← Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
How AI Is Changing HVAC (Without Replacing Techs) | Chris Plunkett
00:49:58
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- [00:01]
Krista from Marketstorm
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- [00:29]
Chris Plunket
So in January 24th jumped out an article talking and I shared it with my team and I'll find it and share it if I can. Talking about the way that AI is going to change the trades and it's not coming for your job, it's actually going to bring people into the trade that generally might not have and it talks about how you can have people who are going to be basically specialists in inspections and they'll be able to come out and identify the problems and then you can send out a, a lot of companies use installers to do like compressor change outs and stuff like that. And so you'll be able to send out these installers, these people that have a different skill set who maybe don't know how to do the, the diagnostics and you can take that report and turn that in. And so we've, we've actually partnered with a home inspection company. They have us come out and do a full measure quick report and we give the letter grade and it shows what things need to be corrected to make the grade better.
- [01:19]
Church Blissett
Today's episode is brought to you by one of our show partners, upfrog.
- [01:23]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Upfrog is the OG when it comes to pricing transparency online. They find system replacement leads through paid ads and have developed an entire system to drive those hard to find system replacement opportunities. Nurture the leads and book them into sold systems before your team arrives to
- [01:38]
Church Blissett
help you grow your business.
- [01:39]
Krista from Marketstorm
Hey, I'm Krista with Marketstorm and we work with home service companies across the country. Quick question. If another H Vac or plumbing company in your area starts influencing homeowners before they ever hit Google, who gets the first call? By the time someone searches plumber near me, they've already been researching the problem. We use AI to detect those early intent signals and put your brand in front of them. So when they do search, your name already feels familiar. Visit Marketstorm AI or text us at 213-575-5448.
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Church Blissett
Hello everyone out there in podcast world. Hope you're having a wonderful day. You're listening to or watching Service Business Mastery Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Church Blissett And Josh is not with us today. He is actually. Enjoy family vacation time. It's, it's a wife's birthday, so happy birthday to her. They're over. They're actually in Italy. And it's funny because Josh actually, I was texting with him yesterday or day before yesterday and he's like, it's unbearably hot over here. And it's not because, I mean it's hot. It's like 90 degrees, 98 degrees in Italy, but they don't have air conditioning and all of the houses are built to retain the heat and, and he said that makes it where it's so crazy unsafe. There's 200,000 people who pass away from heat related issues every year in Europe. Right? Yeah. So anyways, I mean, I'm excited to have Chris on the show today. We've known each other for a long time and I'm love, I love the fact that I can talk to friends on the podcast. We're going to talk a little bit about Breezy. Honestly, we're talking AI using AI to improve operations and all that. Good jazz. If you know me, if you know the podcast. You know I love talking AI. I love talking automations. Truthfully, none of that is going to happen unless you make your processes efficient. If you're not optimizing your processes first. Otherwise you're going to automate garbage or you're going to, you're going to use AI to put out some garbage. And we've seen AI slop. I think we are getting to the point to where we're starting to get some AI fatigue going on, where people are getting tired of seeing AI slop being put out. And I'm definitely one of them. I've been in the AI world for a hot minute now and it's one of those things where I'm like, man, just put a little bit more effort into it and then it'll, you know, it'll be great product. With that being said, Chris, welcome to the show, man. I appreciate you coming and hanging out with me.
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Chris Plunket
Yeah, man, I'm glad to be here. This is long, long time listener, first time caller.
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Church Blissett
That's awesome, dude. For those who are listening, tell me a little bit about your background, your history and what industry you're in and, and how long you've been in here.
- [04:30]
Chris Plunket
Yeah, so, I mean, I've, I grew up working with my dad in an air conditioning business. He would run, you know, after hours service calls and I'd go with him after school, things like that. And I Remember the first time I changed out a blower motor? I was like 8 years old. He was. I grew up in Michigan and now I'm out in Arizona, in Tucson. But he was, he was upstairs talking with a customer and I was cold and I was hungry and I wanted to leave, so I started doing the thing and I start. Put the panel back on the, the furnace as he's coming down the stairs, hey, what are you putting the panel on? We gotta change the motor. And I pointed at the box and I was like, I already did. And the, the furnace kicked on and it started up and he just stared at me like, what just happened? And I was. I was 8.
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Church Blissett
Got like child labor at its finest.
- [05:15]
Chris Plunket
Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure.
- [05:16]
Church Blissett
Yeah.
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Chris Plunket
I mean, well, God, I mean, before I had my driver's license, I was in a service truck. We hired. He would hire somebody to, to drive and I would teach them the trade all summer. And then eventually I ended up got my license and started homeschooling and just worked with him. And I didn't always work with him. I ended up working in with one of my cousins doing some, some other things in the trade. So I've done everything in home construction from the ground up. So.
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Church Blissett
Yeah, that is really interesting. That's. Do you have any kids? Nope, no kids. Okay.
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Chris Plunket
Been married 20 years, 21 and a half years. No kids.
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Church Blissett
Okay. Okay, that's cool. So my youngest son, it's. Today's actually his birthday. He turns 13 today. And he rides around with me when I, when I go catch a call here and there. We went to a bakery the other day and they're like, oh, this is. I had already been there once to diagnose the problem, and I ordered some parts for the, the walk in freezer. And then he came back when we did the changing out the parts. And they're like, oh, this guy's going to come do like the actual work, huh? So, yeah, he's learning a little bit
- [06:22]
Chris Plunket
here and there, but people say things like that, though.
