A stupid incident

[Akousticplyr]

Hmmm. Lots of folks saying that lowest price isn’t the #1 priority.

Here’s something on the flip side of that just this last week. I have two zones of central air -under home warranty. One zone died. Warranty sent out a local heating and air guy to “fix” it ( this is the third warranty call as it’s well past it’s service life) because that’s what they are supposed to do -home warranty will ALWAYS repair incrementally vs replace no matter how many times something fails.

Here’s my price story. I said, I’ve had enough so give me a quote on a new system out of pocket. He calls his boss and works up estimates from lowest to highest SEER ratings and extra gizmos (Uv light filter etc).

Lowest was $8500. Highest was $12,000.

So I called other companies for some estimates.

Local average? $4200-4800

Anyone think I should apologize to heating and air guy “A” because he came to my house and took the time to lay out some brochures ...oh and also try and upsell me a credit card too?

Give me a break. If you aren’t shopping around for the best price then you must use $20 bills for toilet paper.

[JP Richardson]

Originally Posted by missouri.picker

you think that was great? Sad to hear such cutthroat stuff......in all due respect to you, i would never ever do business with you. Sorry, and i am glad you have at least admitted to that kind of behaviour. Have a good day sir.

I thought RonS' story was great. Are you sure you're not RonS' competitor from the story?

[tadol]

Nothing about your story would make me think that price needs to or even should be the sole priority -

In fact, your random repair guys, who I’d bet were the lowest price around, just kinda proves that basing everything solely on price is far from the best strategy.

Besides, the whole service and contracting business model is so completely different than the retail mass-produced consumer item one, I can’t even imagine how you could think it has any bearing on this whatsoever -

[Wade Hampton]

It's interesting to me how ten years after this thread was begun, the same two schools of thought remain: the two-fisted bargain hunters who think that the only thing that matters is price, and those of us who believe that there's a little more to it.

I stand by the position I expressed on the first page of this thread, lo, these many years ago...


Wade Hampton Miller

[why2]

So I have the tree guys come out to cut and trim. Two crews and two buckets for two days at $6500.00. Now the trees over my house are not going to shed limbs through the roof and my insurance company is happy. There is more work to do which was discussed but after writing the check it's like I've dropped off the radar as a client for the tree cutters.
Part of the crew shows up a few days later and says they can do the rest of the work. They got fired from the original company. I had no estimate or contract with the original company for additional work so we strike a deal with me dropping another bunch of money and the work was wrapped up in a few days.

Three weeks later the first company calls. Uncomfortably I explain what happened. I certainly felt in the middle of a conflict that was not mine.
He, first company, was miffed and says he should hang up (good move) and we will talk later. We did have more business because they poisoned a removed cottonwood which possibly could kill another which we wanted to save which was not cool. (the cottonwood survived)

I guess my point of this story is that being honest and upfront might well serve to smooth out bad feelings.
In the tree cutting world I had guys ready to do the work. I took that deal. And I told the original tree company that I was sorry for it happening but what was going on in his business life was really not my concern. My check was good.

In the guitar sales world I might have said "another seller wants to save ME! some money". Can we discuss it?

[Gabby84]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

It's interesting to me how ten years after this thread was begun, the same two schools of thought remain: the two-fisted bargain hunters who think that the only thing that matters is price, and those of us who believe that there's a little more to it.



I stand by the position I expressed on the first page of this thread, lo, these many years ago...





Wade Hampton Miller

I totally agree with you, Wade. I have benefitted from patient and knowledgeable sales people and music store owners over the years.

[drplayer]

Deleted original post...just realized it's a 10-year old thread.

[Scott O]

So which store did he buy from? Did he apologize? Is the price from 2009 still valid?

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by Scott O

So which store did he buy from? Did he apologize? Is the price from 2009 still valid?

At this point, really, who cares? I don’t think the OP was ever a regular participant here, he just posted to share his grievance in hopes that the rest of us would commiserate with him.

Unfortunately for him, most of us didn’t.


whm

[Wade Hampton]

Yeah, I just checked, and his last post on the forum was in 2010. He’s long gone.


whm