Hey everybody! Chris with Hvacr videos Here we are at Heatcraft Refrigeration products in Stone Mountain Georgia and we're about to sit down with the Director of Commercial Operations to talk about customer service, how we can better help them as technicians, and how they can better help us as a manufacturer. All right I am Chris with Hvacr videos and I have the pleasure of talking with Mark Dutton Mark Dutton I'm the Director of Commercial Operations here at Heatcraft Refrigeration Okay, and what is that role entail? So I head up the customer service both Parts and Equipment as well as our application Engineering Group as well as our aftermarket technical support group. Okay, so when technicians call in for technical support, that's the group that you manage. Correct! If contractor calls in, there will usually be talking to either the Parts customer service team or my aftermarket uh, troubleshooting team that helps with installation and operation.

Okay, so as a contractor as a technician, I find myself calling for technical support quite often and I've had varied experiences from manufacturer to manufacture. A quick little story was many years ago in my infancy as a technician I remember calling an Ice machine manufacturer's technical support department and I was asking for troubleshooting help and I remember the technician on the other line or the CSS asking me, hey, what is the superheat and I remember my exact answer was what is superheat and then at that moment all of a sudden he wasn't there anymore I heard a click and and I was so embarrassed. Now I realize now I didn't know the answer to that question and he hung up on me. I think there's faults on both sides because as a technician I think we have a responsibility to be informed when we call, but at the same time I imagine that was bad customer service and and I imagine you would agree I I would agree.

Um, we we should help at that point, trying to educate right, um, some and help guide you as to where you need to take temperatures and pressures and and how to get there. but yes, uh, hanging up on the customer. Definitely not good customers. but I could imagine again thinking about that situation and putting myself in that perspective now I could imagine myself being upset and I could imagine that that guy had been working all day.

he'd had a long day. He's fielded a lot of calls and what I'd like to kind of get your feedback on is how myself as a technician as a contractor can be better prepared. before I call you to ask you for help. What are some things that you think I can be more prepared with? Well, well, definitely you know from a troubleshooting standpoint or even calling in for parts help is try and get the model number and the serial number from the unit.

Now, occasionally on some of the older units, the data tag may be faded, right? Um, but try and get as much information from the equipment as possible if it's an outdoor condensing unit, grab the compressor serial number A Lot of times we can look up serial numbers our unit serial number for the condensing unit off the compressor serial number. Oh okay, so we typically record both when they leave the factory, but then from there you know what we would say is. make sure to have done your observations and come up with an idea of what you think is going on. Make sure you have as much data as possible.

You know temperatures, pressures, you know, work through this system. Look for obvious things you know, um, funny, You know stories, You know? Check your power. You know we've seen guys where they're trying to troubleshoot and something's going wrong with the power supply. So um, just try and get as much information to the tech team as possible.

I Think that you know something that I tell my own technicians even before they call me for help. Because calling you guys at the way that I operate my company, calling you guys is a last resort. Okay, so they're going to call and I'm going to kind of field those questions and guide them in the right direction. now as as a contractor, my perspective is a little bit different because I'm trying to educate while I imagine you guys are trying to educate too I lead my guys with questions.

So when they call and say hey, this isn't working I say well, why do you think it's not working, you know and I and I lead them in that way. but I imagine yours has to be a little different because you're not really there to in a way educate the technician like I might be because I'm trying to grow my technician but I encourage them to have as much information ready. I Tell my guys, get a notepad out and write down every piece of relevant information that you think and go past the relevant information: Voltages, temperature drops, voltage drops, pressure drops have everything and I will go out on a limb and even say that sometimes you may even solve the problem before you call technical support. if you start recording that much information, do you think that'd be good advice? Oh definitely.

definitely. In fact, in the installation operation manuals for most of our equipment, we do have a form in there to sort of record information system information on there. but yeah, definitely. come look, you know, hook up your gauges, make sure you've already checked the pressures, check your temperatures, observe the system, and a lot of times you will find the issue before you need to call us.

Now when you do, call us like I I said, be prepared. You know have your gauges still hooked up because my team may be asking you to take some readings, but a lot of times you know. Granted to your point, training is best done at the company level, but my team will try and help train as much as possible. Yeah, um, you know a lot of times they'll step you through, especially with our electronic controllers.

They'll be giving you instructions. push this button and this is why you're pushing that right? So to try and help bring up the level of the technician as well. So one piece of advice that I would give technicians out there something that I tell my techs. you know we have all this amazing technology.

