After an air balancing seminar in Sacramento, California last month, a contractor asked “So now that we’re trained, what do we do next?” I must admit, I thought that’s what we’d been talking about for the previous three days, but the question was honest and required a direct answer, and here we go.
Whether you’ve been testing for a decade, or you’re beginning this week, NCI has new reports and forms that can truly help you organize your testing. Our goal is to support you as integrating diagnostic testing into your everyday activities. From our experience, sustained testing will result in added repair and testing dollars to more than half of your change-outs.
We’re all at different levels of diagnostic testing implementation. No doubt each of us can do better. We all go through cycles in our diagnostic testing depending on our current work load, weather conditions and how good of a job we’re doing motivating our sales and service techs.
Project Workbook
We have just created an NCI Project Workbook in response to the “What do we do next?” question. Without sales, there’s not going to be any air balancing or system repairs. The Project Workbook is a new piece that salespeople can take into the field and use to guide them through each sales appointment. The 8-page workbook contains more than just system diagnostic information, it contains most of the basic information, forms and drawings you need to walk you through a project from the initial phone call to the final sale. We recommend having the 8-page workbook printed on two sided 11″ X 17″ paper and center stapled in booklet fashion. A local printer or office supply retailer should be able to do this for you. In the near future we will have the workbook available in quantities already printed and stapled – stay tuned.
Heating System Performance Report
The next answer to the “Next step” question is a tool that service techs can use to help implement diagnostics into every service call and clean and check. Measuring system static pressures is the key to getting service techs involved in system diagnostics and encourages them to pull their heads out of the box and look at the rest of the system.
We have created a new report form and procedure called Heating System Performance Report. This report allows your service tech to take several quick measurements, then estimate heating system performance with a few short calculations. The report is designed to be presented to the customer and encourages them to purchase additional air or combustion diagnostic testing and system repairs. If needed, the report can be handed off to a salesperson to complete additional testing or to finalize the price and terms of the sale.
Both these reports are designed to include diagnostic testing into your business model and daily work routines. Each includes elements critical to a normal sales or service call as well as sections to gather customer data, and drawings to gather sheet metal transition measurements, building and electrical data.
Download and print out these forms, customize them, then use the procedures that accompany the reports to train your sales and service people on how they can be used in their daily work. Once they’re implemented, track the increase in sales they help deliver. You can also add to the reports any support materials that you currently use including financing and permit forms.
Check in with your people after they have used the forms several times. You might need to modify the reports to suit your business model. You might also need to modify the reports to include any regional or company specific information.