#171 - Rethinking The Warranty Period

[00:00:00] But when we look at warranty, let's just think manufacturers warranty take any irrigation manufacturer

[00:00:06] And let's look at the valve warranty some valves have one or two years some have five years

[00:00:10] but again an irrigation system that is

[00:00:13] Operated one month out of the year. I would expect to last

[00:00:19] Longer than five years because if you add up one month a year times five years, that's five months of operation

[00:00:25] Versus a system that is run 12 months out of the year after five years. That's 60 months of operation

[00:00:33] Yet the same warranty period applies

[00:00:39] And we could stop and say well, how is the manufacturer supposed to know?

[00:00:43] How long the system has been in operation and I would say absolutely they don't know they do not know

[00:00:50] But what if they did know that's the question I asked. What if they did know

[00:00:54] If you are an irrigation professional old or new who designs installs or maintains high-end

[00:01:02] Residential commercial or municipal properties and you want to use technology to improve your business to get a leg up on your competition

[00:01:09] Even if you're an old school irrigator from the days of hydraulic systems. This show is for you

[00:01:16] Hey my friends welcome back to the Sprinkler Nerd Show

[00:01:19] I'm your host Andy Humphrey. This is episode xyz because I honestly can't remember

[00:01:31] Coming to you from my truck we could call this an episode of truck talk

[00:01:36] Which I did more towards the beginning of this show not as of recent

[00:01:42] And I'm going to be talking about the truck talk

[00:01:46] More towards the beginning of this show not as of recent

[00:01:51] And I'm actually on my way to Chicago today

[00:01:55] for a bunch of

[00:01:57] different events and business opportunities

[00:02:00] And I had a couple things that were on my mind this week that I wanted to share with you guys

[00:02:05] As it relates to service calls

[00:02:09] and warranty and just a few sort of future casting ideas

[00:02:14] About warranty that particularly came to my mind this morning

[00:02:19] And I thought let's see. I thought I would start

[00:02:24] With I thought I would start with how you communicate with your clients and this

[00:02:33] Probably relates more to service

[00:02:36] clients service calls but could

[00:02:39] Could relate to construction, but let's look at it through a service call lens

[00:02:44] And I had first-hand experience with this with a company in my hometown because my

[00:02:51] Water tank failed still not exactly sure the service guy actually came just yet this morning

[00:03:00] So still not exactly sure what is wrong with it. I built my house in 2018

[00:03:05] It is not a you know fine custom craft home, but it's also not a builder's choice

[00:03:13] A model home or or something on the low end. It's probably mid-range

[00:03:17] And what's interesting i'll get to this a bit later is this is not the first appliance that has failed

[00:03:23] In a six-year-old home. Let's just let's just put that out there not the first appliance that's failed

[00:03:27] I'll give you the rest of the story here in a moment

[00:03:31] uh and

[00:03:33] Yesterday actually was last night. My daughter came home from her volleyball practice. It was late. Let's say nine nine thirty

[00:03:42] And uh, she showers after practice, of course, and then she doesn't have to shower in the morning and she goes to take a shower

[00:03:48] And she comes down after she takes a shower and she's like hey

[00:03:52] I couldn't get the hot water on

[00:03:55] The hot water is not working scratching my head and i'm just thinking okay

[00:03:59] Uh, that's weird. Maybe there's something up with your uh

[00:04:03] You know your your shower and then my wife said you know what?

[00:04:06] I just washed my face before bed and yeah, I noticed that the water wasn't hot

[00:04:12] so I of course

[00:04:14] Would rather just jump into bed. It's nine thirty at night

[00:04:18] I went down

[00:04:19] Into the basement looked at the hot water heater

[00:04:23] And the water was definitely not hot. I looked at where the cord was plugged in to the outlet

[00:04:29] and I then

[00:04:32] I went to the breaker box all the breakers were fine

[00:04:34] But there was no power to the heater so I uh looked at where it was plugged in it actually plugs into an electrical outlet

[00:04:40] right above it in the ceiling

[00:04:42] And I thought okay. Well, there's no power to this outlet

[00:04:47] Why would there be no power to the outlet? Well

[00:04:50] There must be something on this circuit that has a gfi that's tripped my first thought

