How a Sale Was Lost-case study

Welcome back, and this week I'm going to give you a real life example of how somebody lost a sale worth thousands and thousands.

 A 10 year potential relationship sale just went up in smoke for no real good reason. This is Mick Holly, and welcome to this week.

So here's what happened. A very funny story. My air conditioning unit gave out, and of course it's now as we record this, we're in May, we're in the Carolinas and it's starting to heat up and  I knew I needed to get a repair and it was kind of early, late evening on a Friday.

 I wanted somebody who offered 24 hour HVAC service.  We'd moved to a new place and we hadn't got a maintenance contract.  I decided I would go online and I typed in the name of a HVAC company whose jingle was in my head. They'd done lots of advertisements on the television.    I'd seen their vans around town and I thought, Hey, I'll just check them out.

 I started typing in their name and there was a chat bot and it was a real person, Hey, we can get an engineer, a technician to come round in the next hour or so. My wife had asked me what I was doing and I explained, she said, oh no, don't go with them. They're really, really expensive.

 She says, I know a guy we used years ago. Our son had a problem and he was really, really good.

Well, here's the first lesson, right? this company that I called had done a great job. In getting their name in front of me. Remember in episode 18 I talked about Best Never Beats best known.

So this company had done a fabulous job with their advertising, their marketing, their name had stuck in my head. My jingle was going around and the technician was on its way.

The tech arrived and we went and looked at the external condenser unit that sits outside of the business and it was completely.

Coated in debris, dust, and lind. It almost looked as though it had a fur coat on it, so it couldn't possibly offer any cooling.

But the tech said, well, I think you've probably got , low pressure. You probably need more refrigerant. And you checked the system, you couldn't find a leak, but said, Hey, your system's quite old.

I think that I would recommend you replace the evaporator unit, which is the unit inside the house. Now the evaporator unit,  it's going to be between four and $5,000.

I thought, wow, okay.  He said, I wouldn't replace that on its own., I think your system's old enough that it needs to be completely re replaced, which is like an eight, $9,000 bill.

 I wasn't particularly enamored with this, and I said, what about option C? Couldn't we just  Clean the condenser, spray it, get all of the dirt off, make sure that the, the cooling, fans are all exposed. Increase its efficiency, put in a little refrigerant, and that might solve the problem.

 Well, I, I don't, I don't, I don't recommend that. ,  I really don't recommend that. And he said, I'll go away  I don't have the evaporator, I don't have the parts. I'm going to have to come back to you with a price.

So this technician, very nice chap. Very polite. Spent a long time, two and a half, three hours, charged me $388 for my diagnostic just to tell me that I needed to spend, , five or $10,000, which I thought was a bit rich.

Nevertheless , he's highly qualified, I believe, in the trades, and he did his job well. He,  was very polite and attentive, had all the right equipment, et cetera. So kudos to him He did a really, really good job. But as I reflected on that, I'm thinking, well,  I like option C.

Why can't I have option C? Can't we just try it? Can't we spray water over the condenser and, put a bit of refrigerant in.

So my wife gives to me the telephone number of the per person we used years and years ago and I called him up and sent a technician out.

But here's, here's lesson number two.

The gentleman that we called had his small independent HVAC company. Nothing like the behemoth who I'd called first of all, and yet he'd done work with us years ago, but he had neglected to stay in contact with us. He should have known we moved house. He should have kept in contact with us and said, Hey, when you move into that new place, let me come and take a look at your HVAC system and give you a quote, put you on a maintenance program.

And he would've  had that deal. Right, but he didn't do that. So lesson number two is you gotta keep following up on people. If you're in the HVAC business or any, any service business, get 'em on a maintenance contract. Then who's the person that you're going to call? They're going to call you.

You are a captive customer.

Anyway, he said, okay I'll clean it up and I'll put a pound of refrigerant in there. And a pound of refrigerant is about $175 a pound. And he charged me a little bit for the, for the cleaning. I think it was like $300 for, for him to do that. And the system works perfectly.

Absolutely. The place called down.

Now, it's going to break down eventually. I know that the system's over 15 years old. I know it's going to break, but I wanted to make the decision to be a little expedient, and that was my choice. If it had failed three days later, I wouldn't have been upset, but I would've explored that option.

