Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 236. Dealing with Technical Support (Even If They're Not Helpful)

Transcript

Episode 236. Dealing with Technical Support (Even If They're Not Helpful) · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 3: I had quite a few good questions. I think today we'll go through some of the questions and try to. Smash some of them out because this is important.
• 0:01
  It is important that you ask the questions that you're looking to have answered but I get, I got one here. One of the things that the, they run into issues, technical support from factory is extremely tough.
• 0:02
  Maybe they say maybe it's not known who to call. And they give a few examples of some compressor manufacturers and some rack manufacturers. The big thing is, is that. You gotta stay persistent. Because there's going to be people that work at these companies that don't care, just like at your company, there's people that don't, it's just a job, but if they, you know, they're just getting through their day, that's all they're doing.
• 0:03
  So. There are going to be people that you call that, that's who you get. And it doesn't matter if they help you with your problem or not. If they do a solution, yeah, great.
• 0:04
  And that's really what you got to keep driving for, because I know I've called before I worked at a manufacturer, I called them and I didn't get a call back that day, you know, I needed a call now, everything's on fire for me at that point, you know what I mean, nothing's working, I can't figure this solution out, and there, I call them, yeah, we'll get back to you within two to four hours, nobody calls back, so that, at that point, you.
• 0:05
  You can't wait two to four hours. You've got to get your customer up. Then that's when you start calling other people or calling a different number at the manufacturer, usually manufacturers, especially the big ones, they'll have multiple numbers. You can call the U S number, the Canadian number. You can call the different number in your country, depending on the country you're in, for example, if you use like Copeland or Bitzer, they're a worldwide company, so really every country, um, not every country, I should say, but, uh, Every, every company will have a salesperson or some sort of business development person.
• 0:06
  And then if you can get ahold of them to get ahold of the right people this is a process though, you're not going to get that answer right away. , I've seen it time and time again, and they don't have the bandwidth, some of the manufacturers, they might be a big manufacturer, but they're getting, they're just like ever, every other refrigeration company.
• 0:07
  So as a contractor, if you're a contractor, as a wholesaler, as the manufacturer, they're struggling to find people and good people who care and want to, to succeed in the refrigeration industry. So I see, I see a lot of them get a bad rap, uh, for their technical support. And I'm not saying it's, it's good or bad.
• 0:08
  I know when I worked at the manufacturer, I tried my hardest. I answered so many phone calls and I've even seen people in the organization, why, why do you answer all those calls? Why are you answering calls in the evening? That's not, that's your time. That's not, that's not their time or work time. And I was, that's the wrong mindset for me.
• 0:09
  They're just like, well, you're going to burn yourself out because the calls just don't stop. And they were, they were right in a sense, but that didn't matter to me. I had a different purpose. I wanted to help that technician that was running into an issue because I was that technician before. Where a lot of these technical support people weren't that technician before.
• 0:10
  They might have done something in that, they might have worked in a supply house, they might have worked in engineering, whatever it is, sales, they got into the role and then they're doing applications or something, then moved into a technical support role, , but they may have not experienced what you experienced.
• 0:11
  Or like you do supermarket work and you understand on call and all the work you go and they worked in HVAC, which is different, right? So when you have 100, of product online, not on, on the line, sorry. Now you want to figure out right away on how to get that fixed and you got to do whatever you have to versus.
• 0:12
  My coolant is not working, uh, this, uh, this afternoon. Okay. Let's we can wait till tomorrow, you know, to come in and that's still not the right mindset to have, there's still, if you can get by through the night, that's great.
• 0:13
  When you're looking for help from the manufacturer and you can't get it, you got to think outside the box to do what you have to do to get that customer going.
• 0:14
  Cause that's, that's important. You're trying to bring value to the customer and manufacturers see this. They, they know this, but I've talked to them too. They're struggling. Like I said, they're struggling to find good support, , technical teams. And as well, a lot of them have moved their technical support, , from in North America overseas. But at the end of the day, if you can't get, like, you don't feel like you're being supported by the person you're talking with on the phone.
• 0:15
  They have someone else there. So find out somebody else, make sure you take down their name. So you understand who you're talking to. So the next time you call in, you can see or find out someone else to speak with. And sometimes you can go all the way up to the chain, to the top person that you get through all these people and they're not helpful.
• 0:16
  Then what you do, you have to find someone else to support you. Okay. Some other expert. , and sometimes it's finding an expert that used to work at that organization who works somewhere else, potentially. And this is, this is the big thing. , a lot of the time though, you can find those answers, not all the time, but a lot of those answers out on your own.
• 0:17
  You can find those answers that you're looking for out on your own because a lot of that information's out there. There's a lot of it that you, That's just not out in their manuals or in their books.
