Lets start with the good.
Only company of the six that we called who were willing to come over to look at furnace without any callout fee.
Dexter, a very nice and friendly man, came around right on time and immediately diagnosed the problem and explained why it was not fixable. He recommended the model that would best fit for our needs and again explaining why. He said the installation could be done the very next day.
The four men who came to do the installation of the furnace, AC and tankless water heater came within the stated timeframe and once they had returned, after all the confusion below had been sorted out, and finally started, the three installations went very well. About six hours later everything had been professionally installed and warm heat was once again coming through the vents. The quality of the work could clearly be seen. Before leaving, one of the guys explained the major points and features of each unit and the other code required work that they had done. They cleaned up everything, even the tiniest pieces of waste, after them.
Overall, very happy with the work done.
Now to the bad and what brought down the grade.
The salesman, Drew, came later the same afternoon as Dexter and after asking what our budget was proceeded to show what would fit our needs. He spent considerable amount of time on both the furnace and AC models explaining their features and why they would be a good choice. He did not discuss or recommend any particular tankless water heater brand or model instead talked about tankless heaters in general.
The problem was he either forgot or put aside the budget that he had asked for at the start and then came up with a total cost much higher than what we initially wanted to pay. We negotiated an acceptable amount with duct cleaning also included in the price but when he called his General Manager Jason, this final amount was not acceptable to Jason. After some further back and forth it seemed like Jason relented by making some changes such as leaving out the wireless thermostat as we had bought a new one just the other day. Eventually, the same amount as before was agreed and the installers were to come the next morning. Also, when completing the agreement Drew did not tick all the boxes under the Premier Plan which we had agreed and instead ticked some boxes in the lower basic plan. That did not make sense to us nor could Drew explain as to why this was being done. We even had to make him change some of the ticked boxes from the basic plan to the Premier Plan.
When the installers came in the morning, we noticed that the furnace and AC units were lower models from the ones that we had thought that we had agreed to the afternoon before with Drew. Ironically, the tankless water heater model was top notch. We called Drew and spoke with both Drew and Jason. Jason explained that to meet our budget he had to go to lower level models, but this was not made clear to us neither by him or Drew when the agreement was done and we thought we would be getting the same models that we had discussed with Drew. Jason tried to brush this off by making excuses and saying that he did mention this and that the lower level AC was good enough for the Canadian climate. If that was the case then why did Drew not say this and why did he spend 20-25 minutes explaining the benefits of the higher model if the lower model was all that we needed? We told Jason that we wanted the models that we thought that we had agreed to and if that was not possible, we wanted to cancel the deal. Jason agreed to cancel and we sent the installers away.
We have never worked in sales but we would think at a minimum a sales person would A) - give his/her business card and/or contact details, B) - would before the end of the meeting, summarise the model number of each item agreed to and the total agreed price so there is no confusion or misunderstandings. Both of which Drew did not do, in fact we cant think of another time when a sales person did not give us their business card, with most doing so as they are entering the front door.
Then a few minutes later, as we were on the phone with another company, Drew called back and said they were willing to meet our demands for the original models at the agreed price and he put us in contact with Peel Heatings Sales Manager, Catharine.
Catharine immediately agreed to give the specific models that had originally been agreed, for the originally agreed price and ensured that we were getting the full Premier Plan, including the wireless thermostat and upgraded coil. She managed to resolve in a minute what Drew and Jason could not over the past day and quickly cleaned up the mess these two had created. She sent us a new agreement with all the Premier Plan boxes ticked only.
The final thing to go wrong was the financing application presented by Peel Heating to the finance company omitted the no interest if paid within 12 months term, as offered by Drew. Again, we had to call Catharine to get this added in.
If going to use this company it would be wise to triple check everything the salesperson promises against what is actually being done. Definitely need to dot your Is and cross your ts here. Hopefully these above two salesmen are the exception and the remaining company salesforce work in a much more professional and ethical manner. If that is the case, then immediate extra sales training is required for these two gentlemen.
In closing, the sales and admin dept need to shape up and get up to the same high standards as those of the technicians and installers.
