How do you stay positive as a service technician and continue to provide the best possible service for your customers? 

Today we’ll hear some stories from the field, both good and not so good, and learn a few lessons along the way. 

 

Julia

Back with us today is Britt and we’re going to be talking a little bit about some of the stories that come with the service industry. 

 

Britt

Yes, today I brought Jonathan Manning. He’s been in the service industry for way longer than I have and thought he could share some of his stories on the road and kind of give some tips on what he’s seen out there and lessons learned. So thanks for being here, Jonathan. 

 

Jonathan

My pleasure. 

 

Britt

Why don’t you tell the listeners how long you have been in service. 

 

Jonathan

One way I learned about service, back in the late 90s, I worked with my best friend on his pit crew, and I worked in NASCAR for a NASCAR team for a couple of years. And then later on in the early 2000s, I was working for a company that made industrial equipment, and I did some service work with them. And around 2011, I moved into medical devices and started working for the service department there, and was a field service engineer till 2018 and now I’ve been working at Blur for several years since 2019. A lot of years. 

 

Britt

Tell me, out of the 50 states, how many states have you been to as part of service? 

 

Jonathan

I was fortunate to see 49 out of 50. I missed out on going to Alaska but I was able to go to 49. 

 

Britt

Wow, 49 out of 50 states. That’s incredible. And how did you decide who got to go to Alaska? 

 

Jonathan

Okay, well there were primarily, when the opportunity to go to Alaska came about, there were primarily two of us that were traveling. If a good trip came up it was rock-paper-scissors, and if a bad trip came up it was rock-paper-scissors. I legitimately lost out on the Alaska trip. So I should have gone with scissors, I guess.

 

Britt

And then what’s the craziest extreme that you’ve gone to from one state to another? Tell us a little bit about that experience. 

 

Jonathan

OK, well, as far as weather-related, one day I was coming back in the morning. I was coming back from somewhere in Florida, and it was during the winter. I got back into the office before lunch and just happened to run into you Britt and you said, “Would it be possible for you to be in Appleton, Wisconsin,” and I say, “Like when?” and you said, “Tomorrow morning.” I remember giving you a crazy look and thinking, “I don’t want to do this.” I thought about it and decided, okay. So I immediately booked a trip to go to Wisconsin. All I had was clothes for Florida because I was just planning on being in Florida that week and ended up in Milwaukee that nigh. It was like single digit temperatures and all I had was short sleeve shirts. So yeah, that was a quick turnaround trip but it was very cold. 

 

Britt

Yeah, that happened a lot. So what John was talking about is when you’re first starting a service department and you’ve got a small team and then you’ve got clients calling in, sometimes you’ve got quick turnarounds that have to happen. And yeah, sometimes you’re having to ask people to fly out of Florida and then go straight to Wisconsin, or in some cases, jump on a plane and get to California and then go right from California to Canada. 

 

I mean, you can’t plan for exactly when service is going to happen, but you can start planning to build your team out to make it the most. less painful process as possible. 

 

Julia

So Jonathan, did you get a coat when you got to Wisconsin? 

 

Jonathan

Nope, I just made the best of it. 

 

Julia

Just toughed it out in your flip flops and shorts. 

 

Jonathan

Well, no flip flops, but yeah, just dress pants and dress shoes and a polo shirt. 

 

Britt

I heard about this one time that you had to use a microwave in a hotel. 

 

Jonathan

Yeah, well, sometimes when you’re planning out these trips for service, you think that you’re gonna be in one place for a certain amount of time and then the rest of the week is already scheduled out. But a lot of times, you have to make changes on the fly. So you pack enough clothes to be somewhere one day and then you add another day’s clothes to it just to make sure. And sometimes those trips end up being extended throughout the whole week. 

 

So one time it’s the afternoon and I’m out of clean shorts and I wanted to wear shorts out that evening to get something. So you do what every everybody does that is taking an extended trip that’s not planned: You wash your clothes in the sink. I just found out the microwave is not a good thing to try to dry clothes in. 

 

Britt

What happens if you put clothes in a microwave? 

 

Jonathan

Well they’ll overheat in places and start smoking. 

 

Britt

Oh, that’s good to know. 

 

Jonathan

Fortunately I didn’t set off the smoke alarm. That would have been really, really bad. Yeah, lost that pair of shorts. 

 

Britt

So not only were you out of clean shorts, you’re down a pair of shorts as well. 

 

What’s the worst experience you’ve had as far as service and then what’s your best experience that you’d say overall from service? 

 

Jonathan

Well I always wanted to make sure I was doing a good job for the customer and wanted to be a good representative of the company and have a good first impression. I wanted to leave with the customer having had a good experience and having a machine that’s working. 

 

I was in Boise, Idaho. I’d left at 0 dark 30 that morning and I remember getting into the office and I just kind of have the shakes because I haven’t eaten anything and I want to get started on this and get it over with. So, I have this machine with probably a 500 to 600 part bill of materials and it’s completely taken apart. All the external housings are off it, all the internal components are out into the bottom to change some CPU components. 