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Church Blissett
Yeah, absolutely. And also he's learning that, like, he's learning whether or not he wants to do the trades. And so, like, that's one of the things for me. Like, I'm going to be very careful not to push him into the trades. I'm also very careful not to push him into college and then push him in one direction or the other. Like, I want him to. To try them all out and see which one he wants to do. We actually had. I've signed them up for things called hackathons where like, like their kids, their kid related hack hacking events and basically they teach you how to write code to be able to hack into different products and stuff. And so these companies and organizations actually will pay you to try and hack into their software.
- [07:09]
Chris Plunket
Yeah.
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Church Blissett
And so he. Yeah, it's a really cool concept. And so, like, it has to be a team. So the brothers, I have, I have three boys, the brothers have to gang up and, and try and hack into different programs and stuff. And so I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Hopefully it stays white hat and doesn't turn black.
- [07:30]
Chris Plunket
Yeah, I'm with you there. I get it. I like. That's cool. So they're trying their hands at different things. I like that. My brother, he grew up, he's five years older than me. He grew up around the things and just ultimately decided it wasn't for him and calls me every now and then. He's like, hey, he's still in Michigan. He's like, hey, my, my AC is not working. And I'm like, all right, well, grab your meat thermometer and tell me what your return temp is or your supply. Not very useful information, but it's, it's a start.
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Church Blissett
Absolutely. Yeah. That is funny. Oh, man. So as far as the AI world goes, like, where are you dabbling your toes into AI?
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Chris Plunket
I met a guy, Michael Johnson, he's out in one of the Carolinas. I always forget North Carolina. But he, he, he introduced me to chat GPT in 2022. And I was like, what is this? And then I started going down a rabbit hole. And next thing you know, I'm paying for it. And, you know, because I want the, I want the more bandwidth and I want more and I want more. And so, you know, we use that to help us with training, writing procedures, things like that. We use Measure Quick and there's an AI tool built into that. So the text. Take their diagnostics and turn that into explanations for customers that are easier for them to understand.
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Church Blissett
Tell us more about that Measure Quick and what you're doing there. Because I absolutely love Jim Spurgen and those guys are great over there and his daughter and all of them that are in Measure Quick. But yeah, tell me more about what you're doing there.
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Chris Plunket
Yeah, so with Measure Quick, you know, we deploy nine probes. It gives us a letter grade on how the system is performing. It tells us everything about that unit.
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Church Blissett
It has a lot of visuals for the client. Right.
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Chris Plunket
Have you, have you seen their update that Happened about a month and a half, two months ago. Oh, tersh. We gotta check it out.
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Church Blissett
So they give you eight months since I've messed with Measure Quick at all.
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Chris Plunket
So it shows you like condenser coil, evaporator coil compressor or metering device compressor. And it shows the whole cycle right on there. And all your numbers are on one page. And it'll show you. It's like the condenser coil has this much refrigerant in it, so it's flooded or it's starved or where it needs to be, and it'll show. And it gives you those visuals for the evaporator coil. It shows you. Yeah. Like if something is like red where it shouldn't be, it's like, this is a problem.
- [09:56]
Church Blissett
Yeah.
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Chris Plunket
And yeah, it's, it's really neat. They've done a lot of work in the last few months. I, I'm guessing they've done a lot of work over the last few. Last year, but they've rolled out some really big changes over the last two, two or three months.
- [10:08]
Church Blissett
That is really, really cool because like I, I mean, I said years ago, probably five or six years ago, I was like, when, when Measure Quick first came out and they had the, the Bluetooth probes and everything connecting to it, I was like, man, I could just, I could stick any kind of junior tech out in the field, have Measure Quick and then ask me questions, and I can. If I could see his Measure Quick then.
- [10:29]
Chris Plunket
And you can, you can, you can. They can stream that data and rate to your phone from anywhere in the world. So I was in. My wife and I were in Scotland earlier this month or last month, and we were. One of the techs was stuck on something and my lead wasn't able to help him and he streamed his stuff to my phone and I was like, oh, you're. You got a restriction at this point. Check, check this. And. And it's, it's that easy. Yeah. It's really interesting because Jim actually put an article out in January right after ahr. In 2025.
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Church Blissett
Okay.
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Chris Plunket
That was Chicago, right? 2025.
- [11:11]
Church Blissett
I feel like Vegas.
- [11:14]
Chris Plunket
Yeah, 2020. So in January 24th, Jim wrote an article talking. And I shared it with my team and I'll find it and share it if I can. But it, it's. It's talking about the way that AI is going to change the trades and it's not coming for your job. It's actually going to bring people into the trade that generally might not have. And it talks about how you can have people who are going to be basically specialists in inspections and they'll be able to come out and identify the problems. And then you can send out a, A lot of companies use installers to do like compressor change outs and stuff
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Church Blissett
like that, especially during slow season.
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Chris Plunket
Yeah. And so you'll be able to send out these installers, these, these people that have a different skill set who maybe don't know how to do the diagnostics and you can take that report and turn that in. And so we've, we've actually partnered with a home inspection company who does a lot of inspections and they have us come out and do a full measure, quick report and we give the letter grade and it shows what things need to be corrected to make the grade better.
- [12:18]
Church Blissett
Now let me dive into that really fast because that's a really interesting concept because I, I thought years and years and years ago, like, it would be great to partner up with real estate agents and do like a home inspection for them at like no cost or very little cost, and then kind of get my foot in the door, sticker up everything and then to the next, the buyer of the house would actually eventually use us. It's a good idea until you need like a system replacement and you're like, oh, integrity. Like, what do I say here? Like, I, I'm here for the seller, but I also. Yeah, okay, that's what I was, that's what. Yeah.