Now we have smartphones. We have Bluetooth devices. We can do all kinds of stuff, but there's nothing worse than waiting in line, finally getting on the phone and then you ask me something and I walk in the box and my cell phone loses reception. That's a frustrating one.

So oftentimes what I'll tell my technicians to do is keep their Bluetooth device on, leave their phone outside of the box and oftentimes Bluetooth has enough range that I can actually walk into the box, my phone will still be connected to the Bluetooth and then we can still continue that conversation. So that's something that I will typically do because yeah, there could be nothing frustrating. You know when you're trying to get your hands in there and it's like oh, I lost them, you know? and it's like oh man, so on. Um I don't know if you can actually answer this question or not.

but like how many calls do you think as a customer service specialist you would field a day like individually on on the parts team. They are a high volume call center so they're handling about 80 to 90 sometimes 100 calls per person per day. Wow, so they're but their calls are typically short. you know they're You know people are calling in a lot of times for price and uh, part number and availability so it's it's fairly quick.

Um I will say if the wait time is long with regards to looking up part numbers and availability If contractor has our Hub software on their phone right? They can do that with the equipment serial number. they can look up part numbers and get the availability and I'll say to your guys's credit too Something that I've noticed with the Heatcraft Refrigeration products is oftentimes you guys will have QR code codes on your equipment. You'll have part number tags on your equipment. There's been a couple times where I've been super thankful on a Saturday when I literally just worked on a walk-in freezer evaporator where I needed three evaporator Motors three fan guards, three brackets and three blades all on the same day because of a extreme freeze-up situation and it was very helpful to have the part numbers.

They were literally on the side of the stuff and it's like then I can go to my wholesalers website look those part numbers up. It was like the diamond in the rough because I found the part numbers all available at one location so that is really great. Um, also I would imagine they can find a lot of that information if they don't have a smartphone app which is the Hub you can go to Heatcraftrpd.com and I imagine you guys would have all that information on there too. Uh, you.

You can actually get um into our parts catalog out there and the Hub is also on okay online there as well. Got you so um, and then as far as you know, technical service goes, those guys handle about 50 to 60. So I'm I'm leading you into a point that I want to make right now with the technical service side. if they're doing 50 calls a day I'd I'd Question you how many of those calls are people having to call back? That's a good question.

I would say there's probably a good percentage I don't know exactly how many I would estimate. You're probably talking at least a quarter. So I would imagine that having the information that we talked about earlier, Having that notepad ready could eliminate a lot of those frustrating calls because then they don't have to call back if they have everything readily available when they call the first time. Correct Correct.

So if they have all the information they're there, you know, observing the system and it's you know, ready to be troubleshot. Then my team can do much better job of helping the customer dive in. Now again, there may be times where we still you know hey do this step and we think it's going to fix it. but then they have to call back and and I would say to again it's so important to read installation operation manuals.

You find out so much information when it comes to installation and when it comes to service. I've made a lot of mistakes I've made probably more than a lot of mistakes installing things without reading the installation operation manuals. I've stumbled on to problems that you guys have enlightened me on. You know when I call in and I'm having weird circuit board issues with an older QRC system or an intelligent system and what it's actually been was the fact that I didn't read the installation operation manuals I was doing retrofit Replacements of equipment I installed it on the existing setup and I didn't run an independent power source to the evaporator coil right and into the weird situations again.

I Know this is like problem after problem after problem but we were having voltage drop so on older systems Legacy walk-in freezer systems more common in Light commercial side we would power the evaporator coil from the condensing unit so you would have a Time clock in the condensing unit. it would power. So when it came to retrofits, we would install your new system, new evaporator, new condenser on the roof and we would utilize that existing power. And in these weird situations I ran into some issues where we were having problems with the evaporator and we traced it back to we were having voltage drop coming from the condensing unit and where my mind was blown was when I got on the phone with one of you guys and I'm like hey, I'm having this problem and the question was is your evaporator powered independently from the condensing unit it's like no, why would it be And it politely it was well if you read the installation operation manual it specifically says in there that the evaporating needs to be powered independently from the condensing unit.

So again that was several phone calls back and forth and me pulling my hair out. Getting to the point. back to had I read the installation operation manual. we could have solved those problems.

So I think it's really important that as technicians as contractors we put more emphasis on that and I think it's really important too. and I Imagine you would agree that with all the new technology we have coming out like we can't really wing it anymore. We really do need to be reading that stuff and you know, be more prepared. Yeah, with the Advent of electronic controls programmable controls it it is a lot more critical that you read those installation operation manuals ahead of time if possible so that you know how the programming sequences what the programming defaults are.

so you can be prepared. I Understand though, as a contractor you may be showing up on a job not even knowing what's out there. Fair point. So and you got the owner breathing down your neck and and you're trying to help.

