Wisler Plumbing and Air

Serving Roanoke and surrounding areas.

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Reflecting on 2021

Diamond club

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For our company, 2021 was a year of constant change, adapting to both success and challenge. It was a year of pivoting as we faced COVID, inflation, turnover, and even growth.

This was the first year in our history that we had over 15% turnover in our team, and that impacted us in several different ways. Some good, some challenging. We continued to deal with COVID and illness within our staff. There were a couple times in 2021 where our entire call center was working from home, which brought a whole new set of challenges as we continued to strive for a high-level of service to our clients.

Just like everyone else, we dealt with supply chain issues. For example, our water treatment units have anywhere from a 10 to 14-week lead time. We’ve also seen the effects of inflation, with four different increases on water heaters, two increases in water treatment, and even fixed expense increases within our organization. So, we had to adapt and overcome as we faced those changes.

We have 35 new team members that onboarded in 2021, and we moved from an onsite 1,200 sq. ft. warehouse to an offsite 7,500 sq. ft warehouse. In many ways, all of that has been great, but it does come with some challenge in figuring our processes and procedures.

In 2021, recognized that we need to do a better job of servicing our Diamond Club members. Currently, we don’t have the staff we need for plumbing service calls, with lead times a month out. And a lack of available skilled HVAC techs continues to be an uphill battle. We know now that the way out of that bind is train our way out of it. As a result, we are constantly training our staff to increase competency levels.

The amazing thing is, even with all the above, our organization was able to profitably grow 28% in 2021. So, though it feels like an entire year of adapting and challenge, it was also a tremendous accomplishment. We see 2021 as a success, but we will always remember the learning experiences it presented as well.

If you have any plumbing or HVAC issues in your home, reach out to the team at Wisler Plumbing & Air by contacting us online or giving us a call at 540-483-9382.

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I think most of us recognize the importance of maintenance, and one of the items we commonly associate with maintenance is our car. Everyone who drives a car should know that it occasionally needs its oil changed (along with the oil filter). A properly-maintained car is going to continue to work well. But most of us don’t think about the systems in our homes that need maintenance. Our HVAC systems run all the time, constantly keeping our homes warm or cool. In our plumbing systems, the water heater is running 24/7. They will give out on us if we don’t take care of them.

The bottom line is, maintenance can prevent premature breakdowns. It’s never fun when our water heater goes out and gives us a cold shower. It’s also no picnic when our HVAC system goes out and our house becomes unbearably hot or cold. We want to be comfortable in our homes and we want the systems in our homes to work properly. If you can get someone to keep an eye on them every once in a while, it allows you to plan for a potential upgrade or replacement. Otherwise, a lot of times you’ll just need to replace the item whenever it breaks down. It’s much, much harder to make the best decision during those kinds of urgent emergencies. Just taking a proactive instead of a reactive approach can place us in a much better situation.

If your HVAC system is located in a dusty environment, in the laundry room, or a home with pets, it’s going to have to work much harder. The area doesn’t even have to be very dirty, either—it’s just that air is constantly moving in a high volume and any pet hair or dust will be sucked up into the unit. It’s kind of like putting your hand tightly over your mouth and trying to breathe. If the HVAC system is working hard in this manner, it’s probably going to break down much sooner, especially without someone keeping an eye on it during occasional maintenance. You can save money just by being proactive.

The Diamond Club program includes two HVAC checks a year (one for the heating system, one for the cooling system) and a plumbing check once a year at no additional charge over the membership. You do have to call in to get the plumbing check, if it’s something you want to have. (There’s not quite as much to maintain in the plumbing system, and some people get more value out of it than others.) If there’s any work that you choose to have done, or any cleaning/maintenance items that need to be performed, it would be an additional charge. However, we go over those charges before any work is done and you have the option to agree or decline.

Customers can call in and request a plumbing maintenance visit. We generally reach out to our customers to schedule the heating or air visit, depending on whether we’re in the heating or cooling season. This might also be a good reminder to change your air filters, too, However, sometimes filters might need to be changed more frequently than every 6 months, depending on the type of system you have, the type of environment, and the type of filter used. For any questions, contact us online or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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The most important thing for us to do as a company is make sure the right person goes to the right call. Everyone loses when that doesn’t happen. If we send a technician who doesn’t have the relevant competency out to someone’s home, they will be frustrated because they struggled to complete the task. The client is going to be very frustrated, too, because their concern was not efficiently resolved. Time is very important to everyone, so if we have to go back to do something twice, it’s absolutely no fun for anybody involved. We’re very much keyed-in to trying to get the right tech on the right job so these things don’t end up happening.

It can be very challenging to pull this off sometimes, though, because we may not fully understand the issue that we’re sending someone out for. Sometimes we’re making educated guesses about what potentially could be going on, so we have to compensate when we’re assigning the job to a technician. We also have a lot of technicians who specialize in a certain area. For instance, our plumbing technicians don’t cross over to HVAC and vice-versa. Our maintenance technicians specialize in maintenance and are not service technicians.

We always look at the skill level of the technician and the skill level required for the actual task being requested and try to match them up. That way we can divvy out jobs and tasks to the individuals who are specialized in those areas. If they do a specific kind of task day in and day out, they’re going to be much better at it than someone who might run three HVAC calls, four plumbing calls, and a couple of water treatment calls every week. If a technician was constantly doing different tasks, they’d never find a groove. We think the best strategy is to have specialties within our techs so we can field the right person for the job.

We also look at the priority of the call. For instance, no-heat calls and no-water calls are very important and generally are given a higher priority over a dripping sink faucet. We also give priority to our Diamond Club family members as one of the benefits of the program. When one of our Diamond Club family members calls in for service or maintenance, we try to give them priority over someone who isn’t a Diamond Club family member.

