In the HVAC and plumbing industry, the dispatcher’s purpose should be to maximize revenue. To achieve this goal, he or she must select the right technician for the service call at the right time.
Time and time again, dispatchers sacrifice revenue to avoid conflict. If businesses are serious about increasing revenue, the order in which calls are received shouldn’t interfere with when and how they are dispatched. With that in mind, note the mistake made in this case study:
Case Study
On the first scorching day of summer, I was riding with an HVAC technician. We had a full schedule, with more service calls than capacity would allow us to complete in one day.
The dispatch for our second call read like this:
We arrived at the service call, the HVAC technician thoroughly checked the operation of the system and he found nothing wrong. Why were we running a non-urgent call on the hottest day of the year with no chance of generating revenue?
Yes, we remain loyal to customers and provide aftercare for installed products. However, we could have handled this differently. How? This call should have been scheduled for another day. Prioritize all calls based on two factors in order to maximize revenue:
The three levels of customer relationship.
The company and the client have completed transactions many times. A strong and trusting relationship has been established over time, where the client likes the company and we love the client. Clients have a profitable account, they don’t complain about price and understand that when extreme weather hits they may have to wait. Clients are the VIPs and service agreement customers should be highlighted in your database, so when they call they can be put to the front of the line.
The hope is that the relationship will grow into a mutually trusting client relationship. However, it is sometimes clear that the relationship is going nowhere. Complaints may arise about price and customers can be demanding and not reasonable. Never dispatch this call in front of a client relationship. At peak, you may even want to refer this type of customer to the competition. Wouldn’t it be great to be in the position to say: We can only take care of service agreement customers (VIPs) today?
With first-time customers, consider seriously how to develop a client relationship. Book the call, but vet the potential for client building. How did they find out about us, Google or referral? A referral from a client (VIP) has potential. Did the prospect from a Google search push back on the service fee? If so, this may indicate a pattern of price sensitivity, so be careful. With a prospect also consider:
Potential to maximize revenue through client relationships
The urgency of the call should also be considered. If a non-urgent problem is reported, even a VIP can wait in order to pursue better revenue opportunities. If they are not agreeable to waiting in these circumstances, they are not clients.
What is the bottom line? If a VIP client calls at 3:00 PM with a down unit that we know is 15 years old, that should be the next call. Why? We are in business to maximize profits. The customer who complains doesn’t come before the VIP client. None of this is possible unless dispatch selects the right technician for the right service call at the right time. ICM
Roger Daviston is a cognitive behavioral specialist who helps clients achieve and maintain behavioral change. His new book The Service Call Blueprint is available on Amazon.com. Watch The Service Call Blueprint webinar online: www.rogerdaviston.com
Do you employ technicians who complain? Dissatisfaction is an unpleasant part of our week, but most of us experience it frequently.
In psychology, there is a principle that, on some level, your diagnosis of others is actually a reflection of yourself. Of course, discovering what’s wrong with us is easier said than done and requires humility. As an owner, you must be the source of a multitude of your company’s problems and this can be painful to admit. Allow me to illustrate.
As I was finishing a morning meeting with a team of technicians, the owner became irritated about several things, including the simple process of keeping a record of parts taken from the stockroom. In this case, the issue was that some of the technicians would tell him parts to order, but would not write the request down. As a result, parts were frequently out of stock, and the boss became frustrated. He could keep the room stocked only if the notebook was accurate.
Frustrated, he declared, “Don’t ever tell me which parts you take. If there is anything that you need me to order, write it down in the book. Do you hear me? Am I clear?”
As soon as this outburst was finished he was onto the next, barking orders at a dispatcher across the room who was not even in the meeting. He exhibited the exact same behavior that he had condemned with the technicians. Don’t tell me a list of things to buy, write it down.
At work and in life, the conditions, emotions and circumstances that you create for others come back to you multiplied. In other words, we reap what we sow. In some cases, we may reap more than we sow. Too often, I see owners who can’t take a step back to consider the facts.
Let’s consider a technician who is easily frustrated and tends to blame others. He often expresses his problems with dispatch, the company culture and the customers. His major challenge is focusing on how he can respond differently to his circumstances, achieve different results and work through his day without anxiety, stress and pressure, while maintaining company expectations.
Much of this anxiety comes from receiving four or five calls at once and is heightened when the call is taking longer than dispatch forecasted. While riding with a technician, the second call he received involved a furnace tune-up, which came from a direct mail piece. Customers often try to use a promotion for tune-ups to try and fix a major problem. However, as most technicians know, tune-ups can only be performed on a working system.