We understand that so, but we we would prefer that. Hey once you get off that job, grab the manual brush up on it so that the in case you have to go back out to that job or the next time you see a beacon a QRC and intelligent you're much more up to speed with it. So very cool. So with all the new technology that we have now I Personally don't have any of these systems installed that have the the web server cards installed on them because a customer fears and different things, Some of my customers don't want their systems connected to the internet.

but my question to you is if we have a web server card installed on a new intelligence system. When it comes to technical support, are you guys able to remotely access that system and help us to troubleshoot while we're on the phone with you If the system has internet connectivity and it has been set up in the system? Um, yes. My team can then pull up and look at pressures and temperatures with the technician. so that's really interesting because that's kind of a game changer when it comes to troubleshooting and uh, you know you're no longer just relying on the technician to give you information while that information is still important.

Yes, we also have new tools that can help all of us. And and a lot of times when they're talking to the technician, if they're seeing something on the screen, they're going to ask the technician to verify, right? Hey, what is your pressure reading compared to what your pressure transducer is reading? You know, because it may be a bad sensor, maybe a bad transducer that's causing the problem. So definitely remember though, even with an electronic control system, it's still a mechanical, it's still a refrigeration system still abides by the same laws. So I've been in the industry for just about 20 years officially and I've seen a lot of changes with Technologies Obviously you guys are innovating with intelligent and then before that, QRC and Beacon and all these different Technologies you guys have, um, but it's kind of crazy where things are going and how it's changing.

Do you have an opinion about that? Oh yes. So I've been with Heatcraft for 25 years, been in the industry for about 30 plus. Okay, and you're right. Definitely when I came in, it was.

You know we were just starting to move out of the 12 502 into the R22 and R404a which was new right? and you know it's just the pace of that acceleration is continuing. So we're now starting to look at, you know, natural refrigerants Again, going back to Um, you know CO2 looking at A2l refrigerants coming on because of all the regulation changes and really starting to see Energy Efficiency regulations affect it. You know, doe past. You know really the First Energy regulations for us, you know, two three years with Awf with a Awf? Yes, and you know California had it before though when they started prescriptive changes, no more shaded pole Motors got to go to EC Motors So the Technology Drive there.

but that pace just continues to speed up and so a lot more changes coming. It's oftentimes that you know I will communicate with people through social media groups, through emails, people watching my videos, and I'll see comments and people are like man, what are we going to do with these changes And it's It's kind of funny because being from California like I've been dealing with these changes for two years prior to any of this stuff coming out, so it's also interesting. You know, whether you like it or not, what do you agree with what you don't? We deal with a lot before. a lot of people.

So exactly exactly. And so the manufacturers have to be prepared and you know. So we need to also communicate to the field, you know, to the contractors. get them prepared right.

So with all these changes, you know we have to continually push out more information. My teams have to be up to speed as well. so we do a lot of internal training on what's coming in every so. But yes, a lot of changes.

You know refrigerant changes are going to be coming I'm sure does going to raise the Energy Efficiency levels here shortly and then the continued electronic controls because really a lot of times that's going to be what allows us to control to get the efficiency we need. Obviously we have all kinds of innovation coming in on the refrigeration side. I Could only imagine that you guys have Innovation coming in on the call center side with with new sophisticated computer systems and different things like that. what kind of new technology do you guys have when it comes to phone calls? And yeah, so we recently upgraded our phone system.

You know, knowing that When contractors call in, especially during the summer season, our hold times in the tech service team gets, uh, fairly long, Uh, longer than we'd like. So what we did was we implemented a new phone system that does allow you to do the automated callback system, so if contractors in the queue, he'll get offered the ability to leave their telephone number and they'll keep their place in line. So whatever position they were once they get to the front of the line will automatically start calling them back from there. In addition, we just implemented a customer relation management software so we're capturing a lot of data this last month.

you know and one of the things is as a contractor we're going to be asking you for your name, your company name, and the reason we're doing this is it allows us to create the contact and then link records to that contact. So if you're calling on a walk-in box at a Jack and the box next time you call in, if it's on that case, we'll have our notes from the previously. We'll be able to see that faster and start off with a better conversation. And I think that's important because when it comes to I would imagine and correct me if I'm wrong but I would imagine your software can also track that specific location.

Maybe if we if we have the if we capture can capture the location. a lot of times some people won't want to give that but if we have that it helps us filter. we can filter from that and where that would be beneficial is. Let's just say they're using a new vendor and this vendor is walking into a disaster right? and he calls and he says I'm working on this equipment.

