When It's Warmer at the North Pole Than at Home

When the heating fails, the mood often drops to where the heating is located – in the basement. Such mishaps usually happen at the worst possible moment – for example, on the first really cold weekend after summer. And then the administration or the caretaker are not reachable. Freezing is not a solution either. A call to customer service, however, is. And in most cases, this leads to TELAG.

Why it doesn't heat

Officially, summer begins on the longest day of the year – this year it was June 20th – and ends when the sun is exactly vertical over the equator. This moment, when the colder seasons knock on the door, is also called the equinox. This year it takes place on September 22nd.

Except for minor cold snaps, the heating is not needed during the summer for about four months. That is a long time for a heating system, during which a lot of air can comfortably settle in the radiator. It can happen that the heating does not want to get properly warm on the first use in autumn. Often the heating makes strange noises or gurgles and bubbles, competing with other heaters. Another cold snap, which makes life difficult for many heaters, is expected from mid to late January. Then it gets really wintry again, and temperatures reach minus 10 degrees. Here, heat pumps face the risk of frost.

Zero-degree mood

If there is an icy atmosphere in the apartment or office, it could actually be due to the heating. Because in your own home, 20 to 22 degrees are recommended in the living room, 23 degrees in the bathroom, 17 to 18 degrees in the bedroom, and 18 to 19 degrees in the kitchen. In the kitchen, appliances like the refrigerator, stove, and dishwasher heat the room, and in the bedroom, we snuggle under blankets, so we should set the heating a bit lower in these two rooms. This way, we can wonderfully save heating costs and energy. Because every degree too much means 6% unnecessarily consumed heating energy. The ideal room temperatures for offices are 21 to 23 degrees for mostly sedentary work and about 12 to 21 degrees depending on the intensity for physical work.

At lower temperatures, it can become not only uncomfortable but also unhealthy.

But what if the heating no longer works at all? And that outside regular opening hours, on Sundays or public holidays, when the administration or caretaker are not reachable? That's where TELAG comes into play. Because our contact center employees are reachable even at the worst moments. Legally, it is allowed to order repair service independently if the administration is not reachable within a reasonable time or cannot fix the problem or recommends a call to customer service.

With TELAG, you can stay cool even in the cold

Although renewable technologies are also on the rise in the heating sector, not all buildings in Switzerland have the latest heating systems installed yet. Likewise, heat pumps do not withstand every cold. The customers' need for warmth and hot water is impressively shown by the following numbers: TELAG schedules up to 15,000 technician deployments on a single weekend in the cold season. On a single day, when it is particularly cold, TELAG handles up to 18,000 customer inquiries. These numbers clearly show why many heating companies and heat technicians have outsourced the on-call service to TELAG. With their own staff, they could not manage the telephone rush and extraordinary call peaks.

The on-call service was one of TELAG's first services, starting in the 1950s simultaneously with the breakthrough of the telephone. Since then, TELAG has optimized the telephone service over the decades and continuously develops towards excellence. Today, TELAG supports 650 SMEs. These include most companies in the energy and heating sector, which use the services, among other things, to ensure cozy warm winter days.

How it gets warm again

Especially on cold days, the certified and well-trained employees of TELAG play a major role in making it cozy again quickly so that we can enjoy the snowflakes from inside. They quickly and accurately record every single customer inquiry or promptly forward the request to the technician, who then appears at the scene in no time.

But before a technician is contacted, our employees ask the customer basic questions to save them from embarrassment and unnecessary costs. Because just as we have often thought the TV or music system was broken when the plug was simply not inserted, sometimes the heating can be easily brought back to life. This way, the technician is not sent around in vain but can take care of the really defective heaters.

In such difficult cases, the fault report is immediately forwarded to a qualified, nearby stationed, and available technician. If this technician does not respond within the deadline, another technician is called in. In very sensitive cases, the technician must report back to TELAG after the deployment according to Suva guidelines and confirm that the job was carried out safely.

Heartwarming employees at TELAG

What our clients particularly appreciate is that our employees handle fault reports extremely precisely and carefully. Because just as it is annoying for the technician and unpleasant for the customer when a technician stands shaking his head in front of the heater due to a triviality, wrong spare parts cause dismay for the customer and sheer speechlessness for the technician. And above all, the mood then sinks even further into the basement. To prevent such mishaps, only certified employees with technical know-how, a lot of experience, and high coordination skills work at TELAG. That is why for more than 60 years almost all major providers and SMEs from the energy and heating sector have trusted TELAG's services. That warms all our hearts again.

Would you also like to stay cool in the cold season? We are happy to help you provide more warmth to your customers – not only in the cold season! Contact: Patrick Weber Head of Sales Switzerland + 41 44 276 44 22, patick.weber@telag.ch