When the frustrated technician discovered a broken system, he became anxious and frustrated with his schedule. After all, he had it all planned out. He could “run and gun” to get it all done only if there were no hiccups. Instead his thoughts now turned to “How do they expect me to get all of these calls done?” and “Why did dispatch give me a tune-up when this is a service call?” He could see his carefully planned day crumbling before his eyes. As a result, he was stressed out, upset and angry with dispatch.
Let me pose a few questions:
• Why plan the entire day for a technician and only let him see the schedule in the morning?
• How does dispatch know how long each call will take?
• Do we really know what the technician will find when he gets there?
Pre-planned maintenance can present opportunities for revenue, but only if we have time to slow down.
John, a technician from another company, was with me on a ride-along performing annual maintenance on a furnace. His boss texted me, asking us to hurry and get out of there. I responded, “Please relax, we have a fish on the line here”. John sold $2,300 at 10:00AM and didn’t go to another call that day. Did we know that was going to happen? Obviously not, but thankfully this company already grasped the process dynamic of dispatching—the schedule changes as we work through each call. Do not rush technicians. Leave them alone and give them one call at a time. Dispatch owns dispatch and dispatching is not scheduling. Dispatching is putting the right person on the right job at the right time.
I’ve discovered many technicians are leaving calls undone, unsold and are merely patching things up because the schedule won’t allow them to stay. The company is overly ambitious with its workload and setting impossible time slots, which all falls on the back of the technician who’s expected to find revenue. When you create a plan and show it to the technician, he will rush through each call and not look for opportunities because he feels like he can’t
We all have family commitments. It’s human nature to want to go home at a reasonable hour. When you plan a technician’s day and he sees all the calls, he will either rush or fill in the time depending on how the day unfolds. Neither one of these are good for revenue.
I have worked with customer service representatives (CSRs) and dispatchers for years. It is well known that their desire to please the customer causes pressure. They find it very hard to say “NO” to a customer. In fact, they often don’t know how to do it.
Can you imagine your CSRs saying something like this: “Mrs. Jones, when were you hoping that we could come out? Well, we will try this afternoon, but if our workload changes, will tomorrow be okay?”
Unfortunately, we never know what we are going to find on each call. CSRs may feel uncomfortable asking this, but it’s just a question. It is not a directive. We have the right to ask.
Most customers are okay with it and it gives us much more flexibility, which prevents technicians from rushing and therefore leads to more revenue if they execute the Service Call Blueprint*. If customers give you “push back” about coming tomorrow, provide them the best service that you can and work with them to find a satisfactory solution. Most reasonable people understand this.
What is the bottom line? Pressure from the office causes the CSRs to try to appease everyone, which leads to overbooking and stress out in the field. Most often, this pressure on CSRs or dispatch originates with the owner, who has their own stress about profitability. They can’t make the cognitive shift to slow down, relax and remember that we make more by doing fewer calls. In my next column, I’ll describe how to successfully book calls without giving time slots. I always welcome your feedback, so please reach out. ICM
*Roger Daviston is a cognitive behavioral specialist who helps clients achieve and maintain behavioral change. His new book The Service Call Blueprint is available on Amazon.com. Watch The Service Call Blueprint webinar online: www.rogerdaviston.com
The more you talk the more likely you are to get yourself into trouble. If you are wise you will keep quiet and measure your words very carefully. This is a life principle that applies to all of us in all of our relationships.
If you just keep your mouth shut, you are more likely to stay out of trouble. This is the sensible thing to do, most of the time. Opening your mouth can ruin everything if you are not careful. A person can seem really wise until you hear him open his mouth.
On the other hand, we do have to talk, don’t we? We can’t be quiet all our lives. Life does require communication with others through the spoken word. I have always said that technicians who become good communicators have higher tickets. They have to get their tunnel vision off of the problem and look at the customer.
However, communication is not about many words; it is about measured and concise words. A truly wise person talks less and uses few words. Even as he talks he is quick to listen, slow to speak and is calm and even tempered under stress. Think before you speak because you can’t stop the words once they are spoken. The damage is already done. Don’t be the person who has no interest in understanding and only wants to hear his own opinion.
The Service Call Blueprint – Field Tested Strategies For Higher Revenue is a collection of a few simple boundaries for technicians to execute that produces better results. The central idea is to show options for repair and put the weight of the responsibility for choosing the repair on the customer where it belongs and not on the technician.
It is two simple boundaries: number one is the technician must learn to let go of the position of choice for the customer and respect this boundary; number two is that the technician must take ownership of the presentation process and show options for repair.
When talking, be clear, concise and communicate the why behind the what. Our clients invest in the why, not the what.
So how do you teach a technician to measure his words and be concise? You write a script and expect him to learn it word for word. Ugh! I also felt this way and discovered that I was wrong because very few technicians could come up with their own words. They would ramble and talk too much out of their own anxiety. The more they would talk the more the costumers eyes would glaze over and the technicians would lose them.
