Smashburgers and swag. Conversations and cornhole. Breakfast burritos and fist bumps.
ServiceTitan hosted the first Titan Tailgate events in mid-May, providing a food truck on four stops covering five contracting businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Those pop-up parties were designed to celebrate and recognize those who Power the Nation in home and commercial services.
The single biggest takeaway? Appreciation is addictive. And every technician, regardless of trade, seems to have a story about a time they were appreciated.
Like Medley Heating Air Conditioning Plumbing Josue Juanez, who helped an elderly customer with an emergency HVAC install on Christmas Eve, which he described as “literally providing comfort for them.”
Or Swan Electric, Plumbing, Heating & Air’s Ben Williams, who remembers working with a customer not on her HVAC unit, but on lining up insulation to keep her unit from failing again after spending time in her 160-degree attic.
Or Mason Linex, an HVAC technician at Medley Medley Heating Air Conditioning Plumbing in Carrollton, Texas. He still remembers the first time he felt a customer’s appreciation, when he was just out of training and was assigned a repair on a very hot Texas day.
“I didn't know a whole lot,” Linex said, “but I knew enough to get somebody up and going.”
Some struggles are harder than others, however, and that family had an older HVAC system. They didn’t want to replace it, and didn’t know if they could afford to.
Linex was determined to help, but halfway through the call, he wasn’t sure he could do anything.
“I kept banging my head against a wall,” he said. “I told them I would try one more thing, and I changed the fan speed.”
That brought the pressures into line and stopped the system from kicking off.
“I told them I bought them a lot more time,” he said. “I learned a lot that day.”
He also got a lot in return. The family, he said, was extremely grateful.
“I got a big hug,” Linex said, “and that was my first-ever review, five stars. It's hard to top that feeling.”
That feeling, the one home and commercial contractors get from serving customers often in a time of dire need, represents one of the best reasons for working in the trades, according to Texas Medley, owner of Medley Heating Air Conditioning Plumbing.
And like so many contractors in every trade across the country, he sees how it makes his technicians feel every day.
“I genuinely feel like HVAC techs are among the hardest working groups of men and women that there are,” Medley said. “They are working in freezing temperatures. They're working in blistering hot temperatures, making sure other people are staying comfortable at the expense of their own comfort.”
Customer appreciation, Medley said, is the best kind of appreciation.
“You're getting the gratification from being appreciated three or four times a day,” he said. “It’s one of the most addicting parts of doing this job.”
It’s a job, Medley said, done by men and women who have to be both technically skilled and great communicators, and both resilient and empathetic. What Medley sees from them, he said, amazes him.
“They're beat down, they're dirty, they're stinky,” he said. “And they just have the biggest smiles on their faces.”
That, Medley said, comes from doing a job that truly matters—and being appreciated for it, by both customers and employers.
“I don't think you can express an appropriate amount of appreciation to those who do this job,” Medley said. “I try not to ever take it for granted. I don't think that you can ever express it enough.”
ServiceTitan, whether it’s at a Titan Tailgate or any other day, agrees.
The #1 newsletter for the trades.
