HVAC Leads – How to Double Service Agreements & Replacement Leads
This is so ridiculously simple (and cheap) it’s one of those smack yourself on the forehead moments!
The government does it….
So does the military…..
I’m talking about service tech debriefing and how it can double your service agreements and replacement leads from your very best prospects!
Here’s how Webster’s defines debriefing:
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To question formally and systematically in order to obtain useful intelligence or information:
That’s exactly what you want, right? To obtain useful information on your technician’s service calls?
Sounds like a real pain and a logistical nightmare right?
WRONG!
Very wrong. As a matter of fact once you have it down, it takes much less than 60 seconds for the dispatcher to debrief a technician prior to assigning his/her next call.
But the “intelligence” you glean is priceless!
Here’s how service tech debriefing can double Service Agreements sales and replacement leads:
You have certain policies and procedures that are supposed to be followed on EVERY service call, correct?
As we all know, getting 100% compliance from service technicians can be very difficult but the debriefing changes all that,
Right Now!
By asking each technician the same questions after every service call, you can ensure 100% compliance and book more service agreements and get more replacement leads than ever.
Here’s how it works:
Before assigning the next service call to a technician, your dispatcher will ask and record the answers to the following questions on a blank debriefing form (using a physical or digital document):
Demand Service Debriefing
Date____/________ Time________ Technician___________Customer___________________ By_____________
Type of service call: demand service, warranty, callback, other? _________________________
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Did the customer invest in an Energy Savings Agreement? _______________________
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If no, did you fill one out and leave it?________________________________________
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Is the service completed?__________________________________________________
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Did you get paid for the call? _______________________________________________
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What is the approximate age of the equipment?________________________________
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Did you put stickers on the equipment?_______________________________________
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Did you put door hangers on the neighbors homes?_____________________________
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Did you record the model #, serial#, and filter sizes?_____________________________
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Did you ask for a positive review?
You can see from the questions that a lot is being accomplished here:
1) The status of the call completion is on record, and if followup is needed it won’t get lost in the weeds
2) The tech’s know you are serious about service agreements and they must comply 100%
3) You are reinforcing any marketing steps they are required to complete, like door hangers and equipment stickers
4) Best of all, you will know the age of the equipment and can direct it to your sales department if required
5) This will help you get more positive reviews online than ever.
Of course, feel free to edit it back by a question or 2 if you want, but I would keep right in this neighborhood because these are the most productive questions you can ask.
So how do you keep the service tech’s answers to the dispatcher’s questions honest and therefore useful?
Simple. A happy call.
When you implement the program you will stage the process in the training room and have the dispatchers “call” a “customer” and perform the happy call. Your techs will know that compliance is built in to the program and anyone caught fudging answers, well that’s up to you.
I would encourage them to just tell the truth if they actually missed a step and let them know that you will work with them to become 100% successful on each service call they perform.
Here’s the Demand Service Happy Call
Date______/_______ Time ___________ By _______________________
“Mr./Mrs. _________________, this is _____________________ with __________________, and I’m phoning you to make certain you are 100% satisfied with our service. May I quickly ask you a few questons?”
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Was our response time good?
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Was our technician courteous?
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Did our technician clean up after the work was completed?
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Did our technician answer your questions or address your concerns?_______________
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Is there anything you would like to share that would further improve our service?________________________________________________________________
If the customer did not invest in an Energy Savings Agreement:
“I noticed our technician left an Energy Savings Agreement with you to consider. Did he/she fully explain the benefits? Do you have any questions about the agreement I can answer?”
________________________________________________________________
If the customer says, “No, I was not told about your service agreement or left a form”, that’s your red flag of non-compliance. The beauty of this is that it doesn’t make it seem that the purpose of the happy call is technician compliance – verification is just a natural side effect.
Note* The technician debriefing and happy call questions and answers are actually on one document. This ensures that the person making the happy call has direct access to the questions and answers asked of the customer during the debriefing.
Debriefing and Happy Call Instructions (Put these instructions right on the document)
The debriefing is completed after every service call and prior to the next call being dispatched. Once everyone becomes familiar with the questions it should take less than 60 seconds to complete. The purpose is to ensure all techs are completing each step shown in the debriefing every single time.
This will also alert us to potential issues such as non-payment, incomplete paperwork (whether electronic or written). It will also help us provide more service agreements to our customers.
The primary purpose of the happy call is to ensure 100% complete customer satisfaction. If any complaints or concerns are voiced we have to be sure to address this issue immediately.
Resolutions can include sending the service tech back (or a different tech if there was some personality issue) or turning over the customer concern to the service manager for him to resolve. Sometimes a credit (partial or otherwise) can be issued to the customer depending on circumstances.
Either way, a resolution has to begin without delay. This is critical for us to reach our sales and customer satisfaction goals. Any customer with a system 9 years or older needs to be copied and turned over to the sales manager as a sales lead.
A Personal Advisor (comfort consultant) will then contact the customer to discuss an appointment for replacement. This also gives us a second friendly opportunity to provide a service agreement to the customer.
If the person completing the happy call sells the service agreement they will be “spiffed” according to company policy.
Note – I would like to give a hat’s off to Ron Smith, the person who taught me this very effective debriefing technique many years ago!
Did I miss something? I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Have you uncovered another technique that works for you? Leave your comments below.
This article is written by Michael Haines, the founder of AC Direct, the oldest and most visited HVAC e-commerce site in the country. Michael has generated over $40,000,000 in HVAC revenue using web based marketing from his own HVAC websites, including local service and installation sites.
His websites have generated over 17,000,000 visitors and were featured in the INC 5000 list of fastest growing companies in America, 2 years in a row.
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