That was my decision.

Well, then I get a text from the technician who'd come a couple of days beforehand saying, Hey, I've checked the price of the evaporator coil. It's. $4,900 shall I order it?

 This  text so clearly implying that I should go ahead and get the evaporator, even though he even thought option A of the evaporator plus the condenser replacement.

 I texted him back and said  I was a bit frustrated that you didn't consider we could just clean the condenser and put a bit of refrigerant in. And so I called somebody else and they did it, and so I've gone with them.

Thanks for your help, but I'm not proceeding with you.

A day later, I get a call from the big company's customer service department. Nice gentleman calls me, I'm from so-and-so, and just wanted to make sure that you were happy with the service we've provided and if I could answer any questions. I said,  I decided to go with somebody else.

 I felt it was expedient to go and get the condenser just cleaned and put a bit of refrigerant in. I said, I'm a bit frustrated that  you didn't, you didn't offer that.  Now go to episode 23, the magic of agreement.

 You never disagree with the customer.  I'm not saying that the customer's always right, but you can't get agreement and move forward if somebody is disagreeing with you. And  he wanted to educate me. No, no, I'm sorry Mr. Holly. But  your system is 17 years old and  it's going to need need replacement.

The average life of these systems is 14, 15, 16 years.

You're going to have to replace it.

It's our policy that we don't recommend cleaning when the system is that old.

 And so he's, he's trying to educate me as if I'm, I'm an idiot, right? As if I'm stupid. So I'm feeling irritated . I know all this, I know the system's old.

I know it's going to fail eventually.

It's probably a better decision actually to go and replace it. But I didn't want to, and I said, look, your job is to present me with options and you can guide me, but  I am the decision maker. I choose which option I want to buy. I'm the buyer, and if I want to buy a cleaning and a maintenance contract, that's what I want.

Again he tried to disagree with me and, and now I can understand why  the technician who was a nice engineer, young chap, very polite, very enthusiastic. I kept pressing him, , I want a cleaning. I want a cleaning. And he said, no I don't recommend that. I understand why he was in a straight jacket, cuz his sales training was, you do not offer to do cleaning.

We sell replacement systems.

So that experience then Turned me off their organization.

Now think about it. If they had turned around and said, okay, Mr holly, we can certainly put you on a maintenance contract that will, that will give you a cleaning. If we have to put some refrigerant in, we can do that, and then we can monitor that and if it fails later on, we can replace the system.

I would've been very happy with that. I'd Have bought that from them, but  they didn't offer me that, so it, it just irritated me. You see, if they had offered it to me, I would've paid for the maintenance contract. That would've been a thousand couple of thousands, right?

They would've cemented me in as a customer, my system will inevit inevitably fail. Who am I going to call for the replacement? Either the evaporator or the entire system. If the evaporator goes, I change that. Eventually I have to change out the condenser unit. They would've gotten that business and I would've been a customer on the new system, on a maintenance contract for the next 15 years.

By being righteous and trying to go for the big sale, instead of listening to what I wanted. They lost 15 years of revenue, a replacement system and a customer. And the other guy, he was very happy to get the work and I'm on a maintenance contract with him, and he's going to get all of that now.

So always, always agree with the customer.  That opens up the ability to have a conversation where we could have looked at all the options and I would've been malleable about those options, but the fact that they completely shut me out and then told me, , I wasn't making an informed decision, closed the deal for them.

So a couple of things to bear in mind here.

In summary number one, always, always have a system to keep in contact with and follow up with your past customers cuz they, they know you, they like you, they're going to do work with you again.

Number two. Best product or service never beats best known. So get your name out there and make sure that  you are in the fray for being chosen, which this other company did exceptionally well, but they failed on the

third point. Which is the magic of agreement. Go to episode 23. Always, always agree with the customer. It allows you to open the dialogue, find out the true objection, handle the true objection, and close the sale.

So I hope you found that that little case study successful as students of selling, sizzlers.

Look for those moments when people are trying to convince you of something and  pay attention, when people listen and agree with you, and then offer, a segue or a pivot. Look at how they do that. Be students of selling and look for those moments and how you can learn.

We'll see you. Next week.