Equipment Selection

EBEBRATT-Ed

Many on this forum are self employed and are able to pick and select the best equipment for the particular job. Count your blessings. When I had that choice I was always picked what I thought would do the best job, whatever brand that was.

Unfortunately, working on larger jobs for a contractor I don't have a choice now. Sometimes better choices could be made, sizing could be better. I have even had equipment ordered the wrong phase or voltage.

Just a rant

Mike_Sheppard

I feel your pain. As a service tech I have no control over what the sales guys quote. I can make suggestions but what usually gets quoted is the cheapest possible initial cost with an improper design. I’ve seen multi-million dollar jobs botched. Extremely poor system designs. Extremely oversized boilers. The list goes on... it wasn’t until I started reading and learning about systems and design that I realized how poor some of the work around here is.

Trying to learn as much as I can and raise the bar.

ratio

@Mike_Sheppard, I'll do you one better. I work on the install side, so I have to install whatever the customer bought, whether design/build or plans & spec, but I get reamed from our own service manager for installing unsuitable equipment or not enough/wrong accessories!

nicholas bonham-carter

Somthing is wrong with this scenario……
Maybe the description/quote of work to be done should be vetted by the installers first.—NBC

NY_Rob

It's similar in other fields... incompetence is all-around nowadays.

I get new customers from our sales dept... my job is to
setup/program their new answering service account for their night/weekend/after-hours calls. It's IT work, no selling/billing/financial stuff. I also compile stats on min used, callouts made, etc if a billing question arises.

In Jan we had a salesperson sell a $150/month account (which included just 85min of operator time)... to a busy fuel oil delivery company in Queens in Feb!!
Of course the customer went berserk when they got their first full month invoice from us.... they used over 500min of operator time resulting in a $900+ invoice vs. maybe $200 that the salesperson had hinted at as "normal".

They (the customer) didn't ask and the sales person didn't even consider an oil deliver company is super busy in Feb... especially this record breaking Feb. How could you sell them a package with only 85min of operator time? They went over that 85min the very first weekend (just Sat and Sun) they turned their phones over to us. We have much larger packages for established businesses which include 500-1000min at substantial discounts over the $150/month starter plan. Why sell them a starter plan?

Luckily I didn't have to deal with the fallout (I'm just the programmer ) but I feel for the accounting dept... that must have been a very heated phone conversation!

We had another plumbing/fuel delivery that's normally a $1,200/month account. This Feb they got a $4,200 invoice for because they used over 4,000min of operator time vs. less than 1,000 min usual. I suggested to the accounting dept. that someone reach out to them personally-by phone before billing day, tell them about their 4X normal bill and offer them a payment plan (pay off $1K/month for the next four months in addition to your regular bill)... of course they didn't do that.. they just sent out the $4,200 invoice via email as usual.
That was another "interesting" phone call billing took in March.

ratio

Ha! I've known a number of salescritters who were skilled enough to sell a $50k job for $25k. @NY_Rob, you'd think that an automated system could send out an email to upsell them the next tier, i don't know, automatically?

NY_Rob

Unfortunately, all Answering Services make more when the min used exceed the plan "included" min. The only ones I've see get pro-active calls regarding upgrading to a larger plan are clients that are "too big to lose".

I have mentioned (off the cuff) to seasonal type clients that our T&C let them switch plans 2X per year without penalty. Some do take advantage of that and they always ask why sales or account never mentioned that to them?

GBart

Some companies size equipment well, many just go with what's there and falsify a load calc to the building inspector.

What also peeves me off is how many companies get so taken by the sales dept and numbers and then you have these clowns who shouldn't sell toothpaste selling jobs wrong BUT the sales dept gets their profit and % to the salesperson WHILE everything it costs to fix this clowns screw ups comes out of the service dept budget??????? REALLY??

EBEBRATT-Ed

LOL

Maybe I don't have it so bad after all LOL

At least I am not alone

lchmb

Just had a salesman sell a furnace.. When I pointed out the duct work wouldnt carry 25k btu he told me the 75k btu furnace was the smallest he could get and it would be fine because the return ducts would keep the hx cool.. he knew this because another salesman told him so...

ratio

GBart

......echoes with the sounds, of salesmen, of salesmen, of salesmen

GBart

Personally I think the worst thing that happened to our industry was instead of picking seasoned pros to be salespeople many picked these college bred types that were schooled on how to sell anything without knowing anything about what they are selling, this is also known as BS or con

it's just so wrong on so many levels