We have a role in our company that is entirely dedicated to dispatching technicians. Kresta is our dispatcher here, and she has a couple of people who back her up while she’s away. (She’s been with us for about 7 or 8 years now.) She’s very capable of getting a handle of any situation and knowing how to match a technician’s skillset with the task. The dispatcher’s role is ultimately to get the right call to the right tech as the calls come in.

If you have any questions, reach out to us today by giving us a call at 540-483-9382. You can also request an appointment online if you’d like to get a technician out to your home for plumbing or HVAC maintenance or repair.

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Plumbing is a part of the home that sometimes gets forgotten, but I would say that its integrity is just as important as the safety of an electrical system. Once water gets into a material like wood, the two won’t interact very well with each other. The resulting water damage can be extremely traumatic to a home. You’ll end up having to rip out and replace all the affected surfaces. Being able to prevent unnecessary emergencies like these is one of the main reasons why a plumbing inspection is important. Nobody will be able to prevent everything bad from happening, but you can definitely go a long way.

 

It’s a best practice to maintain the systems that you’re responsible for. We commonly recognize that certain things need to be maintained, like our bodies, our cars, or even the painted walls in our rooms. (Most of us know better than to use a car without ever maintaining it.) Other items that also need to be maintained might sometimes get neglected, maybe because we don’t really see or notice them on a daily basis. Plumbing tends to be one of those things—if/how you maintain it will determine how much money it ends up costing you. For instance, if you don’t flush your water heater, sediment buildup will cause you to pay more on your utility bill.

 

You’ll want to make sure that you’re doing maintenance a little bit at a time so you won’t suddenly be surprised by an emergency issue or an unnecessarily high utility bill. We offer a Diamond Club membership that includes maintenance visits for plumbing, heating, and air. Clients with a membership just need to reach out to us and schedule their inspections. Current Diamond Club members get two free HVAC visits per year (one for cooling and one for heating), and one free plumbing visit per year. For more information, contact us online or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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In our last blog post, we covered the Diamond Club’s priority service and risk-free trial. Now, let’s focus on how the Diamond Club can save you money with preventative maintenance.

 Like anything in life, the more proactive you are, the less likely you are to have an emergency arise. Many of our clients might not realize how costly a plumbing emergency can become. (People don’t normally budget for those types of occurrences.) One of the benefits that our diamond club members receive is the fact that we can minimize emergency plumbing calls.

 Emergencies can range from a lot of things. A water heater failure, for example, can burst and cause a flood. Water pipes can break, drip, and cause water damage. Older pipes may become brittle over time. Drains may back up from heavy use when guests are over. If the plumbing system is not occasionally looked at by a professional, those things can happen at the most unexpected times.

 While these emergency calls can’t be prevented all the time, they can be prevented the majority of the time. Preventative maintenance is way less expensive than the cost of fixing an emergency situation. That’s why having a professional visit your home and check these things on a regular basis will definitely save you money.

 Diamond club members get a free annual visit that includes a comprehensive inspection of the plumbing system to ensure everything is in working order. Minimizing costly emergency calls is beneficial to everyone—we won’t have to bump as many non-emergency calls from others. Also, when all the members of a household have jobs, they won’t have to take unnecessary time off for emergency plumbing issues. Being proactive allows clients to schedule the most convenient time instead.

 Additionally, plumbing components will have an extended lifespan if they are maintained proactively. During our annual visit, we flush the water heater, which keeps it working reliably. Many people don’t know that water heaters even need maintenance. The manufacturer recommends that water heater tanks are flushed to remove any particulate matter that may have settled at the bottom. There is also a safety device on the water heater that relieves excessive pressure. This relief valve needs to be worked every year to make sure it is in proper condition.

 Along with water heater maintenance, we also work the valves and emergency shutoffs under the sink. If they are not ever used, they tend to seize up, preventing from them from working in case of an emergency.

The diamond club has been around for almost 15 years now, and it will be around for a long time to come. Contact us if you have any questions, or call us at 540-352-4262.

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If a problem ever arises with your plumbing system, it can be nerve-wracking and stressful. It may not be an emergency, but it is definitely something that needs to be resolved in a timely manner. Wisler Plumbing and Air’s Diamond Club membership offers benefits like priority service and a risk-free trial to make plumbing service as hassle-free as possible.

At busy times of the year, we at Wisler Plumbing and Air have a backlog of work that needs to be prioritized and worked through. When a diamond club member calls our company, we make sure they receive priority service. This means that we will bump a non-diamond club member off of the schedule to a later date.

Diamond club memberships also have a risk-free trial. The yearly cost of membership is $95.40, so it is a very low-cost investment overall. The money for the first 30 months can go into a reserve account with our company, so members will be able to use it towards any type of plumbing repairs they may need. When we visit a diamond club member’s home, they are often pleasantly surprised that they have money in this account that can be used towards small things that need to be taken care of. It also helps to give customers peace of mind that the money spent on diamond club memberships will be useful even when they don’t have any plumbing services that are needed.

The Diamond Club has been going on for more than 14 years, and it’s around 700 members strong. Simply put, the Diamond Club will help you save money. There are other benefits to the Diamond Club, but ultimately the goal is to give a great value to our clients. Membership has an additional benefit of a 25% discount on repairs, which we will discuss in more detail in a future blog post. If you have a small repair that is needed, such as a dripping faucet or leaky pipe, those repairs will be done at this discounted rate. (The 25% discount does not apply to replacement items.)

 

To learn more about joining our Diamond Club, visit the Diamond Club section or contact us directly.

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