Handling a Customer Who Is Intoxicated at the Appointment

Why this matters

The friendly drunk customer is a bigger risk to the shop than the angry one, because nobody's guard goes up. He waves you in, says "do whatever it needs," signs the tablet with a scrawl, and calls the next morning to say he never agreed to a replacement and wants his card charge reversed. The bank sides with him, and if it ever reaches a judge, a signature taken from someone who could barely stand is worth very little.

This article covers the cooperative customer who is plainly impaired by alcohol or drugs: pleasant, willing, not threatening, and in no condition to approve work. If the customer is hostile, threatening, or you feel unsafe, stop reading and use the hostile-or-impaired tree, which puts your exit first. See related: The Hostile or Impaired Customer: A Decision Tree.

Step 1. Rule out a medical cause before you decide it is drink

Slurred speech, unsteady walking, confusion and a flushed face are the classic signs of intoxication. They are also the signs of a stroke, a diabetic low blood sugar, a head injury and carbon monoxide poisoning. A tech who assumes drink and leaves can walk away from someone dying.

So before anything else, look for the cues that point elsewhere. One side of the face drooping, one arm weak, or speech that came on suddenly points to a stroke. Sweating, shaking and confusion in a customer who mentions diabetes points to low blood sugar. A headache, nausea and the same symptoms in more than one person in the house, or a pet acting off, with fuel-burning equipment running, points to carbon monoxide. No smell of alcohol at all is itself a cue.

Why this comes first: every later step assumes the customer is impaired by choice. If that is wrong, every later step is wrong.

What breaks if you skip it: the tech reschedules a stroke. If any medical cue is present, call 911 and run the medical-emergency SOP. If CO is possible, get everyone outside, leave the doors open behind you, do not operate switches on the appliance, and call 911 and the gas utility from outside. See related: The Medical Emergency on a Service Call SOP.

Step 2. Decide what the impairment rules out

Intoxication is a spectrum, and the line that matters is not "has had a drink" but "can understand what they are agreeing to and what it costs." A customer who had a beer with lunch and is talking clearly can approve a capacitor. A customer who cannot follow a two-sentence explanation, repeats the same question, or agrees to anything without listening cannot approve anything.

The legal backdrop, briefly, and this is not legal advice: in most states, under common-law contract rules, a contract made by someone so intoxicated that they could not understand the deal can be voidable by that person if the other side had reason to know. A tech standing in the kitchen has every reason to know. The detail is state law, and the shop's attorney is the person to ask before relying on any signature taken in doubt. The deeper treatment of capacity and consent lives in its own article. See related: Capacity to Contract: The Signs and What to Do.

The practical test you can run in ten seconds: explain the work and the price in two sentences, then ask the customer to tell you back what you are going to do. If they cannot, they cannot approve it.

What breaks if you skip it: you either refuse a customer who was fine, which is insulting and loses the job, or you take approval from one who was not, which loses the money and possibly more.

Step 3. Split the work into "safe to finish" and "needs approval"

Some work does not need a fresh decision from the customer. A diagnostic visit the customer booked and agreed to while sober can be completed. Making a hazard safe, such as shutting off a leaking supply, capping a gas line, turning off a breaker feeding a scorched outlet, is something you do regardless. Anything that adds cost, changes scope, or commits the customer to a replacement needs a decision, and that waits.

Write the split down before you say anything, so you are not inventing it under pressure:

• Finish now: the booked diagnostic, the booked maintenance, anything that leaves the home in a hazardous state if you stop.
• Wait for a sober decision: repairs found during diagnosis, replacements, add-ons, memberships, anything financed.
• Never with this customer today: signatures on waivers, liability releases, or authorizations for someone else's property, such as a landlord's unit.

What breaks if you skip it: the tech either walks out leaving a gas line open because "I couldn't get approval," or keeps going on a replacement because the customer said yes three times.

Step 4. Tell the customer, kindly and without the word "drunk"

Nobody wants to be told they are drunk, and arguing about it wastes the visit. Make the reschedule about the decision, not about them. Offer a specific time, and offer to include another household member.

TECH:     So the diagnostic's done. The blower motor's
          going. It's a real decision, a few options at
          different prices, and I want you to have a
          clear head for it.
CUSTOMER: Just do it, man. Whatever. I trust you.
TECH:     I appreciate that. I'd still rather go over it
          with you tomorrow. I can come back at nine, or
          call you and your wife at six tonight.
CUSTOMER: She'll kill me if I don't ask her anyway.
TECH:     Then six it is. Heat stays on in the meantime.

Note what the tech did not say: nothing about drinking, nothing about the customer's state. Note also the last line, which tells the customer what condition the house is in until the return.

What breaks if you skip it: a tech who says "you've obviously had a few" gets an argument, a bad review, and sometimes a customer who turns from friendly to hostile in one sentence. If that happens, the hostile tree takes over.