- [12:58]
Chris Plunket
And, and to be perfectly honest, sometimes buyers will ask for things that like, just how much is it to replace? And I'm like, dude, it's, it's a 12 year old system. I understand it's got some years on it, but it scored an A minus. Like, we're not, we're not recommending. We'll fix the couple of deficiencies and get it back to an A. It won't be an A plus, but do like fix the couple of deficiencies and it's done. And then there's times where it's like, hey, this, this unit scored D and it's 2 years old and it's installed incorrectly. And so we go to the buyers, we explain it and we, we, we work with both the buyer and the seller to, to explain, you know, what we recommend, why we recommend it, and this is what we would do. And I'll tell you, we went from just doing general inspection and saying fix these things to using the measure quick. And, and we have pretty much one person who does it. It's like 24, 25. She started with us in October of last year. And she is our, our highest gross ticket, like across the board. Because she's doing those. Yeah, she's doing two or three a day. And all those things like the, you know, the, the scale or that's the scale. But the, the time frame, from inspection to repairs, we have to wait till they close and then we get paid out of escrow and we go do the repairs afterwards. So it's like we're always like, you know, three to six weeks behind on that now that we're like in the fray. Yeah, it's, it's been awesome. And so, yeah, I mean, she's, she's, she's writing up everything that she sees that's, that's necessary. So we have like, these are the critical things. These have to happen. This is gonna like rejuvenation stuff. This is going to bring it back to a better grade. And these are things that you, as the buyer, we would recommend that you do outside of what the seller's responsibility would be.
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Church Blissett
Right.
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Chris Plunket
And, and it's like, it's, it's anywhere from five to two thousand five hundred dollars worth of stuff. And I mean, we're averaging fifteen to eighteen hundred dollar average tickets on inspections.
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Church Blissett
That's wild, dude. Usually like, that was always like a loss leader or like something you get
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Chris Plunket
a replacement out of like every 10. Yeah, it's like every. God. I have to jump back into the numbers, but it's like one in eight is. We recommend replacement and you know, it's kind of 50, 50. Whether the buyer or the seller. If the seller's like, I'm gonna have my guy do it. And we usually are, the, the, the buyers are like, we don't want it, we're gonna drop out. If you're gonna have your person do it, we're out. Oh, because they know that they're gonna, they're gonna lowball. They're gonna find, you know, truck in a truck. Lowball, Joe. And it's gonna get done right. And we always tell them going to reinspect for free and make them fix
- [15:46]
Church Blissett
all the things because you know there's going to be something else that has to be fixed.
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Chris Plunket
There'll be a bunch of stuff. It's, it's, it just is.
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Church Blissett
Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about there. That's, yeah, I'm, I'm with you there. That. Now are you actually presenting that measure, quick report to them? Like, is it, does it look good enough to present to the client? Oh, it's.
- [16:07]
Chris Plunket
That report is sexy. I love that report. Brings out like, it shows you like a sliding scale of where the refrigerant pressure is. Like it should be here, it's way over here, or it's way over here. It's way too high or way too low. And it's like suction pressure, liquid pressure.
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Church Blissett
Cool, Easy to understand terminology. Like imagery.
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Chris Plunket
That's exactly right. Yeah. Yep.
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Church Blissett
I like that. That's awesome. Like so, okay, so we could talk about Measure Quick for hours. I know that I could, I could nerd off, nerd out on that.
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Chris Plunket
So one more piece on that. There's a button you can push and it pops up. The little AI that you can talk to if you're having trouble figuring out the diagnosis, it'll look at your numbers from that, that job that you're on right now and say, check this, check that. But it will also, you say, hey, this is actually what's wrong. Help me explain that to the client. And it will spit it out in simple verbiage that, that they can use. Because, you know, we all use tech talk instead of customer speak.
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Church Blissett
Yeah. So, okay, so Jim and I talked about this a long time ago. I'd be lying to you if I told you the date. But basically we were talking about AI tech support. One of the things that Jim Bergman. Jim Bergman is who I'm talking about. For those who don't know. He's one of the found the founder of Measure Quick. We were talking about tech support and he said the downside to AI tech support is a really good tech support answering, questioning thing. I don't know the person that answers the phone for tech support, they have to ask good questions because a technician doesn't know what question to ask AI. Like, because if, if you're a, I mean a junior technician as far as that goes. The technician doesn't know the name of the component, doesn't know the, the what the component does. They're not going to know how to ask the question properly. So that's what he told me that they were working on for a long time is having some sort of AI that knows the proper questions to ask. And it sounds like that, that they've kind of figured that out a little bit.
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Chris Plunket
Some of it, yeah, it's, it's, it's less question based as far as what it's ask, it's asking, but it's using your data that, that the is. And it's saying based on what we're seeing, these things are potential issues. Check this, check that.
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Church Blissett
Have you done any AI voice?
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Chris Plunket
So we have Breezy for our AI voice. It's our overflow and after hours. And how do you like doing that?
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Church Blissett
How do you like, how do you like using it for that? Or what's your feedback like, your clients feedback on it?
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Chris Plunket
You know, it's mixed. Um, it's generally positive. And then there are the people who are just curmudgeons and don't want to talk to a robot.
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Church Blissett
They're just, no matter what, they're like human, human, human.
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Chris Plunket
And, and, and ours. I, I have mine set up for very specific things, like you have to say the word flood or you have to say the word emergency. I, I don't want. If, if you're just being like, if you're just being a douche nugget and saying human, it's not going to happen and you're going to be frustrated. But I had a customer, I wrote an email yesterday and then I deleted it because that's what you do. I wrote an email that basically said, hey, I completely understand if talking to an automated voicemail system makes you want to quit the service that we provide you. I'll go ahead and cancel. Just, just type the word cancel in the reply and I'll get it taken care of for you. I listened to the message, the recording of the call, because all of our calls are recorded, whether it's me or the AI, all the calls are recorded and the call was fine. And then he wrote this like, stupid email. And I know he's not going to listen to this, so I don't care, but he wrote this stupid email and I'm just like, your. Your want was so unrealistic. And so it was so pointless for you to say any of that. Like, I had already put him on the. I was calling him back and he called for maintenance and he knew that we were two weeks out to get to him because he had already talked to somebody else about it.
