In 800 to 1,000 hours of classroom training, Chris Elmore received three hours on customer service.
Three.
And he remembers the night they did it. It was basic. It was a bunch of crap like “the customer’s always right.” And that was it.
That’s the gap this episode fills.
Systems don’t have feelings. They can’t object. They can’t tell you no.
They can’t say “that’s too expensive.” You ask them questions with your senses and your tools, and they give you answers. No emotions involved. That’s what you’ve been trained on your entire career.
But customers do have feelings. And unless you know how to deal with the emotions before you start troubleshooting the objection, you’ll problem-solve too early and get it wrong.
Chris walks through exactly how the LEAP process works on real objections, step by step.
He shows you how “that’s too expensive” almost never means what you think it means.
He breaks down what listening really is (not waiting for your turn to talk), what empathy actually sounds like (not “I understand” with no reason behind it), and how asking questions before problem-solving is the same process you already use on every diagnostic call.
If you’ve ever blurted out “we have financing” the second a customer pushed back on price, this episode shows you what you should have done instead.
-Service Excellence
Inside This Episode:
- Why 800+ hours of technical training and 3 hours of customer service training creates a dangerous gap
- What “systems don’t have feelings” means and why it matters for how you handle objections
- Why problem-solving before you ask questions makes you a parts changer, not a troubleshooter
- How “that’s too expensive” almost never means what you think it means
- What real listening looks like (not listening to recall a script)
- Why empathy without a reason behind it falls flat
- How to split the price from the work to find the real objection
- Why your five-part job doesn’t end at fixing the system
Episode Chapters & Summary
1. Systems Don’t Have Feelings
Chris lays the foundation. In your entire technical education, you were trained to work on inanimate objects. They don’t have emotions. They don’t object. They don’t need motivation or mental health days. You ask them questions with meters and gauges and they give you answers. But customers are different. Customers have feelings, opinions, and emotions that you have to deal with before you can troubleshoot. And almost nobody ever trained you to do that.
Key Takeaways:
- 800+ hours of technical training, 3 hours of customer service
- Systems can’t object or tell you no. Customers can.
- Unless you’ve been trained to handle emotions, you’ll skip straight to problem-solving
- That gap between technical training and people skills is where most techs lose money
2. Your Five-Part Job
Chris reminds techs that “they pay me to fix it” only covers part of the job. The full job is five parts: discover and document, tell the customer what it takes to fix it (all of it, including replacement if needed), help them figure out how to get the best solution done, do or facilitate the work, and follow up. If your job is just “fix it,” you’re only succeeding 10 to 15% of the time because that’s how often customers do nothing.
Key Takeaways:
- “They pay me to fix it” is one-fifth of the job
- 10 to 15% of the time, customers choose to do nothing
- Part three is where objections live: help them figure out how to get it done
- Customer service is your ability to deal with the person who lives with the thing
3. LEAP is Troubleshooting (With Emotions)
Chris connects LEAP directly to the diagnostic process. When you troubleshoot a system, you ask questions with your senses and tools before you problem-solve. You would never replace a capacitor without testing it first. That’s parts changing, not troubleshooting. LEAP is the same process with one addition: the person in front of you has emotions. So you listen and empathize first, then ask questions and problem-solve. Skip the first two and LEAP becomes PLEA.
Key Takeaways:
- Problem-solving before asking questions is parts changing
- LEAP follows the same sequence as proper troubleshooting
- Skip listen and empathize and you’re begging, not leading
- Problem-solving before you have the information is not in your nature on the technical side
4. The Gas Station Ceiling Fan (Again)
Chris brings back the gas station scenario. Someone sees your truck. Asks about their flickering ceiling fan. You’d never diagnose it from a one-sentence description. You’d need to see the system, ask questions, use your tools. So why would you hear “that’s too expensive” and immediately offer financing? You don’t have enough information. You just problem-solved without troubleshooting. And you’d never do that on a system.
Key Takeaways:
- A one-sentence objection gives you the same amount of information as a gas station conversation
- You’d never commit to a diagnosis without seeing the system
- “We have financing” after “that’s too expensive” is the same as guessing on a diagnostic
- Ask questions first. Always.
5. Listening Is Not Waiting for Your Turn
Chris unpacks what listening actually means in LEAP. It’s not waiting for the customer to say a thing so you can say your thing. Listening means combining what they just said with everything you’ve observed about them, their home, their system, their profile. You’re placing their objection in context. Why would they say that? What do you already know that might explain it?
Key Takeaways:
- Listening is not recalling a scripted response
- You’re placing the objection in context with everything you’ve already gathered
- Good listening is invisible. There’s no head-tilt trick that replaces it.
- Be open-minded and curious. That’s the foundation.
6. Empathy That Means Something
Saying “I understand” without a reason is empty. The customer won’t believe you understand unless you tell them why. Chris walks through the example: “I understand, it was probably more than you thought it was going to be.” That’s real because it’s true for almost every customer. He also shows how to empathize with “I need to talk to my spouse” by sharing your own real experience with making decisions with your partner. If it’s not true for you, don’t use it.
Key Takeaways:
- “I understand” without a reason falls flat
- Give them the why: “It was probably more than you expected”
- Use your own real experience when empathizing. If it’s not true, don’t say it.
- Empathy validates emotion without agreeing with the statement
7. Splitting the Price from the Work
Chris walks through the “that’s too expensive” objection step by step. After listening and empathizing, he asks one question: is it the total price, or is there something in the solution you don’t feel you need? That question splits the price from the work. If they say “we know we need all of it, but we have other expenses coming up,” the objection was never about price. It was about timing and cash flow. Now you can problem-solve with the right information. Maybe they break the work up. Maybe financing helps. But you’d never know if you didn’t ask.
Key Takeaways:
- “Is it the total price or something in the solution?” splits price from work
- What starts as a price objection often turns into a timing or cash flow objection
- You can only problem-solve once you know the real condition
- The troubleshooting tree for objections works the same as a diagnostic tree
8. Technical Excellence is the Foundation
Chris closes by connecting both sides. Communication skills without technical excellence fall flat. You can’t sell what you can’t back up. But technical excellence without communication skills means customers never get the benefit of your knowledge. The best techs are the ones pursuing mastery on both sides: getting better technically AND getting better at dealing with people. That’s what separates good from great.
Key Takeaways:
- Communication skills without technical excellence is hollow
- Technical excellence without communication means customers miss out
- The underpinning of everything is technical mastery
- Pursue mastery on both sides: the technical and the human
