So, you know that you need to get your system serviced each year. (Click here for 5 reasons why). Regular maintenance helps avoid repairs and keeps your system operating at maximum efficiency. But it’s so easy to forget. A service agreement helps to regularly schedule the tune-up, puts you at the front of the line if there’s a problem, and gives you club member pricing on repairs. What could possibly be wrong with that?

The Dirty Truth About Service Agreements

What is the main problem with the service plan model? In most HVAC companies, the service agreement is a loss-leader (the company loses money on maintenance to win your repair business). The company can’t afford to provide a great tune-up unless they also sell you repairs. What motive do they have to do a real, repair-preventing tune-up? They would go out of business if they couldn’t find repairs to sell.

Most service agreements include some sort of priority customer “Comfort Club” with repair discounts. But why would they discount a repair when you buy their loss-leader service plan? Is it a real discount, or did they boost the repair price then discount it so that it feels like a good deal? This is the shell game of service agreements. You are supposed to receive repair-preventing maintenance and a good deal on repairs, but it is impossible to prove either. In most cases, we’ve found that our competitors’ “discounted” prices (given only when homeowners buy a service agreement) are more than twice our standard pricing!

Are all Tune-ups created equal?

When comparing tune-ups or service agreements, homeowners must resort to comparing inspection checklists. Is a 40 point inspection better than a 30 point one? How can you know? For the company or technician to make a living, they need your furnace to break. If they’re losing money on delivering the tune-up, did you just buy a tune-up or a sales call? Aren’t you simply looking for reliable furnace operation? What if you could be confident that you’re getting great maintenance that will truly avoid downtime and repair bills?

The Watkins Way

For many years, we did not offer service agreements because we could see no way to align them with the needs of our customers. While we wrestled with these ethical issues, many of our customers begged for a service plan. As we designed our Protection Plan, we actually reversed the entire process by starting with a month-to-month warranty on your existing system so that we bear the risk if your system breaks. Now we both want the same thing – safe, reliable furnace operation. Isn’t this the main reason you’re buying a tune-up in the first place? This puts the pressure back on us to do an awesome tune-up so we never have to cover a repair. This also gives us the ability to preemptively repair parts that are about to break, saving us both time and money.

No more repair sales. No more second guessing repair discounts or counting inspection points. No more shell games!

Let us adopt your system!

For just $33/month we will take care of your system – maintenance AND repairs. Call today for details.