• 0:18
  But a lot of it, you can problem solve if you break it down and you go and do your research and you go do some study and maybe by looking in engineering books and maybe looking in technical books, maybe it's looking at different manufacturers of that same type of component or system. And this is what I keep talking about in a lot of my training programs is that, yeah, you, maybe you just work on one to say, you're always working on Hussman or you're always working on Hill Phoenix, or you're always working on zero zone.
• 0:19
  It doesn't matter. You should understand all of them, even though you don't work on them. You should understand how Kaiser Warren works. You should understand as TECO works. You should understand how zero zone works. You should understand how SCM works, all these different manufacturers. So, cause you're going, you're going to start to see, there's a lot of similarities.
• 0:20
  It's refrigeration, maybe the components they have on it, maybe a little bit on their design is a little bit different, but the same thing where transferring heat, and I think learning all the different ones, you're gonna get those, uh, those answers that you're looking for that you may not be able to get from the technical support of that manufacturer that you're trying with.
• 0:21
  So I think, yeah, don't give up. That's what I want to say. Don't give up when you're looking for support from a manufacturer, because there are people at those manufacturers who want to help.
• 0:22
  Um, communication is hands down. If you're an excellent communicator, your life is going to be different. Because you're going to be able to listen, you're going to be able to understand, and then you're going to be able to ask great questions, and then great follow up questions.
• 0:23
  And that's the big thing. I read quite a few different books on it, but that follow up question is huge. If you can ask a question, try to not ask a closed ended question, like a yes or no question. It's always best if you can ask an open ended question where they have to give a response. Thanks. Because a yes or a no answer doesn't really help you out a follow up question.
• 0:24
  And there's lots of questions that you need to ask for a yes or no. For example, , Is this compressor this voltage? You know, that's a yes or no. What is the capacity of this compressor and will it work for this application? And so they will have to go in and find out what the capacity of visit and then they'll have to look and give a better understanding if it will work in that application.
• 0:25
  Asking open ended questions will really help you think about the response that you can give back. And I think that's, that's, that is key is understanding the different people and I think to become a better communicator, you got to talk to different people that you don't usually talk to getting into those uncomfortable conversation. This is a big one. Uh, talking to new people, and I think that will, that will help.
• 0:26
  And really it's, I think it's learning a bit more about communication, taking courses on communication. I say this all the time, reading books on communication, reading books on questions to ask some questions are uncomfortable to ask, but are you willing to learn from that? Because that, that's where you learn, is in those uncomfortable situations. And hopefully you can take that and grow from it.
• 0:27
  So conversation with your boss, conversation with the owner, conversation with the customer, conversation with the suppliers. It doesn't really matter. It's how do you learn from that? And some of the conversations are great. And those ones you like, and they're easy, but it's those, those tough and hard ones.
• 0:28
  I remember this one time, was at a job site. We're doing, it was a night job. We're doing a reno. And we were just about to go to lunch and we had a new, uh, vac pump there. I was ready to throw a system.
• 0:29
  We were done a lineup, and I was ready to throw the vac pump on. So I grabbed it, I pulled it out of the box. It was a brand new one. Put it down, hook up my gauge. It was really late. This is working days and days and days, and this is where tiredness comes into play. Like when you're working 20 days straight, 16 hours a day.
• 0:30
  Threw the pump down, hooked it up. And went out for lunch.
• 0:31
  I came back and the pump wasn't running. I'm like, what's going on here? Then I go take a look. The pump was burning, it was real super hot. Then I looked inside, guess what? There was no oil in it. So I started it up and ran the pump, left for lunch, and then now I got a 600 vac pump that doesn't work anymore because I caused a failure.
• 0:32
  So the conversation had to be me going to talk to my boss who just bought a brand new pump for the job, and tell them that I caused the pump to fail. I remember, I don't, you don't forget things like that. Those, those situations that are uncomfortable. And I remember like bringing up the conversation and I was scared to talk about it.
• 0:33
  I didn't want to, because it was super uncomfortable, but I went in and I said, Yeah, I, I caused this failure. Like, I believe it was me because I pulled it out. I went to lunch, and I caused a failure and I'm real sorry. And I was like, if I have to pay for it, I will, you know, it's my fault.
• 0:34
  And it was terrible. I didn't like it at all. It didn't feel good, but do you know what? you know what they said? Like that, that does suck. That really sucks. But you know what?
• 0:35
  This does happen. Um, and we'll, we'll make it up. And so thank you for being honest with me. You know that, and that's cause they know they've been there. And so that's communication with your team. And some, they could have been like, no, you got to pay for it. It's going to come. We're going to take it out of your check.
• 0:36
  And then that, what could I, that's nothing I could do about it. You know what I mean? And that, and it's, it's that mutual respect with your manager and with your team. But it's actually the communication
• 0:37
  And just getting a better understanding of it.
• 0:38
  And so I really appreciate all these questions leave some feedback for Apple or Spotify.
• 0:39
  This really helps the podcast continue to grow, See ya, everyone.