your cell phone. Whatever company. It has it's charges. It's rules of engagement. You make the calls and your time is tallied and then your billed. Unless of a unique circumstance, you have to pay the bill, or they cancel you, then your blacklisted also. They look at you as a bad customer, and they can not dick around with you. They focus in on who pays the bills and leave you hanging.

Tell me why on earth we don't conduct ourselves the same way. I can tell you from my own hard knocks of learning this gem of leadership in my own small business. I never once lost out when I have fired customers from my business. It just has to be done. You can't fret over it. You just move on. Recently I had to make a very painful decision about a customer who was a large dollar amount to my business but has experienced bad times and their ability to pay has diminished. I have great relationships with the people at this account. And they were a little dismayed that I am unwilling to wait for their money any longer.

Bottom line. I am like the cell phone company. I need paying customers. I run a business.
Additionally, the lack of respect some customers display, that alone tells me that they don't pay well, so stay away from those types. And even if those types do pay well, you'll fight for ever dollar. That takes time most people don't have. It's not worth putting up with.

[CityHvac]

Originally posted by Frank_G
If you didn't charge him, it would happen again! As long as he thinks you'll respond for whatever stupid thing he does to sabatoge the system, he won't think twice about calling for service.

Don't fret about it any longer.

Frank

Frank is right....the guy is mad at himself for being stupid. The same thing happened to me, the guy was mad at himself and said he didn't care about the charge, but said he would hear about this from his wife for ever. You did it right.

[billygoat22]

Dow beat me to it, but point number two is: Anyone around this guy for more than 5 minutes will figure out what you did, and his testamony on your co won't mean as much to them.

[midhvac]

He's lucky he got you and not me after a tough day

[alex_in_fl]

Go back and reread aznrgmgr's post. He is dead on target.

- One annoyed customer tells about 40 people who tell others. It will cost your business money.

- Unfortunately mistakes were made. The guy made one. You and the dispatcher are not 100% squeakly clean however. You helped install the unit. You knew it was a good install. You put in a good solid system and you did it right. So did you call and ask the customer for any details? Or did you just roll?

This reminds me of the story about a person calling the computer help desk. After a few questions the help tech asks the caller to lean over and check to see if the cable is connected to the computer and the callers says he'll try but its hard to see. Tech ask if its because of the computer's postion and the caller say no, cause its dark. Turns out the power was out due to a storm. The Tech then tells the customer he needs to box up computer and send it back. The caller says okay but what do I tell folks about why I sent the computer back? The tech says "Tell them you are too stupid to have a computer."

The tech was right but it gained no friends and pissed off a customer. Were you wrong? No. But, there was some oops everywhere.

I agree with aznrgmgr - and as a small business owner I think I would have eaten this one with a stern warning. $39 vs cost of new system plus one pissed off customer who could have been a customer for life (and might still be one if aznrgmgr's approach is used) is small price. An advertising spot costs more than $39 and may not get any responses.

As for the guy who says he would have charged 3x as much - its folks like him that give repairfolks a bad name.

So, were you wrong? No. Was it the best solution? No - and you know it our you wouldn't have made your post and be worrying about it. I'd be happy to have you work for me because you ARE concerned that maybe you didn't make the best decision.

Lastly, customer was wrong to speak to you in other than professional tone - even if he was pissed.

That's my 2 cents (and too many words!!)

Alex

[Dowadudda]

I stand by every word I said and is basically in opposition of what your saying. Thats okay. Were both proffesionals. If I ran my self the way you just described, I would go bonkers. Thats just me. The fact that you find a different veiw and your own way of handling it is what this trade is all about. Diversity. But I am a competitive type of person. And I go to win. My philosphy is that I am willing to lose a few short fast races to win the long race. Your basically saying win the short races. Both ways work for the individual calling his own shots, but my long term thinking of this, the impact you say it would have is not what I have seen happen in my experiences.

I was at a really neat party last night and was speaking to a very important and succesful service contractor. This dude is one of the best. Over a couple beers, we were sitting and talking shop and I was truly enjoying the wisdom of this fellow. His biggest point to me was. "Don't compete at the bottom".

[i_got_ideas]

It turned it off and forgot to turin it on. It's his damn fault, screw it, you're in the right.