What Do You Do With a “Suck-and-Blow"?
By John Bently, ASCS, Duct Doctor, Ltd.

They’re in every town.  The ones with the big ads and the little price.  The $99 duct cleaners.  Some of us call them “suck-and-blows;” others “blow-and-go” cleaners.  We all know who we’re talking about.

Clearly, we all have many objections to the “hit-and-run” tactics used by these cleaners.  First, they give the customers an unrealistic idea of what duct cleaning should cost.  Second, they take away our potential customers.  But probably most importantly, their shoddy workmanship reflects poorly on the entire industry – including those of us who work very hard to do the job right.

So what can you do?  Education and verification are the keys.

We, as duct cleaners, know what it takes to get our customers’ ductwork clean.  And we know it’s not going to happen in a one-hour, six-job-a-day duct cleaning.  We know what we’d see if we looked into the ductwork a $99 “suck-and-blow” has just “cleaned.”  Our customers (and potential customers) need to know this too.

This means that every time you get the chance, you need to tell the public what it takes to do a good job of air duct cleaning.  Explain to them the equipment, procedures, experiences and time that it takes to do the job right.  In short,  let them know you are a well-trained, well-equipped professional and that it takes all of this to be able to do the job well.

Perhaps the single most important opportunity you have to prove yourself is at every duct cleaning job you do.  Be sure that your customer sees what the ductwork is like before you begin.  A clear understanding of just how dirty ductwork can get will help make it obvious that a one-hour “cleaning” is insufficient.

Show your customers how their ductwork looks after you’ve finished.  Whether you use a flashlight and a mirror, a Polaroid or digital camera, or video equipment, make sure they saw before you began.  What they see before you close up the ductwork will prove that you are a professional who has done a good job, and establish you as an authority on what it takes to do the job right.

If possible, also show your customers the cleaning process as it happens.  Not only will your customers be impressed to see the dust disappearing, they will also have a clearer understanding of what it takes to do a duct cleaning well.

Informed, satisfied customers will help you educate the rest of the public.  When the neighbor says, “Joe’s Suck-and-Blow says they can do my cleaning in one hour, and they only charge $89,” your customer will hear alarms going off inside his head.  With any luck, he’ll say something like, “There’s no way Joe’s can do a good job.  The guy who did my ductwork took three hours, and he was working hard the whole time."

You also need to send the same message at every opportunity.  We all get phone calls like, “How come your price is so much higher than Joe’s Suck-and-Blow?  He does the same thing for $89.”  These calls, too, are a chance to educate the public.  It would be a mistake to speak badly of the competition.  Anything you might say along those lines could easily be taken for competitive bitterness.

What you need to focus on while answering questions like this one is what you do, not what your competition doesn’t do.  For example, “We send a two-man crew, which spends about three hours at the cleaning.  We have state-of-the-art equipment specially designed for duct cleaning that allows us to do the best job possible.  Our technicians are NADCA certified.  We use video verification to show that we’ve done the job.”  After you list off enough of these, many customers come to realize that you provide superior service and then book the cleaning with you.

If, however, your customer cannot see past the price difference, there is one last aspect of education that you must try to get across before the customer hangs up the phone.  Tell the caller to make sure the company they hire shows them the ductwork when the job is “finished.”  If everyone who has a $99 cleaning done looks inside their ductwork afterward, there will be very few $99 cleanings done in the future.

As each of “Joe’s” customers look into the ductwork and see what’s left, one of two things will happen.  “Joe’s” customers may refuse to pay him.  If even half of his customers do this, “Joe” won’t be in business long – none of us would be if our customers didn’t pay.

The second possibility is that “Joe’s” Customers will insist that he stay until the job is finished.  Unfortunately, “Joe” is not equipped to do the job well, and he has four more customers awaiting him that afternoon.  “Joe” will probably be stuck at the first customer’s home for several hours trying to make his work look presentable – and he still might not get paid because his airline and shop vac won’t be able to do the job.  And, “Joe’s” afternoon customers will be upset at the delay.  Kind of puts a smile on your face, doesn’t it?

As long as enough of  “Joe’s” customers look into their ductwork before he leaves, “Joe” will be operating a different business in a very short time (if he’s operating any business at all).  If his customers demand proof of quality workmanship, he will have to begin providing quality workmanship.  This means he will either be out of business, or he will be out getting better equipment and training, and therefore raising his prices.  In any case, he won’t be “Joe’s Suck-and-Blow” anymore.  Petty soon he’ll be “Joe’s Air Duct Cleaning,” and he’ll  be getting phone calls asking him why he charges as much as he does.

We need to leave some room for the possibility that some of the “Suck–and-Blow” cleaners don’t realize that it is possible to do a better job of cleaning.  For guys like these, your suggestion that customers verify their ducts are clean will be an education.  They will learn, whether they want to or not, that they could be doing better work.  If they want to stay in business, they’ll rise to the challenge and improve.

Your efforts at education, and the public’s understanding of a need for verification, will help you deal with the “Suck-and-Blow” cleaners.  It won’t work overnight, of course.  You have to educate the public and your customers one at a time.  But if you tell even one caller a day, “Make sure the ductwork is clean before they leave,” it will have and impact.

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