Why technical support must start with understanding
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DIAGNOSIS BEFORE PRESCRIPTION
AXAIR FANS
Why technical support must start with understanding
By Andrew Jones, Technical Director, Axair Fans
In medicine, no doctor worth their salt prescribes before they diagnose. Yet in our industry, the equivalent happens every day. A system underperforms, airflow isn’ t right, energy use is high, or noise levels cause complaints, and the response is,“ Let’ s just swap the fan.” This is a prescription without a diagnosis. And just like in healthcare, it rarely leads to longterm improvement. It creates new problems, wastes money, and erodes trust.
For too long, the fan industry has been shaped by giants who value sales and scaling revenue over care and detail. Customer enquiries are passed between departments, rushed into quotes, and pushed towards standard products listed on a sales plan, with minimal effort to understand the real application. The largest customers, those spending in the six-figure range, get the attention. Everyone else is treated as a distraction, left waiting weeks for answers to queries or technical issues, or worse, ignored. This complacency is normalised, and customers pay in inefficiency, downtime, and costly mistakes.
We believe the right prescription always starts with the right diagnosis. That means taking time to listen, be curious, and to interrogate what the system is doing and why it might be underperforming. It means challenging assumptions when someone believes the solution is simply a bigger fan, because in many cases, the real issue lies elsewhere. We ask the awkward questions, we look at the pressure, the ducting, the resistance, and the environment. We go deeper because a fan is rarely just a fan. It’ s an integral part of a complex system that demands understanding, not guesswork.
This way of working is more than a process, it’ s a culture. Our core internal values were designed to be lived, not printed. Being attentive and focused, understanding before applying, showing resourcefulness in every customer interaction aren’ t optional behaviours, they’ re the way we do business. These values are the difference between being seen as just another supplier and being recognised as a trusted technical partner. That’ s hard to do when people think you’ re the small fish, but like restaurants or boutique hotels, you get better quality than large chains every time.
We’ ve worked with customers who are convinced they needed a larger fan to fix an underperforming system. Any number of suppliers would have happily take the orders, but we asked why. After a deeper conversation, it becomes clear the problem isn’ t fan size at all but resistance in the ductwork. Replacing the fan would increase noise, add unnecessary energy use, and create further problems. By diagnosing first, we solve the root cause. The system performs better, the costs stay controlled, and more importantly, the customer sees for themselves the value of our approach. That is what partnership looks like. We see this every day in service levels, diagnosing poor service levels and prescribing the Axair service level agreements is a proven solution that surprises a lot of our OEMs.
Buyers today are overwhelmed. They’ re navigating endless datasheets, online calculators, and selection software promising quick answers, but rarely telling the whole story. The temptation for large suppliers is to lean into that, to prescribe before diagnosing, because it protects their margins and keeps their volumes high. When technical buyers wait six weeks for a response, when“ smaller” enquiries are brushed aside, the wrong solutions are pushed, trust is lost.
We’ ve built Axair to reject complacency. We’ re proving there’ s another way, one built on attentiveness, curiosity, technical depth, and personalised, accountable care for the customer outcome. Our role isn’ t just to sell a fan, it’ s to help you create better air systems. That belief has underpinned Axair for more than thirty years. It continues to be the reason our customers choose us over industry giants who see them only as a number on a sales report. It’ s only now that we’ ve dared to shout about it with conviction.
So the next time your system isn’ t performing, don’ t settle for a quick-fix. Demand a proper diagnosis. When you do, the outcome isn’ t just the right fan, it’ s a better, more efficient, and more reliable system.
For further information, please visit www. axair-fans. co. uk
54 PECM Issue 78