To be fair, my calls were a while ago. Maybe they've improved since. Still, it left a bad taste. My questions were pretty general (how many batts can run in parallel, what inverters do they communicate with, etc.)
Yeah those things are brand new. Better to wait for people to buy them and test their operations to see if they work to specs, I agree with you about that part.
I am an HVAC contractor, I completely understand everything about Hvac and electrical. I am sure I would be capable of getting specific questions I would have answered by them. The average consumer doesn’t have the terminology to ask the questions a sales force in equipment can answer. I’d also bet the company doesn’t have the skill set to support the technical aspects of the equipment from the manuals alone.
I hate to say, this is pretty accurate. Our sales team gets hundreds of calls a day from people that have no intention of purchasing anything at all. They just want to talk. On top of that there are only 6 salespeople currently and they are answering calls one right after the other all day every day. The mini-split is a new item that the sales and tech teams didn't get a great deal of documentation on and everyone is catching up a bit. I understand the frustrations that go along with this and we are hiring and training employees on the equipment as fast as we possibly can. We are in rural Northeast Texas and this area unfortunately doesn't have a great deal of technically inclined individuals looking for work so that's a bit of a hurdle, but it's also an excuse. We understand that our customers deserve the high end support that they are looking for from us and we are doing every thing we can to try and meet those expectations.I've been through this. Unfortunately, after a million "can I hook my ebike and my toaster to your product" questions, as much as I wanted to walk them through how electricity works, it takes away time from other customers who have some sort of knowledge, and why they chose our product in the first place.
Some see technical support as a free electrical / solar education from the ground up, without ever intending to purchase. Or highly knowlegeable customers absolutely nit-picking on minute details - which raises red-flags about possible mis-application while staying just under a warranty.
It's those that do this is sometimes why we ordinary folk, sometimes get the curt responses. Blame them.
Guess I've spent too much time on the bad side of the fence.
Good that you are wanting to hire local. However for phone technical support and sales you are not limited to just your location to find qualified help. All it takes is a phone plus computer access and a knowledgeable individual could be anywhere in the US.
The issue there is product knowledge and training. Also the sharing of information. Our tech team all sits in the same room and they work together to solve issues they haven't seen before. It also affords the opportunity to go to the R&D shop and actually test a hypothesis when trouble shooting. I could see having off site techs in the future, but unfortunately it would be difficult to pull off right now.
Make it plainly obvious, and they may not call. Maybe read the manual for the first time.
Luckily, the error codes provide a great deal of that information and allow the techs to move through them fairly quickly. One of the biggest problems in tech is that the end users who make the biggest mistakes, have reasonable expectations of the equipment, or are doing flat out dangerous things with the equipment are the ones who are "electrical engineers" and "master electricians". Which means it is never their fault, our stuff is junk, and they are due a full refund plus compensation of their time. The techs have an almost impossible job at times and they only ever get to hear the bad.Not to stir up any heat .. in the day, I found it helpful to think "what would someone who just wants to use it and throw the manual away" do to my device?
Dumb it down a bit since it helps them (no "drill down into a menu") and put error conditions in a big led on the front. Helps tech support too.
Did the user casually slap a few of these together and now has an unbalanced condition? The star-trek sized led with unbalanced warning on the front helps.
Beef up the front end - the temptation to charge with an auto-store desulfation "speed charger" exists. Likewise a star-trek sized led for "insufficient charge current" for those who try and charge with battery tenders and so forth.
Unbalanced cells internally? It shouldn't be this way, but over time or due to end-user abuse, the bms bleeders may not be sufficient to achieve this in time. Provide a "balance port", perhaps with a proprietary connector and proprietary charger acessory to do this manually. Helps prevent those with "lipo chargers" or unskilled use of bench chargers from making things worse.
Over time, assume that callers may not be original owners. Abused Items can be found at flea-markets, and attempted to be turned around for profit. Or be modified with owner-supplied cells, modifications, that kind of thing, especially if the internals are accessible. Perhaps use single-direction screws or connectors, that can be easily seen as "backed out" if the return is inspected.
The proprietary balance-charger could also be sold to non first-owners who suspect prior abuse, to be give it the college-try attempt at repair.
Small ideas - just bring common abuse error conditions right up front so that both user (whether original or not) and tech support can quickly diagnose or disqualify end-user calls.