[00:04:55] GFI must be something on this circuit that has a gfi and i'm looking around the room

[00:05:00] Looking around the room. This is in our storage storage room in the basement. It's not finished, but it's not

[00:05:07] You know a dungeon either. It's just a typical

[00:05:11] probably

[00:05:12] nine foot ceiling

[00:05:14] storage room in our basement

[00:05:17] And we have an air filtration

[00:05:20] system that is uh attached to our forced air

[00:05:23] And i'm looking up and I see its plug and its plug goes into the receptacle and the receptacle sure enough has a gfi on it

[00:05:30] I unplug it. I hit the reset button the little green light comes back on and i'm thinking yes

[00:05:35] I am back in business andy just

[00:05:38] Unfucked the problem

[00:05:40] Cool plugged everything back in

[00:05:42] Uh turned off the water heater

[00:05:45] Plugged it in turned the gas back on it starts automatically

[00:05:49] I hear it fire up. I hear the exhaust fan kick in and then 45 seconds later

[00:05:55] Pop there goes the gfi again

[00:05:58] Shit what in the world is going on here?

[00:06:02] So then of course I did the whole the whole shebang over again reset the gfi was hoping

[00:06:09] Was hoping it would work turn the hot water heater back on and then sure enough

[00:06:14] 40 seconds later

[00:06:16] Blew the gfi again

[00:06:18] And this is you know by now probably 10 o'clock at night. I don't want to fuck around with this anymore

[00:06:26] So I just I let it be

[00:06:28] Thought I had thought I had solved it with the gfi

[00:06:31] But I couldn't solve the reason that the hot water tank

[00:06:34] Was tripping it and there was a little bit of water dripping out of the bottom into the basin

[00:06:39] And i'm just thinking all right, you know what?

[00:06:41] I'd better just bring in the professionals

[00:06:45] Wouldn't it be nice if if our clients always thought that about you guys?

[00:06:49] Let me not mess around with this myself. Let me bring in the true

[00:06:53] Irrigation professional and we know a lot do but it's interesting that some don't until they

[00:07:00] Farce around with it for two days

[00:07:02] And only then do they call you guys in and then they stand over your shoulder and then they complain

[00:07:09] Up out here about the price and then they say oh that was it. Oh, I could have done that myself

[00:07:15] Of course, i'm just making uh making fun here

[00:07:18] And we know some clients are like that and again i'll remind everyone you get to choose your clients

[00:07:23] So if that's the behavior make a note, perhaps you don't service that account again unless you need to etc

[00:07:30] All you always have a choice on who you do business with so

[00:07:34] in any case

[00:07:36] So this morning

[00:07:37] I first thing I did was I called the company that that installed it. They're very well known

[00:07:43] both residential residential

[00:07:46] Installation and service company

[00:07:48] And this is where the experience got really

[00:07:51] Really awesome, uh, and there's two parts that to this actually the first part is that

[00:07:56] I I just googled them up real quick and you know, sometimes when you when you're on google

[00:08:03] Your phone tries to locate you

[00:08:06] however

[00:08:07] Sometimes it just picks

[00:08:09] Well, it shouldn't say it picks random places but it picks places that you're not just because of the data

[00:08:13] That's running through the either the cell towers or potentially the wi-fi network

[00:08:17] So google I didn't notice this but google had located me not in my hometown. So when I googled the name of this company

[00:08:26] It brought up the same name

[00:08:28] The same name I was looking for but it wasn't in my hometown

[00:08:30] And I didn't realize that the area code wasn't the same on the number. I called them up

[00:08:34] They did not answer they did not answer the phone. I left a message

[00:08:37] I called the wrong company because I know that the company that I work with offers 24 7 phone support

[00:08:43] They're not doing it, but they contracted out answering service, etc. I thought it was a bit odd that I I landed on a voicemail

[00:08:51] So then I looked at my phone sure enough

[00:08:53] That's when I discovered I had called the wrong company because google had placed me in the wrong area

[00:09:00] And that also reminded me that I had remembered that this company offers 24 7 phone support

