I would be curious to know, did this all start with you trying to tell the customer you would look into it and try to be the hero? It seems we all get ourselves into a pickle like this once in a while. We tell the customer, "Let me see what I can do with this"

However in this case, Julie came to the rescue and offered a direct line to someone who could help this guy. For that, This forum is priceless.

Recently I came across a customer who bought a home that another integrator did. The former home owner took everything but the theater speakers which happened to be a Meridian system. I could have sold them all new speakers but why? I sold them whole house audio, control system etc and called meridian and asked if we could get a new video processor for the system without being a dealer.

The rep said absolutely and told use that he would give us support for this job.

Customer is absolutely thrilled. The Meridian stuff sounded awesome. This usually doesn't work out. The point of the story is that it all starts with our mouth. What we initially say to the customer is the most important.