The third option was worse than the second, and it had been shipping for months
Good, better and best, except best dropped to a lower-efficiency unit. Every customer who reached for the top rung was paying more for less.
The shop was doing everything right on paper. Three options on every install, built ahead of time, presented in the home. I was in the book for something else entirely when I read down the ladder on a two-and-a-half ton comparison.
Option one, a base unit. Option two, a step up, more efficient, better warranty. Option three cost the most and carried a lower-efficiency unit than option two.
Everything a customer could see went up. The thing he was actually buying went down at the last step.
It had been live for months. Nobody in the shop caught it, and I understand why, because the ladder was built once by somebody who knew what he was doing and then checked forever after by people reading the right-hand column.
The customers who chose it were the ones who wanted the best available and were willing to pay for it, which is to say the shop’s best customers were getting the worst version of its trust. None of them complained, because none of them knew. They found out the first summer the thing ran, and by then they were calling the shop about a warranty claim.
Open your three most-quoted install comparisons and read the specs down the ladder, not the prices. Efficiency, warranty and capacity all have to climb in the same direction the price does.
The notebook is where this turned up. If you want it fixed rather than described, that is how to build options techs can sell, over at Titan Tech Tools.
One question a week.
Two minutes, one problem, something to do about it. No pitch.