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Church Blissett
Yeah, and so some people are just that way. Like, no matter what, they can find a reason to complain, to complain. But there's times where, like, I've just had a bad day and I've lashed out at somebody, and then after the fact, I felt bad about it. And if somebody sent me a message and was like, I understand I canceled, then I'd have to be like, let me eat crow over here and apologize for lashing out at this AI voice that I just screamed at. I've done that before. Because, like, you, like, we've all received the phone calls. The telemarketers were like, just stop. Stop calling Me. Stop calling me. And then after the fact, like, I hope nobody listens to that call because that was kind of embarrassing.
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Chris Plunket
We had. We had a lady that my wife spoke with. Yes. Two days ago. And she's like, I absolutely love your AI system. I didn't even realize it was until a couple of minutes into the conversation because she was so empathetic. And I. She almost. It almost made me cry.
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Church Blissett
Isn't that wild?
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Chris Plunket
And I was like, awesome.
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Church Blissett
That's crazy. That is. That is crazy. Like, I had the exact same thing. Well, not exact same thing. I had. I was on a call. I went and, and called a service call. Myself and my son and I work together. And the homeowner, like, I had been to this house several times in the past, you know, several years. So the homeowner was like, hey, man, I talked to the young lady this morning and she was like, it's going to be an after hours emergency call because I called at like 7:45 and. And I was like, oh, yeah, I apologize for that. I need to. I need to fix that. It's in the AI the way the AI agent is set up. Because it's after hours, because only because the office opens at 8. Whereas, like. And we had time open too. This has been like a couple months ago when we were really slow and slow season. And I was like, yeah, man. Like, she should have looked at the schedule and seen that, you know, we have plenty of time open today. And she could have gotten you booked. But because you called during an after hours time, like off normal business hours, he was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. But he was like, it wasn't an AI agent, though. There was some young lady from your office. And I was like, really? At what time was it? He said, 7:45. I was like, no, I can 100% guarantee you that was an AI agent. Because our phones do not ring to anyone except an AI agent whenever that time it does not swap over to Hayley until 8am and he was like, no, man, I'm telling you, it was a human. She interacted with me like a human. And this dude works at Gulfstream, works on AI at Gulfstream. And he's like, no, dude, I'm telling you. And I was like, dude, I'm about to blow your mind. We go to the call recording. Like, I look it up on my phone, open up the call recording, and I showed him verbatim that it was the AI voice agent. He was like, that's scary, dude. Because I would have gone to battle saying, that was a human. Because the way she. She let me interrupt her, but then, like, didn't talk over me. Was it. There wasn't a delay in it and all this other stuff. And she was empathetic. And when I complained about it, she said, I'll. I will reach out to Tersh and have him call you. And which it sent me a message and. And did all the of that stuff. And I did call him. Up until that point. He, like, he was sworn. I mean, he did. He was like, I swear, this is a human. And. And so, like, it. It was. It blew me away at how, like, now. It's not always like that, because I had one. Did I ever tell you a story about my AI Voice agent singing to the. Yes. I mean, for real, like, this has been probably two years ago now, but a technician calls me and says, hey, Ter, listen to that call recording. And I was like, all right, cool, I'll listen to it. And so, like, I listened to the first 10, 15 seconds of it, and I was like, nothing's crazy. I figured, like, it would be like a. Like, the background noise would be something crazy or something like that. I called him back or I texted him. I said, yeah, I listened to it. He's like, no, you didn't. I was like, how do you know I didn't? He's like, because you would have responded completely different. And I was like, all right, well, sounds like it's important. So I. I actually get on the. Like, I listen to the whole thing. Well, the. The homeowner gives the AI voice agent her address and stuff, and then all of a sudden, the AI Voice agent just starts singing back to the homeowner. The address. Like, repeated it back to her, but in song, and just, like, sings it. Like, I'm like, are you serious right now? But the thing. The craziest part about the whole thing, the lady on the phone did not react at all. Didn't even say, like, are you okay? Or anything like that. Like, didn't even, like, acknowledge that the AI Voice agent just sang back to her. And then. So I told my technician, I was like, dude, ask. Don't, like, come out and ask her or tell her that it was AI Voice or anything like that. Just, like, be around the bush and ask her. And he. He did, and he finished the service call. He texted or he called me, and he's like, dude, she ain't got a clue that was a voice AI voice agent. She didn't mention it. Like, I all but asked her, why didn't you react to the person singing on the phone. So I call up the owner, right? And I'm like, did you notice this? This you're the person that was taking your information, started singing to you. And she was like, yeah, I did. But church, I'll just do some weird stuff sometimes. So I figured that's what you were doing. No, that was an AI voice agent. And she was like, was it? I didn't even know it. And I just went along with it.
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Chris Plunket
That's awk.
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Church Blissett
It was so fun. It was the funniest thing that's happened to me in years. And that was, that was before we started using Breezy. But that, like I, I've, I've always gotten a kick out of that whenever that happened. Hello, home service professionals. Do you want to maximize your marketing budget? Then you need to be using call tracking from CallRail. Let's say you've noticed a spike in new leads this month. To find out what's driving them, you just log into your CallRail dashboard. Is my new Facebook ad outperforming my other ads whereas paid search knocking it out of the park? Or maybe it's time to retire those newspaper ads. Since CallRail assigns a unique phone number to each of my marketing efforts, I know where my best leads come from and which efforts to scrap. CallRail shows you your most cost effective marketing channels so you can get back to business. Go to CallRail.com sbmpod and try it for free.