I learned that teaching only theory was not working for most of my clients, so I had to write scripts. However, I believed that expecting a person to execute a script was taking away his freedom to be himself. This is not true. While words are important, the person can still express them as himself. The words are only 7% of the process.
Words attempt to convey ideas and thoughts from one person to another. However, words do not give justice to the speed of thought. The entirety of what you are attempting to convey is also expressed through physiology, otherwise known as body language. Remember the idiom “if looks could kill?” Researchers say that our physiology communicates about 53% of what we want to communicate.
Researchers also say that tempo and tone of voice communicate the other 40% of what is intended. So if a technician uses my words, there is still 93% of himself he can express. Additionally, if a group of technicians do not like my words, we can come up with other words that accomplish the same goals. The English language has many synonyms.
Let’s talk more about what word for word means. There is a funny Seinfeld episode in which Kramer goes into a bank that has a policy to give customers $100 if they are not greeted with a “hello.” When the teller greets Kramer with a “hey” instead, Kramer demands his $100. While Kramer argues the point in the bank president’s office, the president calls in four tellers to get their opinions. Teller #1 greets Kramer with a “how you doing?” Teller #2 greets Kramer with a “what’s happening?” Teller #3 greets Kramer with “what’s up?” and Teller #4 greets Kramer with a “how’s it going?”
The point being, when we write a script, we need to use wisdom in executing it. Understanding is a mental process where one comprehends the facts. We understand the difference between a fruit and a vegetable. Wisdom is taking knowledge and understanding how to execute it through our behavior.
Even though we know that a tomato is a fruit and we understand what that means, wisdom says that a tomato does not go in a fruit salad but a vegetable salad. If the script says to say “hello,” the others forms are okay.
Below is a sample of what I think is a good greet when performing an annual tune up. It say’s everything that needs to be said and nothing more.
Step 1 Get their agenda.
Tech: Hi Mrs. Jones I’m _______. Thank you for letting us come out. I’m here to do your system check.
Ask questions and listen. Some questions that you may ask:
Step 2 Express your agenda and get agreement
The reason I’m here is to make sure that your system is reliable, efficient and safe.
Tech:I don’t expect to find anything but If find a concern with something, what I would like to do is bring it to your attention and then you can guide me as to what you would like to do, if anything. How does that sound?
What is the bottom line? We talk when we get nervous and all of us should learn to embrace out own anxiety and say less and listen more. Say only what needs to be said and nothing more. Relax, rest and embrace the silence. This is the evidence of true wisdom.
Roger Daviston is a cognitive behavioral specialist who helps clients achieve and maintain behavioral change. His new book The Service Call Blueprint is available on Amazon.com.
Watch The Service Call Blueprint webinar online. RogerDaviston.com
Doug is a service technician in Atlanta. He is a single parent with three children. Doug would get all his calls in the morning and rush through them in order to be with his children when they came home from school. This is known as “run and gun.” Doug would run as fast as he could and get about 10 calls done each day, bringing in about $3,000 per week.
This pattern was duplicated with all the techs, who received their calls for the day at once and were pushed to answer them all. The idea was that to make more money, we must run more calls.
Each call is not worth much money. Right? Service is a necessary evil. Right? Sound familiar?
Doug is a novice with “The Service Call Blueprint,” however, he is growing and learning. Doug ran 3.8 calls per day the week ending on July 14. He sold $9,825.11 with 19 calls and went home on time by 4:00PM.
Expectations drive behavior. Leaders set expectations.
Dispatch now is expected to give Doug one call at a time and Doug is expected to take his time and execute The Service Call Blueprint. Dispatch is expected to ensure that Doug does not work past 4:00PM. Do you see the boundaries that we have established?
Let’s look at the math. Under Run and Gun, techs went on 40 calls per week, bringing in $2,000-$3,000 compared with The Service Call Blueprint in which there were 19 calls per week, accounting for $9,825.11.
Owning the service call.
This was a process and it took time to build trust between coworkers. Doug was angry about getting one call at a time because he lost control of “run and gun.” We asked him to trust dispatch to get him home by 4:00PM. Now dispatch owns dispatch and Doug owns the service call. Lets look at some other boundaries we set for Doug. He is expect to slow down, execute the greeting as taught, the diagnosis as taught, the presentation of the option sheet as taught and collect the money up front as taught. Doug is expected to think only about the call he is on.
This company is implementing “The Service Call Blueprint” and it is still a work in progress. Call backs are being minimized. Work load is being reduced and service revenue is tripling.
A second generation business, this company was recently purchased by the son when his father retired. The son initially told me, “Roger we have always lost money in the service department and we have to change something.”
Do you need to change too?