[00:09:05] And that you never get a voicemail

[00:09:07] And so I thought I would just share that also is that you can for a reasonable fee

[00:09:14] Offer that to your clients and i'm not saying you should

[00:09:17] Everybody has to make a decision on what is valuable for their business and their customers, but you could

[00:09:23] And just because you could doesn't mean you should but I just wanted to put that out there is that stood out to me

[00:09:28] As a homeowner

[00:09:30] Requesting service

[00:09:32] As a homeowner

[00:09:34] Requesting service from a different trade. I knew that I would not reach voicemail

[00:09:41] So long story short i'm gonna keep going here. I called the correct company got a wonderful woman on the phone again

[00:09:47] I wouldn't care if it was a man or a woman just happened to be a wonderful woman

[00:09:51] she

[00:09:52] Uh brought up my account right away because the phone number I was calling in on matched up with their records

[00:09:58] She had my name

[00:10:00] She had my wife's name both of our cell phone numbers all the information about the equipment that we have

[00:10:06] at our house

[00:10:08] and then she

[00:10:10] Was able to give me a window a scheduling window

[00:10:14] from

[00:10:15] To no 10 to 2 to have a technician come out

[00:10:19] And this is where it got really great. She she said that we would receive

[00:10:24] a text message

[00:10:26] When the technician was in route

[00:10:29] To our home and that we would receive the technician's

[00:10:33] GPS location so we knew where the technician was and when the technician

[00:10:40] Would be arriving

[00:10:42] And I thought I would share both of these text messages

[00:10:46] With you just as an example of the technology that's available to improve the experience

[00:10:53] of your customers

[00:10:55] Because I think

[00:10:57] I think that i'm not alone

[00:11:00] In the dissatisfaction that comes from needing to be at home from eight in the morning to noon and not knowing

[00:11:08] When the technician is going to come are they going to come at eight or are they going to come at 11 59?

[00:11:13] Do I need to be what if I want to take a shower and they show up all those kinds of things?

[00:11:18] Is not

[00:11:20] As uh, it's not that it's dissatisfaction. It's just

[00:11:24] Thinking that there's a better way to do it and today I experienced the better way to do it

[00:11:28] And and before I get to the moral of the story

[00:11:32] these the

[00:11:33] when I read through the

[00:11:36] Text message that i'm going to read you here. I noticed that the url link was coming from go.

[00:11:43] service-titan.com

[00:11:45] so

[00:11:46] immediately

[00:11:47] I was able to recognize that

[00:11:49] This hvac company uses service-titan and that perhaps this great experience that i'm about to have

[00:11:55] Is because of the service-titan software. So here's the first text message that

[00:12:01] That we received and what's also pretty cool is that it didn't just come to me

[00:12:05] It came to both my wife and myself

[00:12:09] To our to our cell phones on a text message. So here's the message. Hi andy and megan

[00:12:16] galen from

[00:12:18] xyz plumbing and heating systems is on the way to

[00:12:23] 547 hidden ridge drive you can track his location here and that's where the service-titan link comes in

[00:12:32] Then it says galen is a dedicated

[00:12:35] highly skilled hvac

[00:12:37] service technician with years of proven industry experience

[00:12:42] provided with stellar customer care

[00:12:45] Ask us about our great membership options if you haven't joined yet call our office with any questions

[00:12:52] thank you for your business and

[00:12:58] That's that's pretty sweet we knew exactly when he was coming we knew exactly where he was

[00:13:04] And I was at my office

[00:13:06] They have a a code to our garage so they could just get right in

[00:13:12] And then he

[00:13:15] Sends another text personally. Well, I shouldn't say personally he the person sent a text

[00:13:22] to both my wife and I

[00:13:25] After he was done the inspection because he hadn't yet fixed it

[00:13:30] But he let us know what he had discovered and this is what he said that this came

[00:13:34] From him and I don't know that this came through service-titan software. Not sure don't know

[00:13:40] Service-titan software not sure don't care, but he says hello. This is galen from xyz plumbing and heating

[00:13:47] I stopped by to look at your water heater and it is leaking from inside the water heater tank

[00:13:54] It is right on the edge of warranty and our office is seeing if we can get it covered under the factory six-year

[00:14:02] Warranty the water heater was turned off when I arrived

[00:14:07] But I have it running now

[00:14:10] Do you want me to turn it back off or leave it running?

