Think Ahead
Your dispatcher has just given you a no cooling service call and you’re in route. Quick! What do you do? You start diagnosing the problem, of course.
But Dave, the technician is not even on the call and he’s already beginning to diagnose what the problem is?
You know, I am sure the breaker tripped from yesterday's storm.
Yep. It’s just human nature. And it’s the kind of human nature that can get you in trouble if you’re not careful.
There are two schools of thought on thinking ahead. One says it’s okay to do. The other says to not think about the call and once on site follow a systematic, practiced set of troubleshooting procedures. I think it’s okay to play out scenarios in your head on the way to the call, as long as once you get there, you stick to your standard troubleshooting procedures. Sooner or later, if you just address the obvious when on a service call, the customer will be calling your company back out to fix the problem that you overlooked.
One value to thinking ahead is if you are familiar with a particular system and run through the sequence of operation in your head, you’ll be better prepared to address the problem.
Photo from drumtoo on Flickr
