Latest / Shafer Heating and Cooling Service Repair Podcast / What Makes Shafer's Tech Training Different From The Others?

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What Makes Shafer's Tech Training Different From The Others? · Shafer Heating and Cooling Service Repair Podcast

• 0:01
  Jim Klauck, AKA Check A Pro Joe here on the radio program.
• 0:06
  Did you know that not all heating and air conditioning technicians are the same?
• 0:12
  A lot of guys probably don't know what they're doing, but Shafer's does.
• 0:16
  Hey, Nathan, how are you?
• 0:18
  Hey, Jim, how are you? I'm living the dream. Thank you so much for joining me
• 0:21
  today here on the program.
• 0:24
  I know know, you guys do something that most companies in your space don't do.
• 0:29
  And that is training your techs on typical common equipment that people might
• 0:37
  have, I guess, from, from like yesterday's install, maybe even up to five, 10 years ago.
• 0:42
  I'm not sure about that, but you guys train in-house on actual equipment instead
• 0:48
  of training on people's equipment at their house.
• 0:52
  Yeah, absolutely. So great question. Definitely comes up a lot.
• 0:56
  Definitely one of the many things that helps set us apart, right?
• 0:59
  And so training is something that's extremely important to us and we take very seriously.
• 1:05
  Every single person on our team, myself included, goes through over 250 hours
• 1:10
  of training per year. And that's ongoing.
• 1:13
  So whether this is year number one or year number 10, 20, 30, right?
• 1:17
  And on our team, you're going to continue to train, continue to learn.
• 1:20
  Now, as far as the different platforms, yes, we have a, uh, depends on your position, right?
• 1:24
  As far as the technical side of the technicians, uh, we have a training lab
• 1:28
  here at our facilities where we have over, uh, you know, about eight to 10 systems
• 1:31
  over there of different types of systems, different ages of systems,
• 1:35
  uh, that are all fully up and running and operational.
• 1:37
  So we can take and bug those, troubleshoot them, uninstall them,
• 1:41
  reinstall them, uh, practice even communication, right?
• 1:44
  Um, you might have the best tech in your home, but if they can't communicate
• 1:48
  what's wrong with your system, how does the consumer understand or know what
• 1:53
  makes sense as far as what needs to be fixed?
• 1:56
  Obviously, the broken item is obvious, but other thing is to prevent failure.
• 1:59
  So we can practice and train on all kinds of different things when it comes to that training lab.
• 2:05
  Now with that also, we've also got partnerships with some of the best schools in the country.
• 2:09
  And so we're partnering with one in Weatherford, Texas and one in Little Rock, Arkansas.
• 2:14
  And so So before a guy's out live on his own in the field, we after they go
• 2:19
  through our in-house trainings, which we have a program for that,
• 2:22
  we then ship them off to that school.
• 2:24
  And those schools range from one week to six week courses.
• 2:28
  And they go through a more extensive training there. And it's usually focused
• 2:31
  on a given area or a given type of a system and further advanced diagnostics and different things.
• 2:36
  And so, yeah, we have virtual VRF trainings where they're working on things virtually.
• 2:41
  And so, I mean, just all kinds of different levels of training and extremely, extremely important.
• 2:47
  We live in an ever changing world, right? The technology and the equipment's
• 2:50
  changing every day. We've got to stay up to date.
• 2:53
  I totally agree. I have been working with home service professionals for 20 years.
• 2:58
  A lot of them, especially the smaller companies, will train on the job in the field.
• 3:04
  Pros and cons to that. How do you feel about that?
• 3:09
  Yeah. I mean, if we're starting there and that's our baseline,
• 3:14
  that's our only place to train, that can be kind of worrisome, right?
• 3:18
  What about when something happens, right? Just the risk and that side of it
• 3:22
  as far as for the consumer.
• 3:24
  Now, on the other side of it, yes, there's always going to be things,
• 3:27
  but as long as they're with somebody or a lead on that job, there's always going
• 3:30
  to be things. Heck, I learn something new every day. I'm sure you learn something
• 3:33
  new every day, you know, in your profession.
• 3:34
  And so there's always going to be ongoing training and some of that may or may not be on the job.
• 3:38
  But there needs to be a program in place that gets the basis down. Right.
• 3:43
  That where that person comes in, that technician comes into a home,
• 3:46
  they're confident in what they're doing so that the the the client,
• 3:50
  they can be confident in the technician that's coming into your home,
• 3:52
  that they know what they're doing for the safety aspect. You got to think in heating, cooling.
• 3:57
  We work with some of the most dangerous things in the home. We work with gas,
• 4:01
  electric, water, exhaust.
• 4:03
  I mean, it's a catastrophe waiting to happen if we're not well-trained and prepared and ready.
• 4:08
  Yeah. What I like about your system, because it is a system,
• 4:11
  everyone at Shafer knows what all the technicians know because you train them
• 4:18
  in the facility and when you send them out to be trained at the other facilities.
• 4:23
  As a homeowner, I feel good about the fact that your team has already been trained
• 4:30
  in a systematic way, not on my equipment. So when you're coming out,
• 4:35
  you know, you're already all trained.
• 4:37
  And so I brought that up because there are a lot of other companies,
• 4:40
  nothing against them because they really have no choice, but to train their
• 4:46
  new technicians on someone's equipment out in the field.
• 4:50
  And I just don't necessarily think that's the most ideal thing.
• 4:55
  Yeah, absolutely. I agree. All right, Nathan, as always, thank you so much for
• 4:59
  joining me today here on the program.
• 5:01
  You can contact Schaefer Heating and Cooling by simply going to the description
• 5:06
  of this podcast. All their contact information is there.
• 5:09
  Thanks, Nathan. All right. Thank you. Have a phenomenal day.