1. Who actually performs the work?
The single most important question. Many companies that sell national or regional HVAC coverage are brokers: they win the contract, then subcontract your sites to whoever answers the phone in each market. Ask directly: are the technicians on my roof your W-2 employees? If the answer involves the words network, partners, or affiliates, you are buying a middleman. At SBS-NC every job is self-performed by our own technicians — it is a written guarantee, not a talking point.
2. What does your reporting look like?
Ask to see a real maintenance report from an existing customer — not a brochure. A serious contractor documents every visit per unit: what was inspected, what was measured, what was found, what is trending toward failure. If a contractor cannot show you what you will receive after each visit, you will spend the contract wondering whether anyone actually went to the roof.
3. How is your pricing structured?
You want per-unit, published logic — not a lump sum that cannot be audited. Ask what a maintenance visit costs per rooftop unit, what the service-call fee is, and what triggers additional charges. Our answer fits in one sentence: $200 for the first RTU or split at a site, $149 each additional, $149 on every unit at sites with four or more, and a $149 trip and diagnostics fee for repairs, quoted in writing before work begins.
4. What happens when a unit goes down at 9 PM?
Get the after-hours commitment in writing. Who answers — a live dispatcher or a national call center that opens a ticket? Do contract customers get priority? A broker has to find a subcontractor willing to take the call; a self-performing contractor dispatches its own on-call technician. That difference is measured in hours of downtime, and for a restaurant or a server room, hours are money.