The Service Call Blueprint- field tested strategies for higher revenue, my latest book available on Amazon, describes a systematic process of how to execute a service call. In this article I’ll summarize the process.
Put two bookends on the service call by exiting the truck immediately on arrival and pulling away immediately when finished. You risk leaving a bad impression if you linger after finishing the call and you risk irritating the customer by hesitating before you knock on the door.
Check the customer history file before you arrive. For those of you who have access to a mobile device, go though all of the history. Familiarize yourself with the past service calls and anything else that is important to know.
For those of you who do not have mobile technology, you must call dispatch and you must take ownership of this task. You will avoid credibility-crushing questions by educating yourself beforehand. The customer will have confidence in you and you will be perceived as very prepared.
Walk up to the door with no tools in your hand. That is right! Nothing to do with tools should be in your hands. This is the most important part of the service call and it is not time to start working. We want to establish our agenda and get agreement. This is a time for listening and asking questions. The greeting should go something like this.
Tech: Hi Mrs. Jones. I’m Roger with ABC Heating & Air. Thanks for calling us out here to today. How can I help you and tell me what is going on.
This first part of the greeting does two things, it expresses gratitude and asks for their agenda. Then listen and ask more questions. We want them to talk as much as possible. If they are talking and you are listening, you are bonding and building rapport. Really listen. Listening to another person is one of the most deeply connecting things that you can do for another person. Next say this.
Tech: Is it okay if I explain my process so you can get comfortable with it? Wait for permission.
Tech: I am going to go ahead and get my tools and figure out what we need to do to get you going. Once I determine what that is, I would like to sit down with you and go over your options for repair. Then you can decide what is best for you. You are the boss. How does that sound?
Wait for agreement.
So now we have established something. We heard them and understand them. They feel affirmed. We gave them our agenda and got agreement. They now know what to expect. Our agenda is to sit down and show them options for repair and they must make their own choice. It is not our choice to make for them. Don’t violate this boundary. They own this problem, not you.
Now go get your tools and do a complete diagnosis of the problem. Take your time. Go to your van and build an option sheet after you determine what is wrong. Let us assume for this example, it is a bad capacitor. Build an option sheet by asking yourself these questions:
1.What is my main concern and what is needed?
Answer these questions and build a top option with four or five bundled repairs in addition to what is needed.
Let’s look at my menu.
Two Year warranty
Platinum Option
Capacitor
New Solid State Contactor
New Hard Start Kit
New Surge Protector
Restore System To Clean Condition $950
One Year warranty
Gold Option
Capacitor
New Solid State Contactor
New Hard Start Kit
Restore System To Clean Condition $800
120 Day Warranty
Silver Option
Capacitor
New Solid State Contactor
Restore System To Clean Condition $575
60 Day Warranty
Bronze Option
Capacitor
Restore System To Clean Condition $450
30 Day Warranty
Quick Fix which risk of other things going wrong
Capacitor $300
Presenting this menu properly is extremely important and must be learned word for word. Those of you who execute this properly will have a rise rate of 70%. This means that 70% of the time a customer will pick Bronze or higher.
Tech: Mrs. Jones, Have you got a minute to sit down and go over your options?
Sit down somewhere and do not show them your menu yet. Keep it for your eyes only. We will show them the options in less than a minute but now is not the time.
Tech: I found an issue with a component called a capacitor and I can fix it.
Add this if it applies:
Your system is of the age where some folks consider replacing. Do you want to replace it or fix it?
Usually, they want to see the repair estimate first.
Tech: I am going to show you several options to take care of the problem today. The top option is my best option and you would only want to pick that option if you want your system fixed, more reliable and better than it was before I showed up.
Now read the top option to them and then say,
Tech: If you choose this option, it is $950, but I do have all these other options. Now show them the menu sheet and let them hold it.
Then ask what they would like to do.
When they ask a question about the difference between the options answer the why not the what by saying this.
Tech: Mrs. Jones, that’s a good question and I hear that a lot. The bottom option is why I am here. It takes care of my initial concern. As you go up the menu, you will gain more reliability; If you pick the top option, it is like you don’t want this thing to break again for a long time. Where do you feel like you fit most comfortably?
The Service Call Blueprint-Field Tested Strategies for Higher Revenue can be found on Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/Service-Call-Blueprint-Strategies-Revenue/dp/1546381937
It is a work book and has big print and is easy to read. It goes into much more detail than have space to cover in a short article.
Other resources:
A Day In The Life of a Technician
https://app.webinarjam.net/register/26169/843d8cbd04
A 15:00 minute live recored presentation where Zeke sold a top option.
The Service Call Blueprint Webinar
https://app.webinarjam.net/register/26169/99b51320f0
If you would like a complimentary coaching session here is a link to my online calendar.
http://meetme.so/RogerDaviston
