Consumer comfort with high-tech toys, combined with rising energy prices, have created a good market for manufacturers of thermostats and controls. It’s a far cry from a few years ago, when too many homeowners were too willing to override the energy-saving settings on their programmable t-stats.

While service marketers are paddling diligently to stay ahead of the changes in online marketing, a new wave is about to come crashing in. Those who see it coming and act on it quickly will ride it to the top and leave the competition in their wake.

The last article in this series discussed different survey options that you might employ to collect results. While it’s important that you choose one, it’s also important that you realize each possesses pros and cons. If you have your technicians distribute surveys, some techs may attempt to lobby homeowners for better scores.

In the first column in this series, “Customers and True-Blue Customers” (Jan. 17), we identified that the most important number that matters is the number of repeat customers you’ve established. In this column, we’re going to take a lesson from elementary school and apply it to retaining customers.

The HVAC business is relatively simple. Your company’s objective is to find customers, solve their problems, and serve them in a capacity in which they will use you again in the future. Herein lies the question and the challenge: How well are you doing at retaining your customers?

Not long ago, according to Jack Beers of Metcalfe Heating & AC (Manassas, Va.), contractors all followed the old adage: “If you do a great job, your customer will tell nine people. Do a poor job, and they’ll tell 22 people.” But today, as more and more customers post online reviews, Beers explained, “The difference now is that if you do a poor job, they’ll tell 22 million people.”

There is a major customer service component to every refrigeration technician’s job. So how can a technician best represent his company?

A DVD titled “Contractor Soft Skills” illustrates how contractors can have their technicians improve their own soft skills. The DVD is the third one about customer service by customer service expert Steve Coscia.

The cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C., can teach us about customer relationships.