Dan Dempsey spent years at Carrier developing analytical tools to diagnose HVAC systems, and today he consults with his family’s Ohio-based HVAC business.

Dan is sharing the biggest opportunities and threats he sees for HVAC businesses in a two-part series. In part one, Dan talked about how to prepare for the new refrigerants that are coming soon. This is part two, where Dan talks about developing a virtual service offering for your HVAC customers. What does that mean? Why now? How can you monetize it? Where do you start?

Here are some of the most important concepts from the video:

• Expensive HVAC equipment has been ‘smart’ for many years. But now even the mid-tier equipment is starting to send interesting data into the cloud, via the thermostat.
• By tapping into that data, you can run some very basic calculations to monitor most of the metrics a technician would gather on a service call.
• You can aggregate that data across all of your customers and force-rank the health of the systems. A dispatcher could pull up the rankings every day and proactively look for issues.
• Customers may or may not want you to act before they feel a problem, but giving them the option builds trust.
• A slow refrigerant leak is a classic example of a problem that could be diagnosed virtually before a customer is aware of the issue.
• You can choose how to monetize this capability. Maybe it’s an add-on service that you charge for. Maybe it’s just a way to save money by only rolling a truck when you really need to.

Virtual service is one of many opportunities for HVAC companies in the broader move toward electrification. We’re going to offer a free course on what that really looks like later this year, but here’s a good place to start in the meantime:

This is an exciting time to be in the HVAC industry. Look for more articles and courses coming on heat pumps and electrification. If there’s something you want to learn that you don’t see, reach out and let us know so we can build it for you. ⚡️🏠