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Last month, Joe Navarra celebrated
his fourth anniversary with BC EXPRESS, Inc., in New Jersey. When he joined the company as vice president and general manager, one of the first things he did was establish a mission statement: “To provide Better Comfort, EXPRESS service, with the highest level of professionalism, to our customers.” The mission is on the website and on back of their business cards. “You’d be surprised by how many people really read it,” Navarra said.
BC EXPRESS, which has been in the HVAC/R business for 16 years, has lived up to that mission statement. Growing from six employees to 24 in the past four years, the company is a leader in providing high-efficiency heating, air conditioning and comfort solutions such as the Carrier® InfinityTM systems and Hybrid Heat™ dual fuel systems, for mostly residential and some commercial clients. “In this economy and in any business, you have to be able to change. You have to be able to change constantly,” said Navarra, who runs the company with the owner’s brother. “I’m pretty excited about where we’ve gone and what we’ve done over the last four years.”
Focused on cutting high utility bills, Navarra and the team at BC EXPRESS approach each job as a way to help the customer in more than just HVAC/R. “I want to be green, go green and help the people get there,” Navarra said. When called to most potential customers’ homes, the first thing he hears from those customers is that they want high efficiency from their systems. But many dealers out there are not providing those customers with the most efficient system choices, he said. “We ask the people what they want and when we hear high efficiency, we go right to the Infinity system,” Navarra said. “I put it in my own house. We talk it and we know it and we operate on it, so it’s very easy to sell. And it works — it can save people 50, 60 percent on their utility bills.”
In fact, Navarra is so committed to saving energy that if a customer isn’t interested in a high-efficiency system, Navarra might just politely decline a potential job. “When they say they want high efficiency but don’t want to install a high-efficiency product, I say ‘I’m sorry but I can’t help you. I’m not saving you energy.’”
His honest, money-saving approach works. BC EXPRESS has now saved many New Jersey clients energy, and the word has spread. “When we’re done with the job, the customers are telling people, ‘Hey, I cut my bills by 40 percent,’ and other people are knocking on our door saying ‘I want what my neighbor got.’” Along with the high-efficiency units, the company offers a free 10-year parts and labor program, which establishes a long-term relationship with the customer and takes the fear out of buying a new product. BC EXPRESS also provides complete turnkey service. “We do it all, soup to nuts,” Navarra said.
The whole goal of BC EXPRESS is to help the customer, making it easier for them to save energy, Navarra said. The company has a great team of employees who people can trust to do the job right. Eight phone lines make service to customers available day and night. People can even request service or quotes via e-mail, directly from the BC EXPRESS website. “The Internet is a big thing, e-mail is a big thing, because people can communicate with you any time,” Navarra said. “I take at least five to 10 hours a week out of my 100-hour-a-week job to keep my website up and going. I constantly change the website.” The BC EXPRESS website includes letters of reference and pictures of jobs completed so that potential customers can feel comfortable with their work. Logos indicating that the company participates in the New Jersey Clean Energy Program, is a Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer, and that it received the Carrier 2008 President’s Award, appear right on the homepage.
“We want to save energy, give customers better comfort, and do the right job for them,” Navarra said. “And when I’m done, I want to be their friend. I want to be able to walk through a store and see them and say, ‘Hi, how are you?’ and have them come over to me saying, ‘Thank you. I can’t believe how much my utility bills are down.’ I get pretty excited about the whole thing. I love what I do.”
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