 

The doctor is coming through the office back and forth which is making me nervous because he’s asking me questions like, “Is my machine ever going to work again?” As I’m getting the thing back together, I have a few small screws that I have to put like a thread locker. It comes in a little one ounce bottle with a small paint brush in it and it’s fluorescent orange. Well, this is a brand new office and they have this bright green colored carpet and bright green colored chairs. As I said earlier, I had the shakes, and I opened this brand new bottle of Threadlocker and it’s like everything happened in slow motion: It slipped out of my hand, I tried to catch it with one hand, now it’s twirling. You can see this fluorescent red liquid going all over the chair where the bottle lands on the chair, bounces up, and then lands on the carpet. I immediately went to the office manager and told her what happened. She brought me some rags and then she brought me, of all things, this stuff that you get in automotive stores: It’s brake cleaner. And all you can smell in the office are solvents. At this point I can’t even breathe. I was able to get most of it out of the carpet, but we ended up buying a new office chair for that customer. 

 

Britt

Yeah, I remember that call. It was like, “Britt, can we buy them another chair?” and I said, “Yeah, that’s the right thing to do. So let’s do it” But things happen. Don’t feel too bad about it. I remember you felt really bad about it. And I was like, these things happen. Try not to make mistakes, but they happen. And obviously that was a pretty intense repair. 

 

So probably if it had been a more serviceable device and service had been thought of ahead of time, you probably wouldn’t have had to go that deep into the system and would have had a much faster repair. 

 

Julia

I can’t imagine that purchase request coming through. I’m just imagining at the office someone would be like, why is someone ordering one office chair? For our customer.?

 

Britt

For our customer, not for this office. 

 

Jonathan

Key takeaway for that is always have breakfast. 

 

Britt

Yeah, that’s true.

 

Julia

Most important meal of the day.

 

Britt

And what was your best experience? 

 

Jonathan

Alright, so best experience was the fact that going to so many different cities, you get to experience the cultures and the food. And my counterpart, Paul, in service, we always kept an Excel database of the best restaurants to go to. 

 

Julia

Oh, that’s a good idea. 

 

Jonathan

So I am, I’m a big fan of all types of barbecue. And so I would say a lot of the best experiences, there were many, probably revolved around barbecue. Should I name some of the places? 

 

Britt

Yeah, definitely. 

 

Jonathan

So Leo’s in Oklahoma City, Tyler’s in Amarillo, Texas, and Letha’s down in Mississippi. 

 

Britt

Best barbecue. Good to know. 

 

Julia

I am very impressed that you remembered those just off the top of your head. And you brought your barbecue skills to Blur. You’re like our grill master here. 

 

Jonathan

Well, it is a hobby. I enjoy doing it. 

 

Britt

And then what’s the craziest thing you’ve seen while on the road? 

 

Jonathan

Oh, definitely that’s easy. I was out in Portland, Oregon and I was driving down to Salem. I was on the five and I saw a motorcycle and a guy had a piece of channel iron strapped to the back of it and had a refrigerator, like a dorm-sized refrigerator, and he was transporting that from one place to another on a motorcycle. I thought that took a lot of skills. 

 

Julia

Oh yeah, talk about balance. 

 

Britt

Yeah, that’s some crazy balance. You know. Wow. Yeah, I’m sure you could go on forever. I mean, you’ve got tons of stories there. So, seen a lot of things, heard a lot of things, been to a lot of places. I guess we’ll end with what are some lessons learned, like a few lessons learned if you had to tell our listeners out there that you got from service?

 

Jonathan

I learned that most people will treat you as you treat them. 

 

Another thing is airline etiquette: always be nice to the flight attendants and most of the time they will be nice to you.You always want to give up the best seat if you’re on Southwest to the mom that is nervous about having her kids with them when she gets on the plane late. Things like that. And I did learn that the middle seat won’t actually kill you. 

 

Probably the most important thing though is you always wanna check the mattresses when you’re in strange hotels. 

 

Julia

Have you found anything? 

 

Jonathan

Well, I was out in Washington state and it was the only encounter I ever had where I actually saw a real live bed bug. I disappeared from that hotel pretty quick. 

 

Britt

And then what about lessons learned from, you know, being out in the field performing service? If you were mentoring someone right now, who’s new to service and they’re about to go out on their very first service call, what would you tell them when they get to that office their best thing to think about is? 

 

Jonathan

Tell them that everything doesn’t go as planned. Be confident in your support group back home. Have numbers of people that have expertise in things that you’re not an expert on, and realize that the worst thing that can happen is you can’t repair the machine and you might get another stab at it. 

 

Julia

Yeah, I think being confident in your support team is a huge one. The worst thing that can happen in that scenario is you might not be able to fix the problem right there when you’re there, but that’s why you have your support team and the experts that you can rely on and call up. 

 

Britt

Yeah, well, this has been great, Jonathan. I really appreciate you joining us today and hearing all your stories and lessons that you’ve been able to share with the listeners.