
By Benjamin Brits
With responsibility comes such things as educating the market – and rather walking away from deals that do not fit a business offering.
Too often these days once-off deals are grabbed because of ‘economic times’ – but this has significant long-term impact on the industry as a whole owing to the bad light that is shone on it in future. Maximising profits from naïve customers is short sighted and opens up the door to where industry-credibility overall comes under question.
“Unfortunately, many consumers still have a mindset that they have X amount of money to spend. So, manufacturers and suppliers need to put it out there that they understand their client’s budget but they also need to take into consideration benefits and shortfalls that will be realised over time. If clients can spend as little as 10% more, what is the value that they are going to get out of that additional investment long term? – which is more significant than people think. This action is also linked directly to the sincerity of a business. We like to encourage clients to challenge the data or specs because very often it happens that buyers just believe everything they are told, and this is where manufacturers capitalise on people’s lack of technical knowledge – because it’s an extra sale. Most of the time that engagement ends in clients walking away and being unhappy because they were not made aware of all of the aspects of their purchase. The reality is that word of mouth, especially when things go wrong, is very dangerous for businesses,” says Lena le Roux – managing director at Staycold International.
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Clients are however today starting to ask the right questions and a lot of knowledge is getting pushed through, and so far, more consideration is being applied as to what clients are actually buying and why they are buying – rather than the typical action of selecting the purchase based on what the bottom of the quote indicates.
“Understanding what is important to the client should also be top of mind. Be that technology or innovation, energy efficiency, or even selection of environmentally friendly products? What is the client’s application? Our strategy has always been to advise that clients think about several factors before just going out and buying, and tied to that is our philosophy that if we cannot service their demand, we are not the right supplier. The responsibility in the education process starts off with what manufacturers can and cannot supply or should not supply. In my view, very few manufacturers understand that responsibility and more so ‘stepping away’ from certain sales – falling into that trap because of ‘meeting targets’,” le Roux continues.
Staycold International showcased their green credentials at the recent FRIGAIR exhibition which is but one of their strong points – particularly their Pathway to Net Zero which has become a major contributing factor for purchasing decisions of late – as well as the use of natural refrigerants. Their range includes the use of R290 (hydrocarbon) refrigerants as one of the most environmentally friendly gasses for the sector, and caters to a wide range of temperatures – from coolers to freezers demonstrating the excellent capability of this refrigerant type that is still considered “a risk” to work with owing to its flammability. This point is however moot according to le Roux as she insists that all that is required to bring technicians up to speed with this gas is training, training, and more training – which is already part of HVACR learning centre courses nationally.
From a technology perspective IoT has also pushed the possibilities of unit management even further according to Sebastian Hills – sales and marketing manager at Staycold International. “We have recently partnered with Digital Twin to be able to offer even more to our clients. Units can be linked to the cloud. Data coming through and ‘interactions’ with the cooler could include location, current temperature, and even the amount of times doors have been opened, etc. This type of information for clients that have fleets of thousands of units becomes valuable because innovation allows owners the ability to not only verify their units’ existence, but control them based on specific environmental conditions, track the sale of goods, manage stock and even switch internal lights on and off – if a fridge door with X product is opened 5000 times a month, this may indicate a trend that can be pinpointed and investigated. In addition, for contractors this technology allows proactive planning of service requirements in real time as opposed to reactive maintenance.”
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Hills, talking also to the safety factor concerns around R290 added that in reality, display fridges and coolers only contain about 150 grams of refrigerant in a closed-circuit system and what that means from a visual perspective is that is the equivalent of about three standard pocket lighters. Any “catastrophic explosions” would be incredibly rare, but the risk should still be managed through thorough risk analysis and educated thought. Secondly – a simple test of risk would come from the continual topping up of such systems which would indicate a leak that needs to be fixed rather than ignored. Naturally, larger propane systems must be accompanied with the necessary care, for the record, and existing safety standards already eliminate most of the risks when working with all flammable refrigerants. Educating clients in this regard from a manufacturers point of view is also critical.
“We are very proud of the strides we are making on all fronts in our business including energy consumption, environmental sustainability, international accreditation of our products, and educating our clients. African markets have shown a definite lack of understanding and I urge those in procurement to engage on all of the considerations around selecting products. ‘Fear mongering’ is a tactic used to direct markets in a specific way and may not have any long-term plausibility – such as the fear of flammable refrigerants which is mostly unjustified. In addition, products need to perform – so when you see things like condensation of fogged doors whose spec is not fit for high humidity conditions – these are the types of things that one can look at to identify if your supplier has done their own correct evaluation of the client needs,” le Roux concludes.
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