McKenney’s, Inc. is one of the few companies in the mechanical contracting industry that chooses to manage its own warranty. When we started managing our warranty in 1997, the goal was to build relationships and decrease costs while increasing quality installs. At first, we assigned the task to our Service Department as an opportunity for an upcoming Account Manager. The newer Account Manager would manage our customer’s transition from the Construction department to the Service department, allowing the manager to begin building his customer relationships.
By 2015 the warranty manager role had transformed to consist of a lot more customer relations and data gathering duties than the traditional responsibilities associated with an account manager role. This transformation has allowed the Warranty Manager to communicate issues better back to our Construction and Service groups, allowing us to serve our customers better. With every passing year, our warranty management processes have continued to grow and adjust to changes in our contracts and markets. These transitions have allowed us to track quality across our installation process and the quality of products we buy from our vendors. Our warranty management can now report on our top trending issues from manufacturers, process breakdowns, vendor lead times, and more. With this information, we have been able to decrease the severity and frequency of incidents for our customers.
We have found more rewards in managing these projects ourselves throughout each stage of our business as opposed to contracting this responsibility out to another company. Our one-stop-shop approach lets us share these rewards with our customers and employees through relationship building, and our customers are always able to directly contact McKenney’s to jointly work through any issues encountered from the start of construction. Managing our own warranty gives McKenney’s a firsthand look at where issues occur earlier than if we were to contract this work out. Additionally, we have direct control over our customer relationships and what equipment we will or will not continue to purchase based on hard data.
McKenney’s is here to offer innovative ideas for problem-solving using the many resources under their roof. We will continue to work hand in hand with our building managers, GCs, property owners, and others to ensure we can exceed expectations in each phase of business. By managing our own warranty, we can be a true advocate for our customers and partners, guiding them from initial installation to maintenance and repairs years later.