- [26:56]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [27:37]
Chris Plunket
had the first iteration of Breezy and it was very simple. Very like very simple. And not to throw them under the bus, but one of the times somebody's like, I want to talk to a human in the the it responded I am. And I was like at the very
- [27:55]
Church Blissett
beginning of AI like it doesn't even
- [27:57]
Chris Plunket
realize it's not so. So I reached out and the team fixed that real quick, like.
- [28:02]
Church Blissett
Yeah, yeah.
- [28:03]
Chris Plunket
But it was, it was just kind of crazy.
- [28:05]
Church Blissett
I love how responsive they are. And Sean, like, as soon as I message anything, they're like, boot Johnny on spot and they fix it or, or, or give me an amp. The why it is the way it is.
- [28:16]
Chris Plunket
Yeah, One. And so I, we set it up so that we can. During, like after hours, it'll. If there's a true emergency, the customer. We have some, some keywords or hot words, whatever they call them, trigger words. And there's certain trigger words that will say, okay, we're going to transfer this call to staff. Initially it would, it was set up to ring through to me and I was the like, AI overflow. Literally this week. They, they set it up so. Well, they, they set it up a while back so that it can go to a different number based on after
- [28:50]
Church Blissett
hours, like depending on time of day or whatever.
- [28:53]
Chris Plunket
Yeah, time of day. Now it's set up to where it would, it would be like. I have it set up right now so that on Mondays it rings to technician that's on call Monday.
- [29:03]
Church Blissett
Oh, okay. Tuesday.
- [29:04]
Chris Plunket
The technician that's on call Tuesday. And then we have a, A built rotation. And so whoever's on call that specific day, it rings through to them directly. Keeps me completely out of the mix.
- [29:16]
Church Blissett
That's nice.
- [29:17]
Chris Plunket
Like, it's notes afterwards.
- [29:20]
Church Blissett
Okay. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. As long as you're still kind of somehow in the loop. Because, like, whenever I started to take my thumb off the pulse when I, When I started to like, kind of reel back a little bit and give more freedom to the technicians, they figure, like, if they could work as hard on the, on the job as they work on getting out of doing work, it'd be great. But they figured out, like, if they, they didn't answer this and like it. If they did so many times, it would just, it would go over to the next day. So the next service call like that, that call would be the office's problem tomorrow or whatever. We did have a policy where, like, I don't, I don't want any technicians going out after 11pm because the next day they're completely useless. It becomes like a safety hazard. Like, because when I was in the field, there was a service call that I call. I caught the service call at like 11:30 at night. And it was my first time ever working on a water coil, like a chill water system. Chill water system. I didn't let it drain out all the way before I was fixed because it was like spraying water into this control room at this railroad yard and like, it. So, like the, the AC unit was in the office with the controllers, like, at their back. Like, basically was an open air handler which just blew air into the. The office, right? And so I'm there, I go through two tanks of oxygen acetylene. Like, that's how much soldering I did on this massive old coil. And I'm like, I'm going to get this thing fixed tonight. I'm going to be a hero. I worked all night long. It was the first time I'd ever done it. I didn't realize you had, like, get all the water out of it. Because I'm thinking, like, refrigerant and like, as soon as you, you, you know, evacuated it, you can start going to town soldering it. So I would, like, solder it and I'd pop a hole somewhere else and I'd. It was the worst experience of my life. And then I get up the next. Like, I didn't even go to bed. I just went straight to the office. And I was there like, super early. And they're like, why are you so early? I was like, I ain't been to bed tonight. And then they just let me keep working that day, like, all my service calls. And I did. I called all the service calls. But by the end of the day, it was like an unsafe situation. And I didn't grow delirious. Yeah, delirious. My conversion rate was nothing. Like, I didn't convert anything at all. And like, that's what I know.
- [31:45]
Chris Plunket
Diagnostics. Yeah, 100%.
- [31:47]
Church Blissett
And that's what, like, let's let me get through these diagnostics and like, make it home. And that's it. And that's literally what happened. And so, like, that's always stuck in the back of my brain when it came to that. And then, like, I started actually measuring the conversion rate of technicians that work late into the evening. And I found that it was something crazy. Like, 80% of the times they didn't convert the next day at all. That's whenever I started implementing. Like, I really didn't want them out past 8pm and the guys that were on call, I didn't, I didn't even let it bring to them after 11. So at 11pm If a call came in, we just weren't catching it.
- [32:25]
Chris Plunket
I'll tell you what, in 13 years, I've. I can count on one hand the number of times somebody called us that late. And I think maybe twice it was an actual emergency.
- [32:35]
Church Blissett
Yeah. And we went out and most of the times it's. That's exactly right. And what I've found, also another thing that I did just for anybody that's listening, I made my after hours. And so I also changed it so that it's not considered after hours rate, it's an emergency rate. Because what happened is a technician could be in a neighborhood and then they're booked up for the day, right? And an emergency call comes in. I don't want to send them to the rest of the service calls and then have to catch that service call, like drive 30 minutes back. So I consider it an emergency rate because it's an emergency and it takes priority over the other calls. And he's already in the same neighborhood. He goes and catches that call. But what I've done is I tell the homeowner like, hey, this is an emergency. If, if this is a true emergency to you, it's worth the additional hundred dollars. That hundred dollars goes directly to the technician. And that a way to, you know, to pay his family for taking him away from them at that time frame. And so when I frame it that way, then 90% of the time they're like, oh, it's not that much of an emergency. Like, I don't want to take him away from his family. And like, and if they are willing to pay the hundred dollars, then that hundred dollars goes to them. And they, they don't think that, hey, Church is just pocketing another hundred dollars, but he's gonna make guys work longer.