Then you guys have some data to go. Okay, so you know you guys know what you're kind of you guys are getting into and it can kind of lead you in the right direction. Exactly exactly and we can use that information to also start spotting. Trends if there's something going wrong.

but it also helps us be more responsive and quicker and generally we'll have a there will be a case number assigned to contact like that. so if you're calling back and can give us the case number that will help us even further I'd Imagine again, with the way technology is going, my mind is kind of racing right now thinking about this. But if whether or not you can do it now or in the future I Imagine this would come where you could start to notice Trends in a region, you know and let's just say we're having a lot of uh I'm from California So we're having a lot of voltage drop so we're having power outages or different things like that and we're having weird issues. It'd be interesting if this technology leads to a point where you can start to notice that in a specific region.

we're having issues with this and you can start to relate them. Yes, and that's you know. That's part of the long-term focus of this was to be able to better data capture so that we can better troubleshoot also potentially push out information to customers ahead of time, contractors ahead of time, you know? Hey, we've noticed a lot of call on this subject. Here's a service bulletin you can use to that specifically addresses this issue as well as identified to your point.

Is it Regional Is it national? Is it a specific chain that's having an issue? Maybe they've got you know, something mislected for their application? Yeah, it's It's interesting because you know. Again, as we're having this conversation, my mind's kind of racing in different directions, but we're always so concerned about Innovation on the technical side when it comes to equipment and parts and different things. But this is cool to hear about Innovation on the other side, which is the customer service side and what data can do for us. And the sky is kind of the limit when you think about it.

Oh yeah, in fact, we implemented also a Um automated Um character reader for our purchase orders where it'll read the purchase order, put it up on the screen. No manual entry potentially automatically processes the order. That's really cool. So as a technician, when I call in, obviously we talked about how it's important for me to be prepared.

Um, is is there any other things that you can think of as a technician that I can do better to be better prepared? I mean obviously having all the information ready, obviously having the models and serial numbers down, being more aware of the system and I would imagine again I'm kind of answering my own question to you, but I would imagine going to your website and educating ourselves with the installation operation manuals before we make these calls you know to help solve some of our problems. Is there anything I'm missing there? I Don't think so. I Think you know being as prepared as possible before the call I mean no one's going to know everything out there. So and that's where my teams there to be the expert for you.

but the better prepared and pretty much I think you've covered it all. Have the information you know, equipment you know, model number, serial numbers, have your pressures, your temperatures, your voltages all recorded. You know, have already thought about what could be causing it. Check out what you can.

You know if you come up with an iced coil, de-ice the coil? Check the heaters. Yeah, yeah. If it's not the heaters, you know, start looking at your superheat. You know, look at the various things and then you still can't figure it out.

by all means. give us a show and I'd say a couple points to make. With that is iced up coils are a big one for me. and Ice patterns actually matter.

Paying attention and noticing Trends With ice patterns those are big and types of ice. Is it a soft? Frost Is it snow? Is it hard ice? That might indicate that it's been trying to defrost over and over and over again? You know? So there's so many different things in all that information matters. So I think it's important to share that? definitely. And if possible, you know a lot of times, take a picture.

Yeah, because you know. Given our team, a picture of an issue sometimes helps us pinpoint even better. So lots of great information here. but let's kind of wrap this up and you know, just just cover a few things.

So as a contractor as a technician I want to have you know my notepad filled out with all the information. More information that we think we could ever need I Want to have reviewed the installation and operation manuals? What else can I do better before? I Call you guys! Well obviously you know you mentioned the installation operation manual? Go out. Visit our website. You know, look at the installation operation manuals if you don't have them handy.

There may be a couple videos out there or some tech tips out there that could help you check out the Hub if you're looking, need a part or availability. Yeah, you can look that up in the hub which is out on the website or you can have it on your smartphone. It's mobile friendly. You can also look up items in our app as well.

So all that and if you can't find it there, then by all means give my team a call. We'll be happy to help you. And if I'm correct, the website is Heatcraftrpd.com That is correct. This has been very enlightening.

It's awesome to hear the other perspective because you know as a technician I can be frustrated. but to understand the other side? to understand your perspective to hear what you have to deal with, to hear how many calls and I'm not saying trying to say pity you pity you but it really is a give and take on each side. And I really do appreciate you having this conversation so thank you very much Mark Thank you Chris I Appreciate getting a glimpse into the contractor and the technician's life as well and just to understand we're here to help. Thank you very much Thank you.