[00:14:14] And how great is that? We're not home. He's texting with us. He's cordial polite

[00:14:21] And informative and working in our best interest to try to get it covered under the factory warranty

[00:14:28] And of course I said yeah turn it on we'd love some hot water my shower this morning was

[00:14:33] Was bald cold

[00:14:35] Was shrinkage cold?

[00:14:37] And and then I ended up calling him right away because I wanted to ask him a few more questions

[00:14:42] question number one is how did he get it to stay on because every time I turned it on it was popping the gfi

[00:14:46] And perhaps it was just it was still wet and it was tripping the circuit and it wasn't

[00:14:51] As wet any longer when when he was there if if perhaps there is a leak or the bladder has blown and whatever else

[00:14:57] I don't know exactly how these things operate

[00:14:59] But I was like yeah, man turn it on because I know if there's a problem. It'll pop the gfi

[00:15:02] I'm not worried about it being a safety issue. So yes, please turn it on we need some hot water

[00:15:08] Okay, so

[00:15:09] That's just kind of a I wanted to give a firsthand example as quickly as it had happened so I could speak from

[00:15:15] just

[00:15:16] Just speak from not not truth

[00:15:18] But speak from experience and having someone come to my house and and to be able to share how great the service is

[00:15:24] With number one. We didn't have to be that number two

[00:15:26] We knew exactly when he was going to show up

[00:15:28] We knew exactly where he was and when he was done he texted us right away and gave us the update

[00:15:33] I don't think it gets much better than that

[00:15:35] Until we get the bill. No, i'm just kidding

[00:15:39] I know that it'll be reasonable

[00:15:42] and

[00:15:43] even

[00:15:44] Even if it is let's just say higher than competitor b or c

[00:15:49] Do I really want to call another guy to come out and spend all of my own time with that?

[00:15:56] I that you know, my time is worth more than the increased price of the next competitor

[00:16:03] So also just just keep that in mind is I think as long as you do you provide good service

[00:16:08] You provide good value your professional and your clients trust you

[00:16:12] Then you you deserve to be paid for your worth

[00:16:17] Cool. All right now now let me share sort of this future casting idea about warranty

[00:16:23] We built our house in

[00:16:26] 2018

[00:16:27] and

[00:16:29] I'm in my truck and it is pouring rain here. So what i'm going to do is i'm going to hit pause on

[00:16:34] This recording I want to come back here as soon as the rain stops hang tight. I'll be right back

[00:16:41] All right, i'm back. Hopefully you can hear me a little bit better now. Let's talk about warranty warranty

[00:16:47] is often

[00:16:49] a

[00:16:50] time frame

[00:16:52] Right one year two years three years four years five years and get the idea

[00:16:59] And

[00:17:00] With the failure of my water

[00:17:03] tank

[00:17:04] I first thought why would my water tank fail?

[00:17:07] in six years

[00:17:09] and then

[00:17:11] To make matters worse

[00:17:14] We have a stacked washer and dryer on

[00:17:18] The third floor of our house

[00:17:21] When I say third floor of our house, it's going to sound like I live in a mansion

[00:17:24] But the first level is a walk-in basement

[00:17:26] So it's technically like the second level that level is just my kids three kids bedrooms bathroom

[00:17:31] And my wife had this brilliant idea of putting a washer and dryer

[00:17:35] On their level so that they do their own laundry

[00:17:39] And all the kids stuff is on the floor. It's all it's you know what it's like kids, right?

