“Dave, my furnace control is blinking and we have no air conditioning!”

Our technician diagnosed it as a faulty PC board and the customer agreed to the quoted installed price. Unfortunately for us, the AC issue was not corrected, and here’s where things could have gone south in a heartbeat, and an irate customer could have been born.

Our techs were empowered to head off any situation that had the potential to blow up in our face and, potentially, damage our reputation. But the protocol was to call the office for guidance first. Our tech said they would find the problem and restore the AC. As you might expect, the customer announced they were not paying for the time and PC board, since that had not fixed the problem.

Our tech could have argued it was possible an additional part could be faulty, claimed it was fixed and only needed time to settle in and left the job. He could have diagnosed to find it was the contactor in the condenser and told the customer there would be an additional diagnostic fee and charge for the additional repair – or – the tech could tell the customer we always stand behind our work and, of course, there would be no charge for an incorrect prior diagnosis and installation of a part not needed.

Customer relationship saved, reputation intact if not enhanced, and future referrals this more-than-satisfied customer will generate. Treat a customer right and they will tell three others to use your services: treat a customer badly and make them feel ripped off and they will spend the rest of their days on this side of the lawn telling all who will listen what a bum you are! In today’s society, they have multiple social media sites where they can grind an axe until there’s no more metal, in which case, they’ll whittle away the wooden handle!

We recently had an issue with our 2011 car’s air conditioning system. Start the car and no fan or AC, only a flashing green light. Yikes! Right during 100° heat wave and with a trip scheduled a few days later. After a few minutes would pass, the AC would come on and work perfectly! Like your average armchair quarterback, I naturally turned to the Internet to research this issue. Typed in the year, make, and model plus blinking green light on the AC button, and up popped the cause — a servomotor was defective. Handy Andy here thought that sounded easy-peasy, until I watched a video that clearly showed the servomotor was hidden behind a host of other pieces and parts that would have to be moved/removed — all while being a contortionist twisted into an upside-down pretzel.

Not wanting to be “that guy” who calls in the expert after thoroughly screwing up the job and tossing in the towel, we called the dealer who scheduled a diagnostic call. Of course, there would be a hefty diagnostic fee. Would the diagnostic fee be waived if we approved the repair and had the dealer do the work? No.

Ahhhhh, the old diagnostic fee charge, which always seemed to tick off our customers. Well, we were, after all, expending time to determine the problem, and given that Handy Andy’s today are apt to turn to the Internet, purchase the part(s) we diagnosed as being defective, and do their own repair – leaving us high-and-dry with out-of-pocket expenses. We defused that irritant (most of the time) by telling the customer the diagnostic fee would be waived if we performed the repairs while also supplying the materials. Not so with the car dealer who refused to waive the fee if we had them do the repair.

We were told it was the “AC amplification module” that had to be replaced, a fancy term for main computer control. In all my decades of PHVAC experience, when a main computer control stops working, it is not an intermittent issue and the appliance, be it water heater, furnace, boiler or AC unit, is out of commission until repaired. But since this is a car, I’m not the expert and we gave approval for the nearly $2,000 repair. “Drop off the car and we’ll get-er-done.” The part did not show up, so the dealer decided to have one shipped overnight. “Your car is ready.” After paying the bill, which included the overnight freight charge, which we had not approved in advance, we picked the car up only to discover we still had the same exact issue with its AC!

Back to the dealer where we were told a second diagnostic charge would be billed and this time the servomotor was said to be defective, which would be a two-hour repair plus part for an additional several hundred dollars. What would you have done? How would you have handled this issue?

Our customer was clearly agitated when he demanded, in an angry voice, to know how much he owed us for “that piece of junk you sold me.” The look on his face was priceless when I told him he owed nothing because it was under our company warranty that covered all labor and materials. We more than made up the cost from work he referred our way in the years that followed as well as more mini-splits installed in his home.

We very clearly understood how irate our customers had been over the past decades when we flubbed a diagnosis. However, there was one major difference in how we handled situations like this vs. how the car dealership was dealing with us, and we were not pleased. We headed off problems by being proactive and stepping up to accept blame and even do so if the situation was not cut and dried. My wife questioned the service contact guy, who did not offer her any satisfaction.

The service manager called my cell the next day to apologize for the long delay in getting our car repaired. I let him know we were not pleased with the level of service and asked if we could stop by to meet with him. A face-to-face meeting offers a far better opportunity to air grievances and seek a better understanding of what has transpired. Whenever we faced a situation like this, I typically asked the customer what we could do to make them happy, and, providing their request was even remotely reasonable, agreed to their request.

I remember one time when a customer showed up at our office, checkbook in hand, to pay his bill for the replacement of his almost new mini-split inverter concealed air handler coil, which had a factory defect and lost its refrigerant charge over a long time. We had invested many hours’ time due to the difficult-to-access space, materials and new refrigerant. Our customer was clearly agitated when he demanded, in an angry voice, to know how much he owed us for “that piece of junk you sold me.” The look on his face was priceless when I told him he owed nothing because it was under our company warranty that covered all labor and materials. We more than made up the cost from work he referred our way in the years that followed as well as more mini-splits installed in his home.

The car dealer service manager gradually came around to our way of thinking and waived the first diagnostic charge and nearly $2,000 repair while admitting they misdiagnosed the repair. You ever have one of those jobs where the whole thing turns to crap and nothing goes right? This became that.

After we once again dropped off the car, the next morning the tech started working on replacing the servomotor, realized it was going to take longer than the promised noontime finish, stopped the repair, and moved on to other cars!

“Take your car back, and return it another day so we can finish the repair in one day’s time.” We did. Ring, ring: hello, “This is the service manager again and you won’t believe what has happened.” Try me! “They shipped the wrong part, your dashboard is completely disassembled and there’s no way to get the correct part and have your car ready before the Labor Day holiday weekend.”

The service manager offered to loan us a brand new 2025 model at no charge. He managed to salvage our relationship and this is the year we’re planning on buying a new car.

What if it’s the year your customer is planning to remodel their kitchen or bathroom with new high-end fixtures/faucets, or a new high-efficiency HVAC system or modcon boiler? Or even better, build a new McMansion with radiant heating? You’ll never know if you burn that bridge.