In the HVAC business, your existing heating and cooling service agreements and maintenance contracts are your bread and butter. However, if you want to grow your HVAC business, your current customers aren’t enough; you need to explore new opportunities and create new service agreements down the line.The real challenge here is juggling between servicing your existing clients and picking up new clients. If these service contracts are not managed effectively, it can lead to disorganization and confusion, eventually hurting your business and negatively impacting your customer service. So, how can you manage HVAC maintenance contracts more efficiently? Let’s find out.
1. Streamline your business operations with a service management system.
Automation is key to business success. With the help of field service management software, you can automate business processes that are manual and repetitive.Zuper’s service management software is powered by AI and machine learning. It is designed to automate tasks like scheduling, work order management, creating quotations, invoicing, and other aspects of HVAC services that help you manage your HVAC contracts effectively.
2. Create a balanced mix of existing HVAC maintenance contracts and new leads.
Managing new and existing clients often get challenging for HVAC businesses. For instance, if you have a busy schedule of servicing your regular clients, and you receive an emergency call-out from a new lead. What do you do? You have two choices:1. Give preference to the regular client but lose a new business opportunity.OR2. Give preference to the new lead and potentially damage your relationship with your existing customer.However, in a situation like this, your aim should be to avoid both these courses of action.A better solution is to streamline your business operations with a service management system. With Zuper, you can scrutinize your HVAC schedule and re-prioritize the work based on your client’s location, appointment details, and service history.With customer information accessible to you from anywhere and any time, you can go through customer history and make a note of clients who are more flexible with appointments. Once you have a better idea of which clients can be rescheduled, you’ll be able to fit in your emergency call-outs.
3. Track HVAC maintenance contracts accurately.
More service agreements mean more invoices to be sent out and this increases the margin of error. One way to reduce it is to allow technicians to have access to client notes while on the field. If your client records are on paper, it’s difficult for your technicians to check them while on the go.That’s where Zuper’s mobile application can help. Your technicians can access this app on their mobile devices for real-time access to service agreements, client history, and client notes. This will keep your team updated and help save time and costs.
4. Tailor your service to your customer’s HVAC system.
Each HVAC system is unique, and therefore your technicians must have a thorough understanding of every client’s unique HVAC requirements. Keeping an HVAC maintenance checklist for each client can help tailor your service to their system.With access to Zuper’s service management system, your technicians can complete the checklists on the go, attach necessary information to the customer’s account and make client notes. This information can also be passed on to the customers to keep them updated and encourage them to continue basic maintenance.
5. Encourage clients to book appointments.
Your business needs to maintain a steady stream of maintenance appointments throughout the year. How can you encourage clients to book appointments? By monitoring their specific service requirements and their frequency.Zuper is an ideal service management system that can help you organize client details and attach information with reminders such as ‘weekly maintenance,’ monthly maintenance,’ or ‘bi-monthly maintenance’ to client accounts. Once the data is organized, it’s easy to schedule all HVAC maintenance contracts and appointments according to the date of order and priority. You can then send your customers email or text reminders and notifications about upcoming maintenance activities. This ensures that you have plenty of maintenance jobs throughout the year.
6. Explain the work to clients.
Most customers are not familiar with the HVAC terminology like condenser coil, load calculation, etc. Ensure that your technicians explain the work they do for the customers in simple layman’s terms.When the work is underway, your technicians can spend a few minutes explaining what they’re doing, whether the parts are repaired or installed, and how much time it should take to complete the task. Once they are done with the work, they can walk the customers through the completed work and also suggest preventative maintenance measures for better performance. When your technicians communicate to your customers while reinforcing competence and honesty, you ensure better customer service.
7. Simplify the billing process and get customer feedback.
It’s frustrating for customers to deal with paperwork at the end of a service call. Once the work is done, they probably want to get on with their day instead of dealing with exhaustive documentation.Fortunately, Zuper’s service management system can streamline the entire billing process. Your technicians can use the app on their smartphones to do several tasks, including taking spot payments after work is done, sending paperwork by email, and even getting customer feedback.
Conclusion
The success of your heating and air conditioning business depends on technical prowess and your relationship with your customers. By combining the right technologies and tools, you can take your customer relationships (and your company) to new heights of success. With Zuper’s service management system, your technicians can deliver the kind of service that keeps the customers coming back for more. Ready to successfully manage your HVAC maintenance contracts? Start your free trial now!