Step 5. Leave the equipment in a known state

Before you leave, the equipment is either running normally, or safely off and tagged. A unit half-apart on the floor of a home where the adult in charge is impaired is a hazard to them, to children and to pets.

If you shut off a fuel or power supply, tag it with the date, your name and why, and tell the customer in one plain sentence what is off. If you must leave a gas appliance off in cold weather, check that the home has another source of heat and that the customer understands it; space heaters run by an impaired adult are a fire risk, so do not leave one running for them. A home with an impaired adult as the only person in charge of young children is a welfare question, not a scheduling question. See related: What a Tech Can and Cannot Do About a Welfare Concern.

What breaks if you skip it: the customer forgets what you said by morning and relights, re-energizes or runs something you made safe.

Step 6. Document what you saw, in observations not conclusions

The record is what protects the shop if the customer later says you refused service, overcharged, or left the house unsafe. Write what you saw and heard, not your diagnosis of the customer. "Customer appeared intoxicated" is a conclusion and invites a fight. "Strong odor of alcohol, customer unsteady on stairs, asked the same question about price three times" is an observation and stands up.

Record: arrival time, who was home, the observations, what work was completed, what was deferred and why in neutral words ("customer asked to discuss options with spouse," if that is what happened), the state of the equipment at departure, and the time and channel of the follow-up. Photograph the equipment state. Do not photograph the customer.

The shop's customer record carries none of the observations. If the account needs care on future visits, it gets a neutral line for the office. See related: Writing a Safety Flag on a Customer Record Without Defaming Them.

What breaks if you skip it: a dispute three weeks later is your word against theirs, and their version is detailed.

Step 7. Follow up when they are sober, and re-confirm everything

The follow-up is a fresh conversation, not a continuation. Repeat the findings and the options as if for the first time. Anything the customer "agreed to" while impaired is not treated as agreed. If the customer has no memory of the visit, that is normal and not a reason for embarrassment on either side.

If the same customer is impaired at two or three visits running, it is an account pattern. The owner decides whether the account is booked only with another adult present, at a different time of day, or not at all.

A worked example

An HVAC tech arrives at 4:30 on a Friday for a booked no-heat diagnostic. The outdoor temperature is 28 F. The customer, a man in his forties, opens the door holding a drink, smells strongly of alcohol, laughs a lot, and is pleasant. His speech is slurred but even, he walks the stairs holding the rail, and he says his wife is out until 7:00.

Step 1: no facial droop, both arms work when he waves the tech down, he says he has been "having a few since lunch," and the furnace is off, so CO is not driving the symptoms. Intoxication is the reasonable read.

Step 2: the tech explains the job in two sentences and asks him to say it back. He cannot; he says "you're fixing it" and asks the price twice. He cannot approve anything with a cost.

Step 3, the split: the diagnostic was booked and agreed by the wife on the phone two days earlier, so it gets finished. It finds a failed inducer motor. A repair is a new decision. A replacement furnace, which the tech would normally mention given the unit's age of 22 years, is out of the question tonight.

Step 4: the tech explains he would like to go over the options with both of them and offers a call at 7:30 or a return at 9:00 Saturday. The customer agrees to the call.

Step 5: the furnace cannot run, and it is 28 F. The house has a gas fireplace, the customer says, but the tech will not light it for an impaired adult, and space heaters are not something to leave him with. Instead the tech calls the office, the office reaches the wife, and she says she will be home by 6:15. The tech switches the furnace off at its service switch, closes the manual gas valve at the unit, tags both, and leaves once the office confirms she is on her way.

Step 6: the record reads: arrived 4:32, adult male alone, odor of alcohol, unsteady on stairs, could not restate the job, diagnostic completed, inducer motor failed, repair options deferred to spouse call at 7:30, furnace tagged off, wife contacted by office at 4:58 and home by about 6:15, photos of tag and inducer. Nothing about drinking goes on the account.

Step 7: at 7:30 the office calls both of them; the wife approves the inducer repair for Saturday at 9:00, and declines the replacement quote for now.

What would have changed the call: if the wife had been unreachable, the house would have been without heat overnight at 28 F with only an impaired adult home. That moves it out of scheduling. The tech would have asked whether anyone could come and stay, and if nobody could, called the owner to decide whether a same-night repair was justified on the original booking, with the approval taken from the wife by phone the moment she was reachable. A household with small children in that cold would have been a welfare call.

How to check you got it right

Ask three questions after the visit. Did anyone with a clear head approve every dollar of work that was done? Is the equipment in a state an impaired adult cannot make worse by morning? Does the record describe what you saw rather than what you concluded? Three yeses and the visit was handled. Any no is the thing to fix on the follow-up.

References

• Restatement (Second) of Contracts, section 16, on intoxicated persons, as applied by your state's courts
• CDC guidance on stroke warning signs and on carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms
• See related: The Hostile or Impaired Customer: A Decision Tree
• See related: Capacity to Contract: The Signs and What to Do
• See related: The Medical Emergency on a Service Call SOP