Yesterday I left you with my AC dead, a CH04 error flashing, and a premium company booked to put it right.
What I left out was that I had to wait a full day for them. There was a cheaper outfit I had used before, who could have come that same afternoon, but I had chosen the premium option.
So I waited, in a Dubai early October day (40 Degrees Celsius or 104 Degrees Fahrenheit with 70%+ humidity), with the AC off and the flat slowly turning into an oven.
They were booked for 3 pm but they rolled in after 4 pm.
Then I watched them start on the easy things, the filters and the grills, the bits you can wipe down standing up. So I reminded them about the drain tray, which was the one job I had actually booked. They looked at me blankly and told me it was out of scope.
That was the single thing I had come to them for, and they were calling it out of scope.
So I pulled up the WhatsApp messages and showed them where their own office had confirmed it in writing the day before. Their faces changed and it was clear that they had never been told.
And then it somehow got worse.
For the next half hour, they stood in my living room arguing with their own office, back and forth in a language I could not follow, while my wife and daughters gave up and left the flat, because there was no room to move and it was getting uncomfortably warm and loud.
When the arguing finally died down, the verdict came back. Taking down the tray would be two hours per unit, and it was nearly 6 pm so time to go.
So they tried to clean a part of the tray without removing it but long story short, 30 minutes later they packed up and left, and the drain tray, the whole reason they had ever set foot in my home, was the same as when they arrived.
The technician said it should buy me 3 weeks but that the motor probably needs replacing.
It bought me 12 hours.
The very next afternoon the same CH04 error was flashing. So, I chased down the other cheaper option and he turned up within the hour, lifted out three panels, unscrewed the tray, cleared it, flushed the hose, and solved the problem.
He charged a third of the price and here is the best part.
The premium crew swore it would take two hours for each unit. He did it in 20 minutes.
And told me the motor was fine.
I told the premium party and took photos of every step to prove what had been possible all along (and which I told them face to face but they ignored it).
And this is where it stops being an AC story and becomes a pricing story.
I have no problem paying a premium. I tell you all the time that if your experience delivers, you are worth every penny.
But the whole thing rests on one word, and that word is delivers.
The premium company charged a premium price and then hid behind the fine print the moment the job got slightly harder. They took the easy work, dodged the one thing I came to them for, and pointed at a clause when it failed.
That is the fastest way I know to wreck a premium business.
The price was never the problem.
The broken promise was.
The moment you charge like the best and deliver like the cheapest, your price stops being a feather in your cap and turns into a trap. You lose the repeat work, you lose the referral, and if you are really unlucky, the customer goes and writes a newsletter about you.
So charge what you are worth.
Just make very sure you are worth it.
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P.S. Is your pricing a feather in your cap, or a quiet trap waiting to spring? If you would like a snapshot of that, and the other traps that might be lurking in your business, the Buyer’s Verdict will show you. Take it here.