Beyond Memberships: Keith Mercurio on the Next Era of HVAC Loyalty | Beyond the Truck Roll #14

For 50 years, the maintenance agreement has been the main way HVAC contractors keep a home loyal. Most shops still only capture 20 to 30 percent of homes with it. On this episode of Beyond the Truck Roll, SmartAC CEO Josh Teekell sits down with longtime trainer and partner Keith Mercurio to ask why, and what it would take to reach the rest. They cover where memberships came from, why so much of what the industry believes about maintenance is "folklore," and why technicians dread non-demand calls. Josh explains how Gen 2 grew out of the Gen 1 membership playbook. It's one sensor, takes minutes to set up, and doesn't need Wi-Fi. It's built to help contractors stay connected to far more homes until the homeowner actually needs them. Josh also shares a finding from SmartAC's survey of about 1,000 homeowners: more than 6 in 10 of those not on a membership said they would pay $5 a month for monitoring. You'll also hear why offering two options side by side beats an ultimatum, when it makes sense to subsidize a sensor on an aging system, and why the industry may soon measure "homes under management" instead of membership count. If you run a shop, train techs, or think about how a business is valued, this one will change how you look at your maintenance program.