Stuff to Look for During Surveys
Surveys are crucial to developing the STORY that’s going to ultimately show value to our prospect. I want to encourage you to spend an appropriate amount of time on this very important step in the sales process.
Purposes of the Survey (and things to consider)
- Based on the Qualifier, what’s our strategy for selling the deal? What are we looking toward as a story for the Verification meeting?
- Age-Equipment reaching the end of its useful life?
- Pain-Customer identifies pain, and then we associate to maintenance thru pictures?
- Complexity-Specific training needed for special equipment such as Lieberts?
- Costs-Pictures show equipment condition costing money?
- Outsourcing-In-house staff not up to the task?
- Build the story. Look for pictures of the following.
- Fan blades. Dirty blades reduce airflow.
- Overflowing condensate pans. Standing water rusts metal, grows mold and leaks into the occupied space.
- Dirty evaporator coils.
- Dirty condenser coils.
- Economizers not operating properly.
- Loose (or tight) belts.
- Mold or other organic growth inside the unit.
- Air filter issues.
- Equipment inventory for pricing purposes
- What all’s included?
- Which equipment is important to the decision-maker?
- Should auxiliary equipment such as exhaust fans, pumps, unit heaters, etc. be included? Is there value to justify the expense?
- Are some pieces of equipment abandoned?
- Did you see everything? Is your survey inventory complete?
- Should terminal units such as vav, fan-powered or reheat boxes be included?
- Control system? Included?
- Special air filters? We may not want to include HEPA filters in the agreement because they add $ to the price of the agreement. Value? May want to change them as an extra expense on an “as-needed” basis.
- Process stuff in industrial facilities? Air dryers? Cooling towers? Pumps? Small dx chillers? Only include these items if there’s value to the decision-maker.
- Continue to gather information!
- This is the second stage in the sales process.
- Continue to probe.
- Ask the same questions of different people. Consistent answers?
- Is the customer allowing a COST SURVEY?
- Record the information from your probes and place in job folder.
- Remember…”A picture’s worth a thousand words.”
- Take LOTS of pictures in case some don’t turn out as expected.
- Try different exposures and angles to get the most useful photo.
- Details! Details! Details! A good survey helps us get off to a great start with the new customer.
- Look for pictures that tell a story!
- You should know your story by the time you leave the survey.
I’m good on taking survey photos and have reviewed this document again.
Suggestions of items to add:
- We need to add to it how NOT all surveys are created equal.
- Some take 30 minutes, especially if they are simple units or have brand-new equipment.
- Some can take all day or multiple days if large and have numerous buildings.
- If in the concept MSRs discover they have complex systems, speak to dispatch about it to line up a more experienced technician or supervisor.
- Service Managers might be beneficial to bring to surveys too to help ease the clients mind about knowledgeable technicians.
- MSRs lead the survey and tell the facilities person what they need to photograph and document to complete a thorough survey
- Speak to the technician before the survey to prepare him on what specifically you are looking for at this particular site. Stress the major pain points of the client and ask for him to please (discretely) point out to you anything that he notices is a problem or dirty.
- Know what to bring to the client’s attention immediately and what to hold for the verification meeting. (ex. A frozen coil or down machine could be urgent to the client and can’t wait a week later to address it). However, don’t show all your cards in the survey, just take the photos, and save them for the VM.
Hope these help a future MSR.
