Alex T.
2/5
Hoping to change this in the future, but I'm pretty frustrated with these guys right now.
To be clear upfront: While NRCan subsidizes the cost of EnerGuide Evaluations as part of CGHG, it's the homeowner who pays Acacia. There is no risk borne by Acacia nor are there any drawbacks to them. They get a steady stream of new business because of a government grant that creates opportunity for the industry in which they operate, and it's up to us to seek reimbursement, provided we meet the conditions of the grant. If the government was subsidizing these inspections to homeowners but was requiring the firm who performed the inspection to accept payment at a reduced rate, I MIGHT be able to understand how people using the program would be treated as lesser than clients who are paying full price. But that isn't even the case!
Things went well upfront: EnerGuide Evaluation was scheduled promptly; communication was good; everything seemed pretty reasonable.
When our field advisor came he was prompt, professional, and answered my many questions. We exchanged a few emails subsequent to his visit to have some minor corrections made to his findings. He responded within a reasonable timeframe and was helpful.
I also hired Acacia to perform an F280 heat loss calc for my home to assist me with determining whether my new furnaces were correctly sized. Turnaround time wasn't super fast but it was reasonable. No problem.
What really stood out to me was the owner, Stephen. I like to get into the technical details, and he offered to have a call and geek out with me to discuss my F280 report and answer the questions I had. He was fantastic to deal with.
Fast forward a number of months and my experience could not be more different. The field advisor who performed the initial assessment is utterly unreachable. And while another person at the firm has attempted to help, I've still been left frustrated.
Email 1: June 19, 2022. No response from advisor.
Email 2: June 30, 2022. No response from advisor.
Email 3: July 11, 2022. No response from advisor, but heard back from someone else. And while I appreciated their offer to help, they are not familiar with the CGHG program to the degree necessary to answer my question.
I was told the field advisors are working in the field five days a week and are probably too busy to respond.
What irks me about all of this is that I am also in a client-facing role (and when busy I often work seven days a week, or at least very late five days a week). The idea of just not replying to an existing client because you're busy serving newer clients is completely foreign and is insulting. I'm not expecting an immediate response here; all I'm asking for is a five- or maybe ten-minute phone call with the advisor who did the initial assessment. It can be at 9 p.m. or 7 a.m.—I am infinitely flexible. If he responded and said "can we schedule a call next month?" my response would have been enthusiastically positive. I am not asking for much here.
My assumption, perhaps wrongly, was that it was reasonable to ask for some very basic clarification related to the CGHG program—something I had already discussed with my advisor, but just couldn't recall the details of many months later. After all, I would paying for Acacia's services for the post-retrofit evaluation. I was also looking to get a small amount of additional chargeable work done by Acacia, but I first need info from my advisor to know whether it's even necessary...
The confounding thing is that I'm not beholden to using them for the post-retrofit evaluation. I guess business is so good that existing clients are second-tier; very unfortunate, because my initial experience was very good.
It is possible to change the service provider for your post-retrofit evaluation to a different firm than the one who did the initial one. At this juncture, I see no reason why I won't be going elsewhere.
