How Does Performance Play into This?

For my team, the other key factor in our success is the incorporation of performance into our company and our culture. Since the very early days when I first encountered NCI, we regularly train and certify our team. Static pressure testing, duct system analysis, diagnosis, repairs, and much more are built into our VIP programs, installation practices, and overall service approach.

In other words, as a company, Minnick’s looks at the entire house as a system and do home and HVAC Performance testing in and testing out on all the homes we work on.

Very few of our competitors understand or do Performance-Based Contracting?. Our guys always run into customers wanting to know why it takes them so much longer to do maintenance than other HVAC firms in the area.

Our techs explain how they’re being thorough by checking everything necessary to assure the HVAC and air system will work as promised. It will now deliver all the comfort they will need.

The key to them being able to do this is in training. Our goal for 2020 is for each of our employees to receive 150 hours of training. I want to double those hours by the end of 2021.

A New Age of Maintenance at Minnick’s

I am also looking for new ways to take performance to a new level and four years ago I was introduced to a remote monitoring/service program using a product called Sensi from Emerson. I have since incorporated this ‘Smart Maintenance’ into my Service Titan VIP maintenance loyalty program and have been going gangbusters with it ever since.

Today’s homeowners are savvy and want smart devices. This product is a perfect fit. It documents how the system is operating, plus identifies issues. Sensi is a Bluetooth-based sensor system that monitors and analyzes HVAC systems 24/7.

We dispatch our techs when the sensors detect an impending problem. Each month the homeowner gets a 1-page report that shows all the alarms, when they occurred, as well as electricity usage by their HVAC equipment, and other information on the overall health and operation of the system.

One other point that makes this easier to sell to customers: Reports are also available online in a customer/contractor portal where they can be accessed at any time.

We can also log into the portal to see the equipment readings to determine issues and our course of action.

The Key for Minnick’s Inc. is Offering Choices

The success of our approach to maintenance is offering consumers choices and rewards. In our case, we offer them three choices: our basic loyalty program, our Plus VIP program, and now our Smart Maintenance.

Has it all been easy? Not at all. It has taken time to get our technicians up to speed and to overcome their fear of change. But we are working through that.

The choices we made not only helped to turn our company around but also helped pave the way for our becoming a preferred provider in our area.

Rob Minnick is president and CEO of Minnick’s Inc., in Laurel, MD. He has been in the HVAC Industry for 39 years, holds many state and national certifications, and is active in a number of industry trade associations. If you are interested in learning more about his VIP and Smart Maintenance programs, contact him at rob@minnicks.com.