The Birthday FIASCO
How We Ruined A Customer’s Birthday…
And Why She Loves Us Anyway
A Story About A Birthday, A Burst Pipe, And Taking Accountability
We’re not perfect. We mess up. We make mistakes.
But here’s what’s different about us — something that sets us apart from other HVAC companies: We OWN OUR MISTAKES.
Not just when it’s convenient for us, or when we have no choice. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Even when it’s uncomfortable, hard, and humbling.
And by owning our mistakes, we don’t just mean admitting that we’re at fault. We mean taking FULL responsibility for making the situation right. We’ll use every resource we have, spend as much as we need to, and call in all the cavalry — as long as it means that we 100% reversed the mistake that we made.
A good example of this is the time we (almost) ruined this customer’s birthday.
The Calm Before The Storm
This customer was fairly new to town. She wanted us to finish replacing her HVAC system before she and her husband left on vacation for the 4th of July. We signed on the job, and reassured her that we would be finished all the work we needed to do within the week.
True to our word, we completed replacing her HVAC system the day before she went on vacation. All signs pointed to this being another successful and uneventful HVAC replacement job.
We couldn’t have been more wrong.
Chaos
A few days later, we received a call from the homeowner. She was in a panic.
She’d arrived back from vacation late at night — with her grandkids — to find everything wet. The walls, carpets, and ceilings of her home were completely drenched. She had no working AC, and no hot water.
On top of all that, it was her birthday. What a way to celebrate…
All Hands On Deck!
Our response was IMMEDIATE. From the second she called us, we jumped into action.
Our technician arrived at the customer’s home within the hour and identified the cause of the trouble. A copper fitting on a heating line in the attic had popped. He fixed that right away. And then the fun began…
Our project manager was assigned to the job and responded ASAP. He made arrangements for EVERY SINGLE damaged thing in the customer’s home to be repaired or replaced.
Our in-house carpenter was dispatched to the customer’s home the next day. He took down the moldings and replaced them. He also broke away the wet sheetrock and replaced it with new sheetrock.
We hired painters to paint the walls and the ceilings.
NO expense was spared.
Happy Birthday To You…
Two weeks and $10,000 (!) later…you couldn’t tell that anything had happened. The walls and ceilings of the customer’s home were whole again, and beautifully painted. Her AC was humming, and hot water flowed freely.
In this case, a TINY copper fitting caused an avalanche of damage to this customer’s home. It took A LOT of work, A LOT of time, and a LOT of money to make everything right again. But we did, because that’s who we are and what we do.
In the end, we were able to make this customer’s birthday a happy one.
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Are you looking for an HVAC company who knows what it means to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for their actions? The type of company who will spare NO expense to fix their mistakes? That’s who we are. Contact Innovative Air today for a FREE estimate.
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