BIM: How long has the Comfort Club program been saving customers money and headaches?
Dick: We’ve called it the Comfort Club for almost 20 years now but we’ve always had service plans. It’s really grown in popularity over the years. And so today most often people call us for three reason, for tuneups, no cooling or no heat service call or replacement of equipment. And most of the customers who call us for either the tune up or for a service call, they all join The Comfort Club because they get the discounts right up front. So it’s really become a very popular and very unique program.
BIM: It sounds like it and for obvious reasons for that popularity which is fantastic. So what would you say would be the best advice for our readers today.
Dick: Well if you are going to consider replacing your furnace, what I recommend is that you call us for a free consultation. We don’t charge for anything and we will send a knowledgeable engineer out to take a look at your equipment. When I started in the business, you could only buy an air conditioning unit or you could buy a furnace and they all had the same features. Today it’s totally different. There are so many different features particularly in furnaces. You have different single speed, two stage, variable speed and there’s a time and a model for every different home and every different application and every different lifestyle. So for instance, if you lived in a colonial house or ranch house or a multi-level house or split level, it would take different furnaces for each kind of home. A a split level house, for instance, because there’s so many levels, you would want to use a variable speed furnace because it would make the temperatures more uniform on all the different levels. Our engineers are trained to look at that. Also the new equipment is so much more efficient and many times the equipment is not properly sized and it’s often over-sized and our engineer will measure the house and make sure we get the correct size because everything is more comfortable in your house if it’s properly sized. They’ll also advise you about utility rebates as they’re still available from both CommonWealth Edison and North Shore Gas, Nicor Gas and People’s Energy. So there’s a lot of different rebates and they’re different particularly with each of the different gas companies and providers and our engineers will assist you to navigate to get the best rebate.
BIM: That’s is very helpful to have someone, who’s an expert in this field, to a guide them along the way and almost become their adviser to help find the best solution for your home. Now you’ll know what you need or don’t need and help make sure you get the right equipment which correctly fits in your home plus all the different savings and rebates. You’re really becoming their trusted adviser in this particular segment of home ownership.
Dick: Yes. I would also advise most people that are looking for a new furnace or air conditioning unit that there are awful lot of misleading offers out there. I see them in advertising every day. For instance there are a lot of companies will advertise that there are two or three thousand dollars or more in manufacturers rebates available. But by the time they build up the system so you can get that rebate you would have to buy such a expensive high efficiency air conditioning unit that would not make any sense. It’s just very misleading because you would think that you could just buy an air conditioner and get a two or three thousand dollar rebate but that’s not the case. There’s a lot of other companies that advertise that will beat any price by up to $500. And those words “up to” are always misleading because they might just beat it by a $1 and it’s still considered up to $500. So we try to pride ourselves in the fact that we offer the best service and honest pricing on the top heating and air conditioning brands and we don’t try to have misleading offers. Our prices are very competitive or we wouldn’t be one of the largest companies in Chicagoland. That being said, we’re not a low priced company. We really think that we’re extremely competitively and honestly priced especially when you consider all of our employees being highly trained, our lifetime warranty on repairs and our 24/7 around the clock service. You’ll notice that it seems like every company in our industry every contractor advertises 24/7 service. But the truth is if you a very small company there’s no way that you can provide that. For example, if you’re on a vacation and you’re the sole proprietor working out of your garage then obviously you’re not going to be able to come out to to run a service call. Or if they’re a small company and they’re already on a service call, that’s going to be a problem also. We have 75 employees in our company and we can reach almost all of Chicago land very promptly and within 60 minutes if anybody would have a HVAC problem. We really stand behind everything that we do.
BIM: I love it. Fantastic. You’re definitely revolutionizing the way service should be done not just in heating and air conditioning but I think across the board in all service based industries and I appreciate what you’re doing there. So what’s the best way for our readers to learn more about your company and about the comfort club and if they wanted to get started? What’s the best way for them to do that?
