A few weeks ago, I requested All Aloha to come out and service my water heater as the solar panel indicated that the water was not circulating. The representatives were polite, professional, and respectful. I am sure they are great guys.
From the moment they arrived, I perceived their comments, sounds and statements as their belief that my 12-year-old water heater was on the verge of total collapse. They pointed out that there was a small wire sticking out of the lower panel and they said it connected to the solar panel, so my thoughts were, "first, how did I not see that red wire sticking out and great, that's obviously the problem, easy fix!"
But no, they did what it seems like most repair places in Hawaii do now and that is not to fix the problem but recommend a ton of unnecessary work or total a $15,000 total system replacement. My previous plumbing company did this as well. The representatives asked for some time to prepare some estimates and I knew immediately what was coming next, a multi-media, iPad presentation of recommendations.
Sure enough, that was what I got. A $15,000 replacement option, a $5,000+ to replace a bunch of parts in the system and a not recommended $500+ option to see what they could do with no guarantees. I thanked them for their time, explained they did the same thing my last plumbing company does, and I am not interested in doing business that way. I just wanted someone to fix my problem, not upsell me a $15,000 replacement.
After some back and forth with the trained statements about how it is unprofessional not to offer all of the repair / replacement options, I looked at them and asked, "Tom (or whatever his name was), tell me something, if this was your house, would you spend $15,000 to replace your system, or would you just reconnect the little wire and see if that solves the problem?" He smiled and told me that he would probably start with the little wire and go from there. We laughed and parted company.
I called another plumbing company and explained that I was not interested in the Hawaii 3-option iPad upsell presentation and just wanted someone to repair my system. They laughed and said that they were not that kind of company and sent someone out a couple of days later. Their tech saw the wire, laughed at my story, and fixed the problem in 3 minutes. $89.01 for a basic service call and a tiny wire nut to reconnect the wires. I took him to my neighbor who also had a problem, will recommend them to everyone on my neighborhood Facebook page, and they have a long-term customer now.
So, I get it, everyone has a job to do, and the companies dictate how their employees have to approach each job, but everyone I have talked to hates this new approach that seems to have swept through Hawaii, where no one wants to fix anything, they just want you to upsell you to a new system at a huge cost. I can't imagine how many old people, who don't know any better or are worried that their systems really are on the verge of failure, get stuck buying systems they don't need or paying for repairs they can't afford because the technicians start right off creating concern for their existing systems before they even start to diagnose what's really happening. read more