- [34:01]
Chris Plunket
And later we, we did the exact same thing. And I had a guy, I had a customer who said yes to the service, to the after hours service fee. And then he, he had two rentals in the same neighborhood, and both of them weren't working. And so he said, well, can you go do the other one when you're done? And I was like, yeah, we can send a tech over there when he's done, same service fee. He's like, yeah, I get it. And then when it came time to pay the bill, he argued and argued. He actually, I had a service agreement for his house, his personal house and one of his rentals and these two other properties we didn't have on a service agreement. He quit, like, canceled. And he, he didn't. Over the, the, the fact that it was an additional $50 for the second property, he canceled everything. And I look back and, and, and he's like, he tells me, I can't believe that you would risk losing all of this over $50. And I was like, I can't believe that you would be such a pain in my. For $50.
- [34:58]
Church Blissett
Yeah, exactly.
- [35:00]
Chris Plunket
That much of a pain over $50. Wait till something real happens.
- [35:04]
Church Blissett
Exactly 100%. And not only that, like, you want us to do these two emergency calls. You're willing to, for them to be out and about and take time away from their family and everything else, but then you don't want to pay it. Like, that's just so selfish to me. Talk about burnout in the industry and technicians, like having a crisis of technicians. Not enough technicians. Technician shortage. Well, who would want to work for nothing extra all night long?
- [35:31]
Chris Plunket
Yeah, no kidding. So something I, I, we haven't talked about is that I worked for a few years as a business coach helping businesses around the 100 to $300,000 mark make it over the seven figure mark.
- [35:44]
Church Blissett
And that's, that's a tough wall to hit there.
- [35:47]
Chris Plunket
It is. It is. And so the, the funny thing is I, I hear people say, week in and week out, man, nobody wants to work all these young people. And I was like, no, man, it ain't nobody wants to work. It's. Nobody wants to work for you.
- [36:01]
Church Blissett
That's a good.
- [36:02]
Chris Plunket
I got people beaten down the door. I got a guy in, in Kansas City that's moving here. He's literally driving to Tucson today.
- [36:09]
Church Blissett
Yeah.
- [36:10]
Chris Plunket
And, and we talked last night and he said he has some other interviews that he's going to schedule when he gets here. I was like, if, if they haven't already talked to you and you're on your way, I'm offering you a job, not an interview.
- [36:22]
Church Blissett
Oh, yeah.
- [36:23]
Chris Plunket
And he's like, okay, yeah, that makes more sense. I was like, yeah, cool. It makes, it makes a lot of sense. But yeah, dude, it's, it's bonkers. Like, I've. The average age of a technician in our company right now, I think I calculated the other day is like 25 and a half. And everybody says young people don't want to work.
- [36:40]
Church Blissett
That is, that is crazy. And you know what?
- [36:43]
Chris Plunket
24, 27, and then 35.
- [36:45]
Church Blissett
I have, I have technicians that like. So we do. There's this group called Excel. It's the letter X, C, E, L. And it's a mentor group for underprivileged youth in like, metro Savannah area. Well, it started in like metro Savannah. Now it's like all around the areas and stuff. But it's a really good program where they're teaching all sorts of trades and getting scholarships and everything else. And they have an event that I go for with the podcast and I take my sons with me if I, if they're available. Like it's a thousand kids in this group and they are some of the most talented people and they're in high school and they want to get into the trades and they want to learn more about H vac electrical welding, and they do competitions there at this event. And I'm like, there's a ton of kids here that want to work. And that's all we hear about is like, they don't want to work. They don't want to work. They do. They just don't want to work for you.
- [37:41]
Chris Plunket
Yep.
- [37:42]
Church Blissett
Yeah. And that's, that's, it's, it's wild. I mean, it's obviously some confirmation bias, like we both have been saying it. Now we can say that we see it in each other, but I, I wholeheartedly believe that the more we educate the younger generations, the more they're going to want to do it.
- [38:01]
Chris Plunket
Yeah. And I mean, let's face it, when you, when you came up in the trades and I, I grew up working for my dad, so there wasn't as much of like the hazing, but when you in the companies that like the, the, the old heads would treat you like crap and you were the hey boy. Yeah. And, and so it's kind of funny because I was, you know, 14, 15 years old telling this 25 year old guy, hey, go grab this eagle. You know, sending guys out for the board stretcher or the sky hook, you know what I mean? And, and that kind of. And, and probably worse, if I'm being perfectly honest, because my dad was definitely a big kidder back in the day.
