NorthEast Biomass Conference 2012 - Creating a Service Standard

[smwilliamson]

Hey folks, I meant to create this post earlier but have been slammed busy.

I sent in an abstract to be a presenter and will be hosting a discussion on Friday, March 23rd at 1pm. Here is the clip from the program.

Special Post-Conference Session: Creating a Biomass Heating Service Standard

If biomass heating is ever going to compete with the oil or gas industries we need to take a serious look at service. Who will be our service technicians? How will they be trained? To what standard should we adopt to hold ourselves accountable and truly provide a service sector which is reliable and sustainable?

Scott Williamson, the founder of Pelletstoveservice.com has some insight in to the challenges facing our industry. With a working knowledge of more than 165 models of pellet fired stoves, boilers and furnaces, Scott has created a company that exists largely without any manufactures' support, performs more than 1,500 service calls per year and a customer base reaching to all New England States.

Scott is spearheading an effort to help the U.S. create a service standard for our industry to adopt. Join the discussion of this provocative and innovative concept!​

Why is this important?

Heating with wood pellets has achieved critical mass. This means that enough people are using pellets to sustain the pellet heating industry. The problem being, there is not enough service people to handle the volume needs that currently exist, yet as an industry, we want to grow.

Developing new product to replace existing product is just lateral growth and assumes that the current "support systems" which are in place will handle those service related issues.

I want to see vertical growth. More new people into the market. More new product in the market. I think manufacturers want this too.

Service people are the face of the industry in people's homes. We are the best salespeople. We restore heat to cold people. We do it in the comfort of consumer's homes.

Why is there not a Solid Fuel Trade School? Why is there not an industry promoted service standard? Why are we happy enough to relegate biomass heating to an "alternative".

This is the meat and potatoes of my discussion. Hope to see you there.

 

[smwilliamson]

Did my thing. The venue was really great this year. Going to be a lot of work on my end, but I met some great contacts and secured about 10 speaking engaugements to UNiversity Biomass and business programs.

FYI - I got a lead on high octane pellets, 11,300 BTU per pound, I'm going to pick up a ton and a few of you lucky hardcore people can have a few bags. FYI - they are NOT for the timid and need to be burned in a very special enviroment, not all stoves will fair well...