[00:17:44] Their their mess is up there. We don't have to see touch or deal with their mess. They do their own laundry, but their

[00:17:50] washer has

[00:17:52] Failed started getting grease on some stuff. There was a little bit of water in the basin underneath

[00:17:57] And we have a service technician coming out to look at their washing machine

[00:18:03] Previously, we have an induction stove top. Our first one failed. We had it replaced

[00:18:08] We are on our second

[00:18:11] dishwasher

[00:18:12] First one

[00:18:14] failed

[00:18:15] last year we had

[00:18:17] the

[00:18:18] coil on our

[00:18:21] Not on the ac unit that's outside but the coil that is on the blower unit

[00:18:27] in the basement failed

[00:18:29] And so, you know all these

[00:18:32] different appliances have all failed

[00:18:36] Within in one to six years

[00:18:40] Which makes me question a lot of things but it also makes me think about

[00:18:48] What a warranty period really is and I can understand a warranty period both from the manufacturing perspective and the

[00:18:55] construction perspective

[00:18:58] But I I stopped to think about

[00:19:01] What does time?

[00:19:03] How is time related to warranty or how is time related to failure?

[00:19:07] And is time related to failure? Let me give you an example

[00:19:10] let's say you install an irrigation system for somebody this summer

[00:19:17] And

[00:19:18] This is their and let's just say for instance

[00:19:20] This is their summer cottage and they're in their summer cottage for two weeks

[00:19:27] Out of the year and during those two weeks, they like green grass

[00:19:31] well, so you fire up the system and

[00:19:37] You run it for a couple weeks before they get there and they show up everything's green running great

[00:19:42] And then they and then they leave

[00:19:45] And you shut down the system

[00:19:47] So the irrigation system, let's just say is only running one month of the year

[00:19:52] Pipes are pressurized for one month valves actuate for one month

[00:19:58] Outside of that there's no power on the wire. You know, we know power causes corrosion when wires are wet

[00:20:03] We know pipe fails when it's under pressure

[00:20:05] For long periods of time. I would expect a system that is run for only one month out of the year

[00:20:13] to last

[00:20:14] Longer than a system which is run for 12 months out of the year

[00:20:20] But when we look at warranty, let's just think manufacturer's warranty take any irrigation manufacturer

[00:20:26] And let's look at the valve warranty some valves have one or two years some have five years

[00:20:31] But again an irrigation system that is operated one month out of the year

[00:20:37] I would expect to last longer than five years because if you add up one month a year times five years

[00:20:44] That's five months of operation

[00:20:47] Versus a system that is run 12 months out of the year after five years. That's 60 months of operation

[00:20:55] Yet the same warranty

[00:20:57] Period applies

[00:21:00] And we could stop and say well how is the manufacturer supposed to know

[00:21:05] How long the system has been in operation?

[00:21:08] And I would say absolutely they don't know

[00:21:10] They do not know

[00:21:12] But what if they did know that's the question I asked. What if they did know now let's think about

[00:21:17] My home. I have three kids there. My son came home from college. She's 20

[00:21:22] My daughter's a senior in high school. My other daughter's a freshman

[00:21:25] We use the crap out of our house what I mean we use the crap out of it means we're cooking

[00:21:31] We're taking five showers a day. We're doing lots of laundry. We're really using our appliances to the maximum capability

[00:21:40] Of of that, I mean unless we had two more kids at home

[00:21:43] You're really not going to use appliances more than my family does. We're probably peak appliance users

[00:21:49] Okay

[00:21:51] But what if a couple and i'm gonna stereotype here for a moment

[00:21:55] What if a couple was 75 years old and they had no kids at home and they ate out every day

[00:22:00] So they never really use their dishwasher. They never use their stovetop. They did laundry, you know

[00:22:06] Maybe one load

[00:22:08] One load a week maybe

[00:22:11] You know, they don't they take one shower a day

[00:22:15] You know, they don't they take one shower a day

[00:22:19] They're they're not putting the same

[00:22:22] Wear and tear

[00:22:23] On the equipment they're not using it for you know, the same amount of time

[00:22:28] So I would expect their equipment to last definitely last the warranty period and last much longer

[00:22:35] And that got me thinking about my hot water tank

[00:22:37] Okay, we we use lots and lots and lots of hot water

[00:22:41] We're probably doing at least two loads of laundry every single day

[00:22:46] we're taking five

[00:22:48] Showers at least because sometimes my kids shower in the morning and the evening. We are using a ton of hot water

[00:22:56] So then I thought well

[00:22:58] what if there was a way to know how many gallons of hot water my tank has

[00:23:03] uh, you know

[00:23:05] Heated since we installed it wouldn't wouldn't that be a good way to know when it might fail next?