- [38:36]
Church Blissett
Dude, I, we had to change out this unit on my church, like at our church. And we had just put this unit in, but it was a ground unit, so it's a package unit, but it was for the ground, not for the roof. And so it had holes in it. The seep, you know, the seeping holes so that the, the rainwater can seep out of, leaked into the church. Like this is a new, like a remodel. Yeah. And so like it, it wasn't finished yet. There was no sheetrock up yet. So thankfully it was just a puddle on concrete. So. But we go back and change it out. Well, we, we change it out during like spring break or something. So like my boys are there. I have the new trailer behind my truck in the parking lot at church. Right. The guy, I rig it up and I tell the, the crane Operator. All right, man, I'm going up to the top, and I go up to the top and I, I, oh, no, no. We're getting ready to re rig up the upstairs unit. And I'm like, this may take a little bit of time. Like, this is like 30 minutes worth of crane work, and you have to pay four hour minimum. So I'm gonna get like at least an hour. Oh, yeah. All of my crane, all the crane places that charge me like that, but around here locally anyways. And so, like, I get up on the roof and I'm. I'm telling my son, I'm like, hey, man, it looks like that thing's about to come unscrewed, so why don't you, Like, I need you to screw it back on. And he's like, all right. So he starts, he's screwing. I mean, 30 minutes I got him up there screwed. And the crane operator is dying, laughing. He is laughing so hard. He's like, how long are you gonna have him do that? I was like, I don't know, man, maybe 45 minutes. He's like, that's cruel. Then I had him up there forever doing that. And he, he was like, is it good? I didn't tell him at all. Like, the crane operator's laughing. He, My son comes down and the crane operators like, laughing at, like, telling him, like, what's going on. And then he like, I, at the moment the crane operator tells him that, he looks up at me and he's had this glare on his face, and I'm like, what are you talking about? Good job. You got to bring back.
- [40:41]
Chris Plunket
Yeah, you played it up. Good job. Good work. That's good work.
- [40:44]
Church Blissett
He never lets me. Like, every time I tell him to do something now, he's like, are you sure? Are you sure about this? Because this. I'm like a fool again.
- [40:53]
Chris Plunket
I don't know if I should tell this story. It's. It's probably PG17 bad. Okay, so this guy I used to work for, he sends, he's tells this guy, he's like, make a list. We need to send you out of the store. So, okay, he said, grabs out his notebook, he's like, okay, what do you need? He's like, all right, I need a half inch by 12 inch black nipple. And the guy looks at him and he's like, right? And he's like, come on, man. Like, right, half inch by 12 inch black. And he's like, all right. He writes it down and he's just kind of like looking at everybody around and everyone's just staring at him like, what's wrong with you? And then he's new guy, you know, the fng.
- [41:34]
Church Blissett
And so.
- [41:35]
Chris Plunket
So the, you know, he's like, a couple more things like, I need a half inch gas cock. And he's like, what? You need a what?
- [41:42]
Church Blissett
The first time I ever said that to me, I was like, is that a real term?
- [41:47]
Chris Plunket
You say that to people?
- [41:51]
Church Blissett
And then.
- [41:52]
Chris Plunket
So. So he's like, you know, a couple more things. And. And there's like 10, 15 items on the list. And he can tell, like, my boss is like, okay. So he's. He says, and I need a inch and a quartering. And the guy just writes it down. Because it's just. That's just what we're doing. We're just writing stuff down.
- [42:11]
Church Blissett
Yeah.
- [42:11]
Chris Plunket
And so he gets over to the supply house and he says. He says, yeah, I need a. He looks. He looks at the guy at the counter all sheepishly, and he looks at his book and he's like a half inch by 12 inch black. Black nipple. And the guy's like, okay, 12 inch, okay, what else? And he's like, oh. And he reads off a few more things, and he's like, I need a half inch, half inch gas cock. You guys are okay? Do you want. I forget what he said if it was like, yeah, yeah. And. And he's like, okay, okay. So he's getting more comfort. He gets to the end of the list. He's like, normal words. He goes. He goes, okay, yeah, and I need a inch and an inch and a quarter cock ring. And the guy's like, okay, I got everything else on the list, but you're gonna have to go to the adult bookstore down the street to get. That's so embarrassed. But I mean, yes. And so, I mean, it's like, you know, we still do fun stuff like that, but I mean, I remember putting, you know, I don't know what you call duct sealant. We call it pookie. Oh, yeah, like pookie in someone's coffee or something like that.
- [43:25]
Church Blissett
The absolute best one. But you can't really do it very much anymore because most of these vans are front wheel drive. But zip tie, like a duck strap around the drive shaft. Yeah. And then you get halfway down the driveway and you're like, your van feels like it sounds like it's coming apart. And the first time it ever happened to me, like, I was like, oh, God, I think like, I was a helper and I was driving and I was like, I think the Van's falling apart. He was like, just keep driving. Just keep driving, like. And I'm like, what? And then you look underneath the van. It's got, like, 17 zip ties still strapped to it, because they don't even cut it off anymore. They just like, whatever. And then, like, I remember in the parking lot supply houses, going to competitors vans and putting on them. I was like, well, I hope you're friends with that competitor. Like, well, they're friendly.
- [44:15]
Chris Plunket
Friendly enough. Yeah. There's Febreze cans that you. You have to pull the trigger on it, and it's. And you just put the zip tie on that and throw it in someone's window. Yes.
- [44:25]
Church Blissett
Like, right before you. The Blauhouse, like, chunk it in there. Oh, we were. Man, I forgot about all the bad stuff we used to do. That's crazy.
- [44:34]
Chris Plunket
Yeah.
- [44:36]
Church Blissett
Yeah.
- [44:36]
Chris Plunket
I've only been. I've only been let go once for hazing.
- [44:43]
Church Blissett
That's. That's good.
- [44:44]
Chris Plunket
I guess I accidentally. My buddy put a big gob of silicone on my work boot, and. And I was like, ah. And so I just kind of, like, flicked it at him, and it stuck to his pant leg. And while he was, like, wiping that off, I put a couple screws through the, like, the little edge of his boot. So he was stuck to the platform he was standing on, and he didn't even catch it. Cause he was wiping the silicone off.
- [45:06]
Church Blissett
Yeah.
- [45:06]
Chris Plunket
And then I took all the tools, and I just tossed him a screwdriver and said, here you go.
- [45:11]
Church Blissett
Then he had to manually unscrew every single one of them.
