The last two months have been fun while conducting seminars about delivering excellent customer service!

My travel schedule has taken me up and down the east coast and throughout the Midwest.

In January, The South Carolina Association of Heating and Air Conditioning (SCAHACC) invited me to keynote their annual convention in Charleston.  What an outstanding association!  Hundreds of the best regional contractors attended the SCAHACC convention.

Then I was off to Baton Rouge to keynote the Louisiana Heat Pump Association annual conference.  It was good to escape the northeast’s winter weather and enjoy Louisiana’s warmth and southern charm.

This trek brought me through Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama where I visited friends and enjoyed delicious food.

In the midst of conference keynotes, I also served clients and conducted onsite seminars.  This year’s customer service curriculum includes recent business trends, the latest customer expectation metrics along with new instructional design materials.

Clients who invite me back year after year, expect fresh material and innovative design.

What a fun week serving South Carolina Air Distributors dealers in Myrtle Beach, Columbia and Greenville. The best companies attend these value-added seminars.

I met wonderful service professionals who engaged in collaborative and cooperative exercises in which attendees work together, share ideas and complete various customer service puzzles . This is where the real learning occurs.

The best companies attend these value-added seminars.

Serving Jackson & Sons, in Dudley, North Carolina, was special because this company already possesses a terrific customer service culture.  The best companies seek innovative ways to become even better.

The focus of the Jackson & Sons technician seminar was aligning service to meet a customer’s perception of value.  “Your technical and diagnostic skills enable you to fix equipment, but a customer’s value perception might be different,” I advised.

Excellent Customer Service

After the Jackson & Sons seminar, a young technician shared a story.  He arrived at a residential property to perform maintenance on the customer’s home comfort system.  Here is what the young technician said,  “When I arrived, the customer’s garden hose strewn throughout the backyard.  I disconnected the customer’s hose and used our company’s hose to wash the condensing unit and when I was finished, I rolled the customer’s garden hose, put it on the rack and this is what the customer appreciated most.  This customer was thrilled that I left their home better than the way I found it.”  Stories like this abound among technicians who go the extra mile.

I rolled the customer’s garden hose, put it on the rack and this is what the customer appreciated most.

There was much time invested in the Carolinas and more to come.

The best part of my work is the people.  Many of the companies who I serve are family-owned and they’ve been around for decades. Many of these companies are in transition from a personality-based entity to a process-based entity.  A company owner’s personality can drive a culture only so far and eventually stable processes are required to ensure consistent outcomes for excellent customer service.

Driving up and down 1-95 gives me the opportunity to visits with good friends.  During one 1-95 trek, I stopped to visit with Chandler Pernell at Pernell Inc. and we shared a delicious meal at the White Swan, a local restaurant.

I remember when Chandler was a single, twenty-something year old guy.  Now he is a married father.  Here he is with his son, Clark.

This week, I am exhibiting and speaking at HVAC Excellence is Orlando.  Afterwards, I am taking a few days off for kayaking and camping at Lake Seminole, FL.  My pickup is loaded with camping gear.

After the camping trip, I’ll be heading back to Philadelphia so if you are interested in a site visit during my northbound trek – please call me at 610-853-9836.  The northbound trek dates are April 5th, 6th and 7th.