What to Tell a Customer Who Smells Gas Before Sending a Tech

First, get everyone out

• Tell them to get everyone, including pets, out of the house now. Leave the door open on the way out.
• Do not touch light switches, appliances, thermostats or the garage door opener, on or off. Any of them can make a spark.
• No matches, lighters, candles or cigarettes. Do not start a car in an attached garage.
• If they are calling from a cell phone inside, ask them to walk outside while they talk. If you lose them, call back in a minute.
• Once they are outside and away from the house, they call 911 or the gas company's emergency line. Do not go back in for anything.

What not to let them do

• Do not have them hunt for the leak, sniff around appliances or check the pilot light.
• Do not walk them through turning a gas valve or the meter. The gas company or fire department does that.
• Do not have them open windows room by room. Out first, door open, that is enough.
• If someone is dizzy, has a headache or feels sick, that is a 911 call, said in those words.
• If they are unsure whether it is gas, treat it as gas. A false alarm costs nothing.

What the tech needs to know, once everyone is out

• Whether 911 or the gas company has been called, and whether they have arrived or cleared the house.
• Where the smell was strongest: kitchen, basement, furnace room, water heater, outside by the meter.
• Whether anything gas related was recently installed, moved or serviced.
• Whether the gas company shut off the meter or left a tag, because the tech will need to relight appliances.
• The best number to reach them outside the house, and where they are waiting.

How it sounds on the phone

The three ways this goes wrong

• Taking the address and booking details while people are still inside. Out first, every time.
• Walking the caller through checks, valves or relighting. That is the gas company's job, not the office's.
• Booking the tech as the answer instead of the emergency call. The tech comes after the house is cleared, not instead of it.

A gas smell call is out of the house, no sparks, emergency call from outside, then the details for the tech. Say it in that order, and the office never becomes the reason someone stayed inside.