Why HVAC Technicians Fail...

What separates successful HVAC service technicians from those who struggle? The answer goes far beyond technical skills. 

Diving deep into the industry's most challenging pitfalls, this episode reveals the fifteen critical reasons why service technicians fail—and how these failures impact everyone involved. From the deceptively simple matter of technical knowledge to the often-overlooked importance of professional appearance, each factor creates a ripple effect that can make or break careers.

We explore real-world examples that demonstrate how even small mistakes—like failing to document a repair or neglecting to explain the urgency of a replacement part—can lead to significant consequences. A technician who can't clearly communicate why a capacitor needs replacing isn't just missing a sale; they're setting up their customer for a future emergency repair that could have been prevented.

Beyond the technical aspects, we examine the human elements that determine success: time management that respects customers' schedules, documentation that protects everyone involved, and the professional conduct that builds lasting trust. We acknowledge the challenges of role-playing communication scenarios (yes, most technicians hate it!) while emphasizing how critical these skills become in the field.

Whether you're a service technician looking to advance your career or a business owner wanting to build a stronger team, this episode provides actionable insights into the behaviors and practices that lead to sustainable success. Remember—when you consistently do the next right thing, you're not just securing your own future; you're elevating the standard for your entire team and industry.

https://coreyberrier.gumroad.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Why HVAC Technicians Fail
• 3:06 Lack of Technical Knowledge
• 4:53 Poor Communication Skills
• 7:10 Bad Time Management Issues
• 9:55 Failure to Follow Company Procedures
• 12:38 Upselling and Documentation Challenges
• 16:04 Customer Service and Work Quality
• 19:36 Safety, Training, and Professional Behavior
• 24:04 Work Ethic and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:25

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, corey Barrier, and today, folks, we're going to be looking at the 15 reasons why service technicians, specifically in the HVAC industry, fail. The first reason is lack of technical knowledge. So the issue is a technician may lack the necessary skills to diagnose or repair HVAC systems properly. Look, this is why you've got to make sure that your technicians are trained before you send them out into the field. You can't just put a butt in the truck and expect them to serve your customer well and to fix the whatever they're going out to fix or service the system that they're going out to service. Look, here's an example A homeowner calls for, let's say, a no call, sorry, a no cooling issue. The technician incorrectly assumes thermostat is faulty, when actually the real problem is the EVAP coil is frozen and that's due to a restricted airflow. Let's say this misdiagnosis can lead to unnecessary repairs and continued system failure. Not only have you set that guy up for failure because he wasn't trained on the proper knowledge to go out and fix this issue, now you've got a pissed off customer and ultimately, guess who loses in that situation? You do, if you're the owner, and the technician loses and the customer loses. So it's really a bad idea to send a guy out that doesn't have the knowledge, and that's just a fact. Not to mention there's a bunch of safety issues that we'll get into in a moment. So the next thing is one thing that poor communication skills. So the next thing is one thing that poor communication skills.

Speaker 1: 3:30

And look as a service technician. You've got to explain what the issues are. You've got to be able to explain what the repair options are. You've got to be able to clearly explain to customers maintenance recommendations. You've got to be able to articulate these things in a way that the customer can understand. So a tech as an example tech tells a homeowner the capacitor's bad right which this happens all the time Just the capacitor's bad, and they don't explain anything about what it does or why it needs replacing. So what does the customer do? I'm good, no thanks, I don't need to switch out that bad capacitor. Because they don't understand the urgency of the repair, and the urgency is that it's going to break down in the near future. And without clearly communicating that to the customer, then not only are you doing the customer a disservice, but again the technician is also set up for failure, and so you've got to be able to, or you want to be able to, role play with your service technicians and look, I know that it is like pulling teeth fully aware of how much role playing sucks. I also understand that service technicians in general don't enjoy role playing, that's for sure. Most people don't enjoy role-playing, that's for sure. Most people don't enjoy role-playing. It's not just service technicians, but especially service technicians, because they like to fix stuff right. They're kinesthetic learners. They're not always the field they can effectively communicate why the capacitor is bad, why it needs to be replaced. It's just good customer service as well.

Speaker 1: 5:45

So bad time management. A lot of service technicians run behind. They're running behind schedule, right, which disrupts the entire workday. If you're 15 minutes late for the first guy, you're certainly going to be 15 minutes late, unless you rush through the job and, look, this puts added pressure on that technician. If they're well, let me back up if they they're late because of their own problems, then it's on them. And if you are a service technician, just think about that. You don't want to be in reactive mode all day long because you made a decision to be late for work. Now, if it's, on the other hand and I've seen this in countless companies that the team meeting runs 30 minutes over and every single person in that meeting starts out a half an hour behind. Now what does that tell your customer when you're 30 minutes late to your very first appointment? They don't care that the meeting ran over. They don't care that the meeting ran over, they don't care why you're late, they just care that they've been standing at that house waiting on you for a half an hour. And it's frustrating not only to the customer, but it's also frustrating to dispatch, because now dispatch has to figure out let's say that it's the second or third appointment they're having to shuffle around and call the customer or text the customer, whatever it is the processes that you use to let the homeowner know that you're going to be late. It's just not good for business.

