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Had a talk with my brother-in-law that changed how I see customer calls
Honestly, he's a plumber, and he told me he spends the first 10 minutes of any house call just listening to the homeowner vent about their old pipes or whatever. Ngl, I used to jump straight into the panel or the keypad. Last week, I tried his way with a lady in Tampa whose system kept having false alarms. I just let her talk for a bit first. Turns out her cat was setting off a motion sensor in a hallway, something I would've missed if I just started testing zones. How do you guys handle the first few minutes with a new customer?
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owens.anthony1mo ago
Man, that Tampa story is SPOT ON. I do low voltage work for a security company in Phoenix, and I started doing the same thing after a bad call last year. This guy in Scottsdale was furious about his door sensors, but after five minutes of him just talking, I found out his main issue was his grandkids tripping the alarm when they visited. The fix was a simple delay setting, not the hardware I almost replaced. That listening time saves so much headache.
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anna4911mo ago
Yeah that "listening time" is everything. I had a client ready to replace a whole window system until I realized they just hated how stiff the old crank handle felt. A little grease saved them thousands. People just want to be heard first.
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the_thomas1mo ago
Totally get the listening thing, but you gotta guide it a little. I used to just let people talk and sometimes we'd waste 20 minutes on stuff that didn't matter. Now I say something like, "Tell me what's been happening, and when it started." That gets the key facts out fast. Still listening, but you're not stuck hearing about their neighbor's dog for ten minutes.
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