Store it Cold believes in world class service, in real world time. We spoke with Customer Support Lead, Dan Schumacher, to hear more about his job and how the CoolBot team operates. A slightly edited transcript of the conversation can be found below.
Dan, you are the Lead Customer Support specialist at Store it Cold. How long have you been part of the Store it Cold family and how did you find the opportunity?
I’ve been doing tech support for CoolBot for almost five years now. I originally found the job through the Indeed job app. The job description and everything sounded really interesting to me when I first read it. I had some prior construction knowledge, which wasn’t really on the AC side of things, but I figured I would go for it anyways. I wanted to try something a little different than what I’ve been doing before, but still followed into the tech support career route that I have been on for 20 years. Surprisingly, even after missing one interview by going to the wrong address, Freddy, our Operations Manager, gave me a shot, and here we are five years later.
What does your day-to-day look like? What are your daily duties as a Customer Support Lead?
I’m mostly on the phone, with the headset on, all day long. I’m taking tech support calls, sales calls, and general support calls as well. I’m also the one that’s handling sending out all the orders that come in from our website, and then also trying to fix any problems with addresses and other shipping related issues. I monitor and sort out emails coming to the general email for CoolBot or Store It Cold. I help train our new guys. My days are usually all over the place, I have a lot of different responsibilities that make each day different and I love it.
At what point in the process do customers usually get in touch with you? I imagine there’s a lot of questions that have to be answered for a highly technical product.
I’d say most of the calls from customers I get are at the beginning of the buying process. A lot of times, even before purchasing the CoolBot, customers will call to make sure that it’s going to work for their situation. They want to check whether or not the sizing for their AC and installation will align with the cooler they already have. They also want to know what they need to build their own cooler. For the most part, I think the CoolBot is pretty self-explanatory for setup, so there’s not a lot of calls related to the actual setup of the product. Any calls after purchase would be more related to an issue they’re having whether it be the AC starts to freeze up or getting down to the temperature they need. So more of the actual troubleshooting to fix those types of problems.
What’s the most unusual question or call you’ve received? Anything come to mind?
There’s been a couple of interesting or unusual questions that I’ve come across, such as, “I’ve got my AC in the middle of my room, plugged in, and hooked up to the CoolBot, and temperatures are not going down.” Well, it was because the AC wasn’t in a wall to vent the heat outside the cooler. To paraphrase from my favorite show I’m a Technical Support Rep, not a miracle worker. An interesting use case that comes to mind was this curling team that’s using the CoolBot to cool their curling stones, so it’s ready to go when the match starts. I think that one was something you would never think of for a use of the CoolBot. Another time was when a customer sent us a picture of the contraption that they had made and we had no idea what we were looking at. It almost looked like some sort of warp-drive box or something out of a sci-fi movie. The air ducts were all over the place and I could not make sense of it, turns out that the customer was using our CoolBot to cool down drill bits for their oil rigs. They were testing out the drill bits at different temperature ranges and monitoring performance, I think that’s another pretty cool use case. It definitely threw us all for a loop originally when we were trying to figure out what was going on in the picture he sent us.
The CoolBot Pro has been a real game changer for the cold storage community. What are the key features of the Pro and what make it so attractive to the customers?
The biggest feature is being able to connect the CoolBot to Wi-Fi. That allows you to get alerts if the cooler gets too hot, too cold, or even if it’s losing power or Wi-Fi, you’ll get the offline message that notifies you of the issue. I think that is a huge benefit to pretty much anybody using a cooler. To know when they need to move something or check to see if there’s a problem, that can save you a lot of money. Then also being able to change settings and see the current temperature from anywhere that you can access the internet is just icing on the cake.
CoolBot now sells Walk-in coolers featuring the CoolBot Pro and LG Air Conditioner. Can you tell us about the turnkey CoolBot cooler, features, drawings, advantages for the customer?
The Turnkey solution is exactly that. It’s very simple to build, especially if you only have a couple people on hand and a couple of hours to build it. Out of everything, I think the hardest thing is just getting an electrician to run the electricity to it, and even that can be an easy task. I’ve had the chance to build one myself with a co-worker of mine, so I know how simple it is once you get going with it. For the smaller cold storage options, two people can put everything together in an hour or so. Pairing that with our CoolBot Pro so you get all those features, makes for an awesome cooler solution at a great price.
The CoolBot community is largely composed of small business and enthusiasts in many areas: agriculture, floral, dairy, hunting & meat processing, bar & tap rooms, etc. What does Dan do for fun in his down time?
For me, I think my biggest thing is I like to travel and see new places. Recently I went to the Bonaventure Cemetery in Georgia and it’s just a beautiful place. I try to go on a yearly road trip to explore and seek out new places. I’ve done a great trip to Canyonlands National Park then on to Vegas and The Petrified Forest in Arizona. I’ve also driven nearly all the A1A along the east coast of Florida and down to Key West and pretty much the rest of Florida now as well between a couple of trips. Next I think I’ll try to do the northeast here soon.
How would you describe the culture at Store it Cold and the team there overall?
I’d say the culture is one of the best I’ve ever been with. Actually, it is the best that I’ve ever been with, mostly because I’ve never worked for a smaller company like this before. It’s a very close knit group of people and almost has a family-type of feel to it. Everybody here is very open with each other. We communicate well and we’re definitely set for the same goals of trying to support the customer and support the product as best as possible.
How are you and the team continuing to carry on Patty’s customer-first legacy that she established at CoolBot?
Patty was a big influence on making sure that we continued that mantra of being customer-first. I know I definitely learned a lot from her and try to follow her teachings when it comes to making sure we do everything we can to keep the customers’ coolers working and fix any issues as quickly as possible. Whether it be trying to ship out things quicker if it’s some important parts, like a heater or power cord, even if they can’t afford to pay for that expedited shipping cost. We’re always trying to go that extra mile for the customer.
What’s the best way for someone to get in touch with you, should they have a question?
Our best way is to call support at 1-888-871-5723. They can ask for me directly or reach out through the email support@storeitcold.com. I’m always happy to answer any questions!
Thanks for taking the time to sit down and chat with us, Dan! We also wanted to mention that Dan is known as the company photographer for the CoolBot team. Here are a few of Dan’s favorite photos…
