The Story of an Unprofessional Field Service Rep and a Lost Customer

With apologies to both Faulkner and Snoopy, it was a dark and stormy night, after which we woke up to a furnace that wasn’t working and with the inside temperature in the low 50s, we called the Heating, Ventilation and Air-conditioning (HVAC) company that we had dealt with for years.

Typical of their response, a technician arrived about two hours later and identified the issue - motor overheating caused by a faulty capacitor. There was some discussion, and the technician pointed out even if we fix that, we could still face problems with the motherboard, and what was starting out as a $600 repair quickly moved to about two grand.

?After further discussion and him, checking with whatever it was that he checked with in his truck he came back and that number went up by another $400.?

?According to him, the best course of action would be to replace the entire unit since it was a low-end builder-quality unit, and they are only designed to last 8 or 10 years. ?He would be able to offer us a replacement for about $8,000. ?A long way from the original $600.

?We had trusted this company for about 20 years, but his approach just didn’t sit well with us.

?We got a second opinion from another service company, which identified that it was just an issue with the capacitor and that they could replace it for only $300. ?The tech drove a round trip of about 50 miles to get one from a colleague and after about 3 hours from the time of his arrival, we were once again on our way to toasty warm.?

Was it ineffective training?

About ten months later, the unit failed again, and rather than keep patching it, and hoping for another six months or so of life, we elected to take the new company up on the same offer of an $8,000 replacement but this time with a company that we trusted. ?That decision was helped along by the technician showing us a short video on how and where the quality of the new HVAC unit was superior to the original.?

They even did some additional ductwork for the same price.

It seems that the first tech was right after all about our HVAC unit’s impending demise, but his ship had sailed.

Was it ineffective training or the impression that he was nickel-and-diming us and just too eager for a bigger sale that caused us to move on from the first company? ?We later discovered that there was a bonus for selling upgrades to that particular replacement unit.

Trust is so important when it comes to those who represent your company, and, with the customer.?In this case, in roughly a half hour, 20 years of trust had been eroded largely because the technician appeared to be more interested in his bonus than our needs.

A professional (and well-trained) approach based on trust, aided by some informative technology will win the day every time.

We regularly configure Salesforce Field Service Lightning applications for our customers.?The ROI is always a slam dunk, but there are those that opt not to move forward.?Many sell and service products that dwarf our $8,000 spend, but they will never know the scale of the loss, which is unfortunate.

About Solunus

Solunus is a dedicated Salesforce partner, based in Dallas, Texas. The company provides high-quality, affordable Salesforce services that empower you to achieve your growth goals and cement relationships with your clients - including through Salesforce Field Service Lightning. Our strong emphasis on comprehending the unique requirements of our customers and unrivaled expertise of the Salesforce platform allow us to deliver the perfect solutions that create the best value.