Virginia Air Distributors Talks Customer Service with HVACR Distribution Business Magazine

All businesses — HVACR wholesale distributors included — talk about customer service. But how many businesses — HVACR wholesale distributors included — are willing to guarantee it in writing? 

Virginia Air wrote it down. What they committed to paper were 11 service guarantees that tell their customers what Virginia Air will do to make them successful. Embodied in those service guarantees are the principles that built Virginia Air from one York factory store in 1987 to a $100 million business with 13 locations in five states today. The most well-known service guarantee is the three-ring policy created by Virginia Air's founder, Kenneth Baker. If a phone at a Virginia Air branch rings more than three times, the caller gets $100. “Our customers love it,” says Chris Baker, Ken's son and Virginia Air's president & COO. 

Virginia Air was established in 1987 after Ken Baker, who was then vice president of finance for York International along with the current president of York, visited Richmond, VA, to interview potential distributors for the conversion of the Richmond factory branch to independent distribution. Finding no suitable candidates, Ken jokingly told the president that he would shoot himself if he could not do a better job at running a distribution center than the candidates they had just interviewed. Six months later, Ken took over as the distributor, and the store thrived. 

It was in that first store that Kenneth Baker established a culture that placed customer service above everything else. Chris Baker came to understand the importance of this culture when he joined the business to run Virginia Air's second location in Chesapeake, VA. Chris Baker said that branch was the “red-headed stepchild” compared to the success that the Richmond store enjoyed. “When I got down there, it was a bit lackadaisical,” Baker recalls. “They weren't committed to our customer service principles.” 

What it took to turn the branch around was a passionate embrace of customer service. “We have a culture, but it takes time to buy into that culture,” Chris says. Hiring employees for attitude and intellect takes precedence over HVACR experience. Baker says Virginia Air can provide its employees with the training and technical skills to work with customers. But attitude and a desire to do right by the customer is something even more important. Those are the people that Baker looks for when hiring employees.