Speaker 1: 7:20

Well, here's another example Technician spends too much time on on one job chatting with the customer, just BSing, and it feels like they're doing the right thing. And in their heart they probably are. They probably really truly feel like they're doing the right thing. Or maybe that customer has got them pinned up asking a thousand questions or talking about their son's baseball game that maybe, as a technician, you don't even care about. It is perfectly okay to say Mr customer, I appreciate you sharing me sharing the story about Johnny's baseball game, but I've got to get to my next customer's house and I know you understand that because you wouldn't want me late for your house. Every customer is going to get that and some people you get to their house and, man, they haven't talked to anybody all day and it might be your third or fourth appointment and they're just chatty, cathy, right, and it makes you feel good. They want to talk to you, but at the end of the day it's not cost effective for you, it's not cost effective for the company and it puts you behind big time.

Speaker 1: 8:26

So the next one is failure to follow company procedures. So the problem here is, if you're not adhering to the company guidelines, which is always in place for a reason, requires technicians to take photos of completed jobs for service titan or whatever system you're using, but the technician skips this step when the customer, a year from now, later disputes that repair, or maybe a month from now or maybe two days from now, it doesn't really matter. That repair or maybe a month from now or maybe two days from now, it doesn't really matter, pick the time frame, it makes no difference. You've got zero room to say that you actually did the repair, whether you did it or not, you can't back it up, and if you can't back it up, it didn't happen. So pictures are the key for you to not have to worry about having to back up something, whether you did it or you didn't do it.

Speaker 1: 9:34

Let's assume that you're a good technician and you did the job. Well God, how does that make you feel when your boss calls you up? Your service manager calls you up and is like hey, dude, this customer is saying you didn't replace this part and you're saying I absolutely replaced the part. Fantastic, let me go into service tighten and look at the pictures. Oh, that's right, there are no pictures. So how can I vouch for you, the service technician, if you don't give me the proof to do that roof, to do that? So if as I dealt with this a lot and when I was working for the local company here if the pictures are not in there, you didn't do it, and so what has to happen? Then we got to send somebody else out, either be able to show the pictures then, or we discover that you didn't do the job and that's a whole different set of problems. But ultimately it still costs us time and money to send somebody out there, send a truck out there, and look hourly rate on a truck $300 to $400 or $500, depending on the company. But best believe that it is not cost-effective to do a recall for something that you could have just snap the picture, for it's so, so freaking important. Covers your butt, covers the company's butt, covers everybody's butt. So this is one of my favorites Inability to upsell or educate the customer or educate the customer.

Speaker 1: 11:13

So the issue is technicians should be able to identify and recommend additional services that benefit the customer, whether that be IAQ or whether that be a different sort of filter, or whether that be some sort of water treatment. Well, it's water treatment, I'll just say that. So as an example, during a maintenance visit, a technician notices a dirty blower wheel but fails to suggest that it be cleaned. So what happens? The blower eventually clogs and it causes the system to fail. And now you've got an emergency repair that could have been avoided. And so nobody may your customer. They may not catch that, they may not even realize that you didn't suggest cleaning that wheel. Or maybe they're really smart and they do know that you didn't suggest it. But now that's again. That's two different conversations, but both with not a great ending. And so that customer now has to pay an emergency fee and now we've got to send a truck back out and, yeah, we make a sale. But we could have just made the sale the first time. Save that customer money. You would have made money, company would have made money and it wouldn't have cost us more money to go out there. So, look, it's just really important that you do upsell and educate the customer. Now, what I'm not telling you is I'm not suggesting that you sell them something that they don't need. I would never, ever suggest that you sell them something that they don't need or that they want.

Speaker 1: 12:51

Even so, proper neglecting proper documentation. If you have incomplete or incorrect service records, it can cause a ton of confusion and you've got repeated issues. A ton of confusion and you've got repeated issues. So let's just take a technician replaces a capacitor but forgets to log it in the system. When another tech goes out there for a maintenance call or maybe even a service call, they waste time troubleshooting the same issue because there's no repair history. So once again, just imagine you're that second technician going out, you're troubleshooting the same issue, only to find out that it's already been replaced. And now you've wasted 30 or 40 minutes and gotten nothing out of it because the part had already been fixed right. So, or replaced rather. So just keep your documentation up to date. It saves everybody time and money.

Speaker 1: 13:57

And I know on the front end you think, well, I don't have time to do that or I'll get to it later. You're not going to get to it later. And likely it's company policy that you document all, that you properly document everything. It's checks and balances, right? It's like if you own a grocery store and you don't take stock, how do you know what's on the shelf? It's the same difference, right? You've got to do it for you, you've got to do it for the company and it's just a smart way of doing business. So lack of attention to detail, so small mistakes in this industry can lead to bigger system failures and inexpensive callbacks. So I know a technician that he failed to properly tighten an electrical connection during the installation. A week later, as you can guess, the unit stops working and it stops working due to that loose wire, resulting in not only an unnecessary callback, but you've lost revenue again, again, and any of these things that I've already listed here could happen in many different ways to one customer, and so you've really got a loss when that happens.

