How a simple tweet made an HVAC company $700

I told you a few days ago how I thought Cool Ray Atlanta was doing some interesting things with Twitter.  Turns out they were quite brilliant.

Last Monday I tweeted that I was “Heading home to meet the plumber to fix a leak.  Fun Monday morning…“.  It was a local guy I’ve used before.  Not long after that, @coolrayatlanta tweeted back “@mickmel Always a bummer to take time out of your day for plumbing problems – yuck“.  I thought it was very nice, especially that they weren’t trying to push anything, but I thought that was the end of it.

The plumber came on Monday (2.5 hours late) and fixed the leak, but couldn’t get the water heater restarted.  We figured we’d let the base of it dry out a bit more and it’d be ok the next day.

Tuesday he had to come back out — the same leak was back.  He fixed it again (after being about 3 hours late this time), but still no dice on the water heater.  I called GE to get some help, but they tossed me under the bus.  Because the 3-month-old water heater had sat in 1/2” of water, it was now “flooded” and out of warranty.  No exceptions.  I asked for a suggestions for a local plumber and they gave me one.

I called their suggested plumber, but only got the answering machine (just after 8am).  They’d call back “as soon as possible”, but gave no indication of when they’d be open.  I hung up.

Now, I need another plumber.  Who should I call?  Cool Ray was in my head so I gave them a call.  They promised to have someone out before noon (which they did) and they did a great job.  They worked HARD to get our old water heater going again, but it simply wouldn’t go.  They offered a very good deal on a replacement, so we did that.  The leak that had been fixed twice by the old plumber was back as well, so they took care of that too.

All told, it was about $700.  I hated to spend that to replace a water heater barely 3 months old, but it was still a great experience.  Here’s why.  They…

• Answered the phone when I called
• Sent someone out the same morning
• Showed up on time
• Fixed the problem
• Gave a fair price
• Were very knowledgeable and polite

All of those are traits that any company should have, but you’ve got to get in the door before you can show them off.  A search for “Atlanta Plumber” on Google Maps gives me 3,099 results.  Had they not been on Twitter, I almost certainly wouldn’t have called (mathematically speaking).

One simple tweet — just sympathtic, not hard-selling — $700.  Brilliant.