- [45:14]
Chris Plunket
Well, when I. When I went to, I was like, oh, I got to do this thing still. So I step. Went to step over him, and, like, as I'm stepping over him, he looks up, and my knee catches him right in the eye.
- [45:23]
Church Blissett
Oh.
- [45:24]
Chris Plunket
And he was fine. Whatever. Next morning, he had a black eye, and he walks in, and the boss is like, what happened? He's like, oh, Chris accidentally kicked me in the face after he screwed my foot to the floor.
- [45:35]
Church Blissett
All right, all right, Chris. You gotta go. You gotta go. Too much of a liability over here.
- [45:39]
Chris Plunket
It's December in Arizona. We're all slow. I was like, yeah, it makes sense.
- [45:44]
Church Blissett
Yeah, I get it. I get it. Whatever. I forgot we put pookie in the door handle in the Chevy. Chevy Express vans. Like that. Or silicone. Silicone's worse because silicone doesn't come off. Like, it's just everywhere. And just put it in there, like, right during the company meeting, like, sneak out like, you got to go to the bathroom and then start silicon everybody's door handles, dude, I was a terror. And that was the. The worst part was service manager when I did that.
- [46:14]
Chris Plunket
Oh, God.
- [46:15]
Church Blissett
Why did it. Service trucks.
- [46:19]
Chris Plunket
I remember. I remember one guy put beans like. Like, refried beans under my handle on my truck. And, like, I didn't end up making it, like, back to the truck for hours, and they got all crusty and, like, it.
- [46:32]
Church Blissett
It became a problem.
- [46:34]
Chris Plunket
And it wasn't a work truck, dude. It was my personal truck.
- [46:36]
Church Blissett
Oh, that's even worse. That's. That is. That's going too far because work, like, the boss man can pay for that truck. Like, don't be messing my personal truck. Yeah.
- [46:45]
Chris Plunket
I mean, it was all in good fun, and, you know, it didn't do any damage, but it was a pain in the neck.
- [46:53]
Church Blissett
Dude. Chris, man, we could talk like this for hours. I wish I could start another show where just BS about shenanigans. H vac. Shenanigans. Yeah, something like that. Dude, I appreciate you coming and hanging out with me. Like, it's always great to talk with you and chat with you. You always have some great stories. If somebody wants to learn more about the way that you've done things and the success that you've had, can they reach out to you?
- [47:16]
Chris Plunket
Absolutely. Yeah, Chris.
- [47:18]
Church Blissett
And they could ask you about that whiskey in the back, too.
- [47:22]
Chris Plunket
Yeah. So I am a level three whiskey sommelier for anybody who's watching this. And, yeah, so I do whiskey education. At one point, I was thinking about selling my business because I decided not to. I decided to keep it, and I was going to. This was the next step. I was going to get into the spirits world. And whiskey Somalia is a lot of fun.
- [47:47]
Church Blissett
Oh, man, that is really interesting. I didn't know that. That's. That is. That's good to know. Like, there's. There's a couple of distilleries around me, and they. I mean, I just like whiskey, so, I mean, not. Not sommelier level enjoying it, but I'm more of a taster here and there. Like, I'll taste them. Taste a little bit here. Taste a little bit. I was part of one of the clubs where they sent you, like, yeah, a little bit more than a shot, but it wasn't a full, like, iron or anything, like once a month. And it. It opened my horizon. So I wasn't. I remember, like, whenever I was, I don't know, 25, 26 years old, and I was like, yeah, give me a Jack and Coke. And, and wherever I was at, people were like, Jack Daniels. Like, you're gonna drink. Like there's so many other options here and you're gonna drink Jack Daniels. That's just what I get. Like, that's what I'm.
- [48:44]
Chris Plunket
That's a, that's a Jack Daniels right there. But it's not like old number seven. It's a completely different Mashbone recipe.
- [48:52]
Church Blissett
And it tastes good. Like it's, it's adult Jack Daniels.
- [48:57]
Chris Plunket
There's nothing but the best whiskey is the whiskey you like the way you like to drink it. But that doesn't mean it's not. Everything's out there there that you should try it.
- [49:05]
Church Blissett
Yeah, you should try it. Absolutely.
- [49:07]
Chris Plunket
Yeah.
- [49:08]
Church Blissett
It's fun chatting with you. What's your email again? I'll cut you off on there.
- [49:13]
Chris Plunket
Yeah. Chris, call Plunket.com. that's Plunket with one K and two T's. The rest is just how it sounds.
- [49:19]
Church Blissett
I like it. You've said that once or twice before, haven't you?
- [49:22]
Chris Plunket
It's on our radio ads.
- [49:25]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Yeah.
- [49:26]
Church Blissett
Cool, man. I appreciate you hanging out. If anybody has any questions, other than all, this episode was actually brought to you by Breezy. And I appreciate everything that Breezy does for the industry and for us. But if you have any questions about AI or anything to do with, with AI or Breezy, don't hesitate, reach out and ask. And until we talk again next time, I hope you have a wonderful and safe week. We'll see you.
- [49:51]
Chris Plunket
Thanks.
- [49:54]
Church Blissett
Thank you for listening to this episode of Service Business Mastery.
- [49:59]
Chris Plunket
Now that you are equipped with essential
- [50:00]
Church Blissett
business advice from this impactful conversation, you are one step closer to becoming the successful owner of your dreams. If this episode has been helpful to your business journey, don't forget to subscribe to the show, leave a rating and share it with other owners as well.
- [50:15]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Visit servicebusinessmastery.com to learn more.
- [50:26]
Church Blissett
Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment
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Krista from Marketstorm
of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy. See terms.