Jim Hinshaw
Contributing Writer
Improvement Professional, President & Sales
So here we are in the heat, those of us in Arizona have been waiting for the high temps since January, when we had millionaire weather. And it has not disappointed us, been a hot summer so far in most of the nation. While many HVAC contractors make a lot of money in a 4 month period, is there a chance we could do even better? Perhaps serve the customers better, improve our chances for referrals, where there is no competition, just trust from the consumer? A one word, three letter answer: YES.
Here then are 10 ways to improve your company performance and keep your sanity during the hot weather.
1. Slow down. We get too rushed, realizing we have more customers to see in this time period then we did a few months ago. When we are moving too fast, we sometimes stop or forget to do the very things that make us the kind of company the customer wants to see. Really pay attention to the customer. Listen to their story, don’t jump to conclusions. Repeat back what they said. Then do what you need to do to fix the opportunity.
2. Stay focused. Focused on them. Set aside the personal problems, they are not interested in your daughter’s broken arm. Leave the other customers outside, your family issues should not come in the house with you.
3. Make a good first impression. Yep, gotta get them booties out. I know it takes about 20 seconds to put on the carpet protectors, but it shows respect. Do it. Every time. Oh, and 2 breath mints. They don’t need to know you had garlic pizza for lunch. Forget the garlic anything for lunch, stay neutral. Maybe some Fabreeze spray if you are a smoker.
4. Clean shirt. Take a minute to be sure you are not wearing the last service call on your shirt. If you are put on another shirt. Yes, the back up shirt you have in your truck. When you use it, take the soiled shirt out of the truck that evening, get it cleaned. Oh, and clean up/straighten up that truck. So at season’s end, we finally clean out the truck, trash is all over the place. And realize we still have parts in there we actually went to a supply house to buy, just couldn’t locate them at 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon. So take 5 min at the end of each day, throw out the trash, make sure you have capacitors and relays, still got some refrigerant in that jug, just a quick overview.
5. Do a complete exam. When you go to the doctor, he takes blood pressure, weight, pulse, lots of other things even when you tell him you have a rash on your arm. He is looking for other problems that may be a factor. We have to have that same attitude, look the entire system over. You may have found the condenser fan motor that has shorted, check the nameplate to be sure it is the correct motor.
6. Slow down. From a company point of view. Just met with a dealer in California who told me he had a tech who ran 12 calls the day before. Really? In California traffic. I did not ask how many he had to go back on, but when we are rushed, mistakes happen. So the company may have to tell the customer the reality: to do this job correctly, we will be there two days from now. Realize the customer doesn’t want to hear this, and we may have to move some calls to respond to a medical emergency, etc. But the dispatcher has to know there is a physical limit to what the company can do in a given day. Stacking on more calls can weaken our effectiveness on all the business, not just the calls we added in.
7. Start a maintenance agreement program. Yep, start it now! When you come upon a nasty unit, tell the customer the truth, they need a precision tune up and professional cleaning (thanks to Ron Smith for the description). That can be done later, but still needs to be done. In many cases, the unit has a problem that can be traced back to lack of maintenance. Schedule that tune up for October, when the heat is off.
8. Do those maintenances on old equipment before the heat hits. Find the problems before that system stops working. That way you have a better chance to pick up a new customer when the competition can’t get to them.
9. Develop a “go now” attitude for replacement sales. Just visited with a dealer who gets the information, takes it back to the office, puts together a proposal, then TRIES to make an appointment to go back to share the numbers. Get to the home now. Put together a proposal on the spot. Make it happen. Even if the customer can wait, if it is busy, will you have time to make another trip. And while I am in the neighborhood, don’t fax or email a proposal. This stuff is sold belly to belly, face to face. 7{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f} of communication is words, 38{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f} is tone of voice. 55{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f} is body language. So you have to see what they are saying.
10. Praise the successes. Publicly. Thank the team members who go the extra mile, help out a customer in unexpected ways. Correct the mistakes privately. Make sure the team understands you value them.
So some ideas on how to improve your company response in the middle of the rush season, works for winter in Colorado as well as summer in Arizona. We do have tools that can help, Google maps are more important today than ever to help steer us around that ever-growing traffic problem. Thanks for listening, we’ll talk later.