How do you compensate your technicians? This is an area that can lead to alot of discussion among Service companies. I believe you want to look for a company that pays their staff a livable hourly wage-this would be 20-35.00 dollars per hour plus benefits. I say this in that many companies incentivize their employees with bonuses and commissions to sell parts and equipment. This leads to often unscrupulous employees condeming equipment and parts that are not really bad.
There was one company in our area that as a condition of employment required their technicians to sell a set dollar volume of parts and equipment each month. If you did not meet your quota then the following month your benefits came from the hourly wage you were being paid.
As well, I came home one day to a frantic neighbor who had been quoted 3500 dollars for a new condensing unit. I offered to look at the equipment and found that all that was wrong was a broken wire on a capacitor-after stripping back the wire, installing a new terminal and reconnecting it to the capacitor the unit started and ran for an additional 2 years until they decided to upgrade. An approximately-15 minute repair which with the show up charge may have run 165 dollars vs. the obvously perpetuated attempt at meeting a quota or Baby needing new shoes.
Unfortunately, this is more often the case than company owners will admit. I do not believe in incentivizing your staff just for this reason. If you pay as you should, pursue all leads, and market there is no need to have your staff feel the need to lie to a valued client.
It is so bad at some companies that I have been in discussion with close friends who have relatives or friends who have left the industry-one because his boss told him over the phone to condemn a boiler by cracking a section on it-he even instructed him on how to do it.
How do you charge for your service call? This one that is tough to pin down. As a result of all the different options I will address this by itself in a later blog. Just be sure you understand completely how you will be invoiced!!
What brands do you represent? This is reasonably self explanitory. If they represent X brand they are more likely to have readily available parts on their service trucks for that brand. If you have y brand you may have to wait several hours or days for the repair to be accomplished. Now there are companies that carry alot of universal parts on their trucks so they can service many different brands. The choice is yours but I believe that the company that is independant of all manufacturers and installs multiple brands is your best call. They will generally be better equiped for anything they find.
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