Man On a Mission
Gerry was a technician on a mission. He was going to try to
break the company record for doing the most calls (14) in
one day. This day seemed like the “perfect storm” where
everything was in place to set the record. The boss told him
at 7 a.m. that they were swamped with tune ups and no
cooling calls and it was 95 degrees and a relative humidity
of 80% today. These were just the kind of conditions that
would keep the calls rolling in to break the record.
The day started off great. He was on his third call by 9:30
a.m. with the first two calls being A/C tune ups where
nothing was wrong and each call only took around 35 minutes.
At 9:35 he received a call from the dispatcher saying that
the first call he did now had no cooling. Gerry was livid.
This was going to screw up the record for sure.
Headed For a Fall
He quickly finished up the call he was on and hurried back
to the first call. Gerry knew this customer always wanted
him to use the side door when entering the home so off he
went. When he got to the side door, it was wide open. He
figured this meant to just come in a start working.
Gerry, still in a major hurry, and with the prospect of
doing more than 14 calls in his head, shouted, “Anybody
hooooooommmmme? Oooomph!!! As he walked through the doorway
and stepped into a 5 foot trap door that lead to the
crawlspace where the customer was getting some garden hoses
out for the summer. Gerry caught himself with his left arm
as he fell into the trap door opening. He then dropped 5
feet where he laid on top of the garden hoses with a
disconnected left shoulder. He began screaming in
excruciating pain, every four letter word known to man!
**&@#!!!^*!!Story
continues below ↓
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Poor Gerry,
There he lay, on the crawlspace floor, wreathing in pain
while the customer on his hands and knees recoiled in
horror, not two feet away, thanking his lucky stars that
Gerry did not fall on him. The customer went upstairs and
called the paramedics who took Gerry to the hospital for
treatment.
Too Busy To Fail?
Gerry’s company was too busy to send a replacement out to
the job or to even get his truck. The truck sat there on the
street with the windows open while in rained into Gerry’s
truck all night long. All of Gerry’s tools and paperwork
were trashed from the water. The customer meanwhile called
another company who correctly diagnosed the problem. It
turned out the customer had a condensing fan motor that was
going off on overload and the customer knew the unit wasn’t
working right when he called Gerry’s company for a “tune
up.”
The customer then called to complain to Gerry’s company for
exposing his “kids” to all the swearing that Gerry did in
the crawlspace and also complained that Gerry had “ripped
him off” by charging him $49 for a tune up where he couldn’t
find a bad fan motor. He also stopped his check for the $49
payment.
What do you think this customer will tell his friends about
Gerry and his company?
Lessons Learned:
Gerry didn’t realize that…
1.The only
call that is important is the call he is on now. Don’t worry
about any future or past calls.
2.His boss
should never said they were swamped because this gave Gerry
the idea that he valued speed over service.
3.Is great
service performed by doing more calls? Or by doing more work
on fewer calls?
4.Why is the
dispatcher calling Gerry while he is on a job to tell him of
his past failure?
5.If you are
going to set a record. Set one for providing the best
solutions.
Do yourself a favor and go ahead and share this with your
techs before they start running from call to call like Gerry
this summer.
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