JETTER MARKETING PLOYS
Hello! My name is Larry Stahl. Marketing "tricks", or ploys, designed to separate you from your hard-earned dollars UNNECESSARILY, make me quite angry.This article is meant to share with you, the honest, hard working consumer, things I have learned about over the years that just might help you to avoid being "oversold". I am a Journeyman Plumber here at ARIZONA PLUMBING SERVICES. I am in my fifteenth year of employment at this fine company. I can tell you, very proudly, that our marketing focus is on our integrity and our honesty. We look to gain and nurture long-term relationships with our valued Customers. We know that we could not do that if we tried to get "maximum dollar" out of every service call. I have been in the service plumbing business for most of my adult life. Thirty-eight years to be precise. I state these things here not to brag or pound my own chest, although I am proud of the business and the good, honest Company at which I am now employed. If you read this article and desire to comment on it in any way, feel free to E-MAIL me anytime. I can also be reached at 408-9858 in the Tucson area or 484-0666 in the Phoenix area. Let me first say that the service plumbing industry is blessed with MANY honest and hard working owners, managers and plumbers. They, in fact, represent the majority and they do their marketing honestly. Unfortunately there are a few "bad apples" in our industry. They work hard to develop marketing "presentations" that have one purpose only. That purpose is to run up your plumbing bill as high as they can, with little regard for the actual necessity of what they sell. Some companies have regular marketing and sales classes for their plumbers. Residential jetting of small (usually 2") drain lines is a classic example of this type of marketing oversell. Let's say, for instance, that your kitchen sink plugs up. You plunge it and try a couple other things and finally you say "The heck with it....call a plumber! You open the phone book and are welcomed by page after page of "screaming" loud ads! SO MANY choices! Finally, after calling around for prices, usually with no success, you order a plumber from somebody who just "sounded right". Soon enough a truck pulls up and a pleasant enough looking young man comes to your door. The "marketing dance" begins! He takes a look at and under your sink, walks around your house looking for "cleanouts", and comes back in and tells you that your kitchen drain is plugged and that he will run his cable through the cleanout outside your kitchen window. So far, so good! After setting up his equipment he then removes the cleanout plug and, lo and behold, out blasts all the water that was in your sink and then some. He makes a big point of showing you how black and greasy the water is. He then proceeds to "run the line", as we say in the trade. The good ones with the "A" marketing pitch will keep your sink water running while they run the line, which causes even more black and "gooey" stuff to flow out of the cleanout. UGH! "You have SUCH a lovely home ma'am (or Sir)and I can see that you had NO IDEA such nasty material was just below your feet!" All of a sudden the brackish water stops flowing out of the cleanout, even though the sink is still running. SUCCESS! Your line is open! But, wait! "Here's what I'm gonna do! I'm gonna fix this so that their will be no more of this nasty gunk in your beautiful home!You would like that, wouldn't you? After you answer "yes" to that question (what are you going to say....no?), he assures you that he will clean up the awful mess from the line stoppages and tells you that he will be right back. What a nice young man! Soon he returns with an odd looking machine on two wheels and a reel of small hose and some other equipment on it. "Ma'am, this is a mini-jetter. What I'm gonna do is run this high-pressure hose through this nasty drain at 2,000 p.s.i. and it will "scour" the inside of that pipe just as clean as a whistle! Just like the rest of your house, right? And you really got lucky today! Usually it costs over $300.00 to run this hi-tech machine. But I am SO happy for you because we just happen to be running a special on it this week! It's only $180.00! So, like I told you earlier, the cable through the drain was just $125.00 so you're gonna get the whole thing for just $305.00! Now, while I get this set up, will you go turn the water on hot in the sink?" At this time it takes a strong person to say "no" to such high pressure marketing. He has complimented your clean house, intimated that he will "scour" that pipe so it's clean "just like your house", and once you say okay to his request to go run the hot water, guess what? You've just been "closed" The chances are extremely good that once he's done "scouring" your drain, he will continue down his long path of "presentation" and sell you some more "goodies" that you probably don"t need! Does this sound familiar to anyone? There are many variations of this and other "oversell pitches", but I think you get the idea. High-pressure jetting is an incredibly valuable tool under many different circumstances. The example above is probably not one of them. A skilled and honest service plumber knows that he can clean a drain line just fine by taking a little time and slowly running his cable, with a double set of two inch blades on the end, back and forth through the line with water running. This scrapes the "gook" off the inside of the pipe and does a fine job. The fact of the matter is, under most circumstances, we at ARIZONA PLUMBING SERVICES would not mini-jet your kitchen or any other drain. That is because it is rarely necessary and we do not "upsell". We have in our equipment inventory two large "trailer-jets" and two smaller "mini-jetters". We don't carry them in our trucks. When that unusual condition arises where jetting is needed, then we have them available. Please understand that I am not saying that jetting isn't a good thing. It is! There are times when a drain or sewer line, especially those with poor grade (slope), will fill up with grease or with a black, heavy "sludge". Sometimes a cable and blade will pass right through this sludge and just close right back up when the operator pulls the cable out of the line. Under those circumstances it is difficult to get all the heavy sludge to start moving and flushing out of the line. This is where a jetter becomes a valuable tool. Its high-pressure delivery of water through the line will force the sludge out of the line. There are a large number of newer, high-tech plumbing tools and equipment. Things such as investigative cameras, sewer/drain and leak locating equipment, methane and CO2 sensors, pipe freezers and so on. We use these tools when they are necessary. We do not have marketing plans to sell them when they aren't assuredly needed. DOGGONE IT! It's great to be able to sleep so well at night. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this or any plumbing subject, feel free to e-mail or call me as I stated above.
ARIZONA PLUMBING SERVICES, INC.
3112 W. Virginia Ave.........................1900 N. Oracle Rd. 
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