Air Conditioning Contractors Western Pennsylvania
tel: 724-687-7860
Promoting and protecting the interest and welfare of the HVACR industry, its members and the public which it serves.
tel: 724-687-7860
Promoting and protecting the interest and welfare of the HVACR industry, its members and the public which it serves.
It's graduation time! Join us Thursday, May 14 at Carmody's Grille to celebrate with our apprentices as they receive their certificates. You must reserve your spot no later than May 6 at noon.
Al is here and has a lot of uses and whatnot. But remember why you called a technician: because ChatGPT couldn't fix your system. Learn to trust humans again and not just technology.
Al itself isn't the real problem. Contractors have been dealing with self-informed customers since dial-up internet. What's changed is the confidence—and speed—with which bad information spreads.
For decades, HVAC contractors—like professionals in any field—have been plagued by self-proclaimed "experts" who Google equipment prices and then demand to know why the thermostat install is $300 when the part is "only $50 on Amazon." This time, though, the difficulty level feels higher. Google would spit out videos and links to articles, or maybe the manufacturer's website. These days, you'll get a whole essay on the topic. Wrong information? It's confidently wrong.
Now, this is not to discount AI's potential uses to tradespeople. If you've got the background to distinguish between what is helpful and what is utter nonsense—and the sense not to take its answer in blind faith—ChatGPT can come in handy. Even the HVAC pros on the Reddit thread acknowledged that. Nope, I'm talking about the homeowners who treat its word as gospel.
Though installation and technician jobs are safe, other aspects of the HVAC industry are at risk.
Jobs like secretaries and administrative assistants, office clerks, bookkeeping and accounting, marketing managers, and customer service representatives are all at high risk, scoring an 8 or 9 out of 10 on the digital exposure scale.
The study's justification is that most of the tasks completed by these jobs, such as scheduling, managing databases, and information processing, are all fundamentally digital and align with the capabilities of Al.
Jason Dolan, vice president of strategic partnerships for Hatch, notes that the most common issue HVAC contractors face is missed calls. Through Al, contractors can have a virtual agent available 24/7 to answer after-hours calls.
May 14, Apprenctice Graduation
June 11, ACCWPA Social at Giant Oaks Winery
ACCWPA is published monthly by the Western Pennsylvania association.
NOTE: These links are to ACCWPA's monthly newsletter. It is in Adobe Acrobat format and requires Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or higher. You can download the Reader FREE at the following address if it is not already installed on your computer: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Please note that earlier versions of Acrobat Reader will "not" be able to read these links properly. IMPORTANT: After downloading the program, you must follow the instructions on the Adobe website to install it to your computer (generally speaking, this means opening the file you downloaded, which will then install the program to your computer).