[00:23:12] Or could that be a better way to know when it might fail versus time because time if you don't use something

[00:23:20] I mean certainly something could seize up if it's not maintained, but if you're not using it, you're not it

[00:23:25] Likely wouldn't fail as quickly

[00:23:27] So what if there was a way to know either?

[00:23:30] You know how many gallons of hot water went through my

[00:23:34] tank and or

[00:23:36] You know how many hours let's say the unit was heating for something like that a way to count

[00:23:44] or or put a value on the usage as a statistic so that

[00:23:49] A warranty might say something like this totally making this up

[00:23:52] For my hot water tank. Maybe it would say something like warrantied up to 100 000 gallons of heated hot water or

[00:24:00] Five years whichever comes first

[00:24:02] So why is that not how we warranty appliances?

[00:24:08] Take a dishwasher same thing if you're doing one load of dishes in the dishwasher every single day

[00:24:15] 365 wash cycles

[00:24:18] it's possible that the

[00:24:20] Somebody in five years isn't doing

[00:24:23] 365 wash cycles. So why not attach the warranty to either

[00:24:29] time or

[00:24:31] Cycle count usage, etc

[00:24:33] Or whichever comes first

[00:24:35] And that way I would know or could know in advance. Wow, we just um

[00:24:40] We just ran the last drop of hot water through our hot water tank

[00:24:44] It is now at a warranty which also means now we're look now

[00:24:47] We're at a period where we're in high usage

[00:24:49] We've we put this number of hours on this device and there's a potential for it to fail

[00:24:54] So maybe we want to

[00:24:57] You know set some money aside because we know this can fail soon

[00:25:00] I just find it interesting that there isn't a like a usage statistic a counter something to track

[00:25:07] How long a piece of equipment?

[00:25:10] An appliance in this case has been used

[00:25:13] Because I think that would be more indicative to its failure than simply time

[00:25:19] And maybe the closest analogy would be a vehicle and I don't know how all the warranties work

[00:25:23] But it might say something like

[00:25:25] You know two years or 20 000 miles whichever comes first you buy a new vehicle

[00:25:30] Hey manufacturer's warranty is good for 20 000 miles or two years whichever comes first because they know

[00:25:36] That things start to break down

[00:25:38] And fail when the car is put

[00:25:41] To use versus it just sitting there

[00:25:45] So in any any case?

[00:25:47] um

[00:25:48] The failure of my hot water tank caused me to have some thoughts about warranty that I had not had before

[00:25:53] and it might be

[00:25:55] Something for you to take into consideration when you look at a warranty period especially as it relates to your labor

[00:26:01] Because a manufacturer will warranty they have a different warranty than you do so you might you know

[00:26:06] Look at how how often or how much use is going to be put on an irrigation system?

[00:26:11] Let's say southern california versus boston, right boston's not in service for five months out of the year

[00:26:17] California is in service for 12 months out of the year. So a

[00:26:22] One year or two year warranty is a is different

[00:26:25] There's different risk involved because the system is not operating for the same periods of time

[00:26:31] And I don't know how to solve it. I'm just putting ideas out there

[00:26:33] Just based on my own experience from something totally random like a hot water heater, but

[00:26:39] Maybe at some point manufacturers will start putting use counters on devices so they know

[00:26:45] Uh when something might fail or if it failed unexpectedly

[00:26:50] Because it had only been the valve had only opened and closed four times and now it's failed versus

[00:26:55] 4 000 times

[00:26:56] So I think you get the idea beat this one in enough

[00:26:59] Uh, thank you so much for listening and you know, what's your thought? What is your sideways thought?

[00:27:04] What have you thought about or experienced recently that has caused you to think of something?

[00:27:10] In a different way would love to know shoot me a text

[00:27:13] 208 9083 229 that is my personal cell phone. I welcome all

[00:27:20] comments feedback

[00:27:22] Anything you're up to let me know love chatting with all you guys. Thank you for

[00:27:27] listening and uh

[00:27:29] Go out there

[00:27:30] Have a great day try something new experiments. Let me know how it goes. Cheers guys. See you on the next episode