Speaker 1: 15:18

Poor customer service, so negative interactions with a customer hurts the company's reputation and it hurts your reputation as the service technician. And an example if you, lots of service technicians are very smart and nine times out of 10, more than the customer and what they're going to say, the words that are going to come out of their mouth, the questions they're going to ask and lots of times I found myself doing this also, so it's not just you. We become dismissive of the homeowner's questions or we over talk or speak over that customer and it makes the customer feel disrespected, and then what happens is they leave a bad review and that hurts business in the future and, quite frankly, it's probably going to hurt you as well, because they're probably going to add your name to that review and you don't want that, I can tell you right now. So inconsistent work quality is the next one. Some technicians only put in effort if they know they're being watched One day. Imagine one day a technician carefully installs a system, he checks all the connections, and another day he or she rushes through a job and forgets to check for leaks, causing refrigerant loss and a system failure. So you just need to be consistent Do the next right thing.

Speaker 1: 16:58

Be an example for the next person coming through the door. It's not hard to just do the next right thing. Look, I can tell you I've not always done the next right thing. I've taken shortcuts and I'm not going to tell you it's bit me in the ass every time, but it certainly has bit me in the ass many times. So it's it. Look, just do the next right thing. So safety when you ignore safety protocols and neglect safety measures, it puts you, or puts the next technician and possibly you and the customer, at risk. An example was if a technician doesn't wear safety gloves while handling refrigerant, well, you know what happens next Severe frostbite. That not only affects their health but also causes downtime for the company. And, look, it also affects your pocketbook if you're out of work because you've got frostbite. So just pay attention to the safety protocols.

Speaker 1: 18:11

So next one is resistance to training and learning. Hvac technology is consistently evolving, as we've seen. New refrigerant came out this year and refusal to adapt makes technicians less valuable. You've got to be able to constantly learn and train. I saw one of their thermostats this past week, said one of their thermostats this past week. And so imagine, the company introduces that new smart thermostat, but the technician refuses to learn how that cool thermostat works. And when a customer asks about installing one, the technician cannot provide an answer, which misses an opportunity for an upsell and it makes you look very unprofessional. So just look, you got to constantly be learning. If you're not learning, I think it's actually if you're not growing, you're dying. But you get the point. I feel the same way about learning Bad work ethic.

Speaker 1: 19:24

A technician who lacks motivation and discipline can't be relied on. Who lacks motivation and discipline can't be relied on. Work ethic is so important. So here's an example Instead of working efficiently, the technician takes extended breaks, shows up late, leaves jobs unfinished, which causes delays and frustration amongst the customers and your other coworkers. So if you've got bad work ethic, dude, like the industry lots of times has a bad rap because people with bad work ethic, it leaves a bad taste in others' mouths and so lots of times you're dead at the door when you get there because they've had a terrible experience with the last person. So lack of teamwork is the next one. Technicians must coordinate with office staff, dispatchers and other team members so they're efficient. If a technician doesn't communicate with dispatch about job delays, dispatchatcher books another appointment too soon and causes an overlap and a scheduling disaster. So you just got to think about your other team members. Next is misuse of company resources. If you're stealing or wasting company property, it increases the cost and damages trust. If a technician takes home an extra refrigerant for personal use, you lose inventory as the owner, as the business, and that refrigerant's there for a paying customer. And now you've caused a shortage in peak season because you were selfish and you decided that you were more important than being ethical to your company.

Speaker 1: 21:27

Unprofessional appearance and behavior. Man, a technician look. A service technician represents the company and must maintain a clean and professional image. Now everybody understands if you've just come from a different job, you've had to crawl under a house, you're dirty, bring a different shirt, bring a different pair of pants. You should always have a clean set of clothes in your van, and I understand. When it gets to summertime it's hard to manage that. There are times when it's a little bit more understandable, however. It's understandable from the company standpoint, but it's not understandable from the customer standpoint. If you show up and your shirt's wrinkled, the uniform's stained and heaven forbid it smells like cigarette smoke, the customer loses confidence in their ability and then they call the competitor next time because you look disgusting. You showed up like you just came from a strip joint and rolling around in mud.

Speaker 1: 22:39

So look, each of these reasons that I've given you today, just pick one. They can make a significant impact on a technician's success, on the company they work for. And this is just something you got to think about, guys. This is so vitally important that if you go through this checklist and you take a look at these things and you take a look at these things and if you can say you don't do any of these things, then you're probably making far more money than any other technician in the company. Because, look, we understand you're a human being, but you got to do the best that you can. You got to do the next right thing be the best that you can show up and be a good example, because people are watching you, especially if you're at the top of the ladder. Right, if you're one of the top technicians, you're an example. You're setting the tone for the rest of the team. So I appreciate you guys listening today and we'll see you next Friday.