10 Technician Dispatch Tips to Keep Profits High & Schedules Moving
A commercial service company with an inefficient dispatching system might have technicians traveling great distances from call to call with no rhyme or reason as to which customer gets serviced when or by whom. Without effective technology and workflows, chaos is bound to ensue—especially as companies grow.
Imagine how challenging it is for the dispatcher trying to manage routes and schedules with no view of truck locations in the field. And how frustrated a technician might be when he has to travel fifty miles away from home—to the area he was in just that morning—to complete his last service call. Customers will, inevitably, be dissatisfied with the resulting delayed service (or a tech who shows up without the skills or equipment needed to address their problem) and that will affect customer churn, online reviews, and both short and long-term business goals.
But—good news!—an excellent dispatching system has the opposite effect. Confident dispatchers, smart routes, happy techs, and satisfied customers. That’s why training competent, knowledgeable dispatchers and enabling them with the best dispatch software is so important for commercial service contractors.
In this article, we’ll share our top dispatching tips and how to use an efficient dispatching system to improve operations and satisfaction across the board.
1. Identify current pain points
Why are you interested in updating your dispatch process? What problems are most negatively affecting the business? Maybe technicians aren’t arriving on time and customer experience is poor. Maybe techs are spending too much time behind the wheel or arriving to calls without the equipment and customer information they need. Whatever the problem, identifying and prioritizing top pain points will help you pick the right dispatch strategies, workflows, and technology.
2. Communicate how improving processes will positively impact your team
Change is hard. To promote a supportive environment for updating dispatching processes, announce the changes to your staff in advance. Make sure you provide an explanation for the process change and communicate the ways that it will make life easier for your office staff and service technicians.
3. Define your dispatch strategy
Your company, like all companies, has unique reasons for updating your dispatching processes. Make sure everyone understands the strategies and priorities. You may want to optimize your dispatch process to fit in as many jobs as possible daily, routing calls as closely together as possible. Alternatively, you may want to optimize to ensure you’re sending your most experienced technicians to the biggest, most profitable jobs and your newer techs to the smaller, easier jobs. Every company will have its own strategy.
Once you’ve defined your strategy, provide your dispatch team with a clear prioritization system. This is a set of rules (you may employ work order categories, color-coding, or a tagging system) that helps dispatchers prioritize pre-scheduled work, work that is due (like inspections) and emergency service calls, as well as identify the best technician to service each call.
4. Find streamlining opportunities
While reviewing the dispatching process, take the time to inspect from a high level and identify any bulky parts of the process. These may include inefficient routing, over or under scheduling, an inability to address urgent repair requests without breaking schedules, or inefficient communications between the office and the field. These opportunities shouldn’t be hard to identify, because they’re the pain points your staff complains about!
5. Invest in recruiting
Having the right number of service technicians on staff is essential to your overall operations and customer satisfaction. Having said that, we know how challenging maintaining a fully-staffed team can be in this market. We suggest prioritizing recruiting and retaining technicians and optimizing your dispatching strategy to help the techs you have right now be more efficient.
Proper routing and triaging will get your technicians to the right places, but if they show up without sufficient knowledge of the work order, facility, or equipment, they won’t be able to do their best work. A field service mobile application that enables technicians to access centralized customer data, equipment service history, and notes from the office can have a big impact on efficiency, improving both your technician’s ability to do good work and your customer’s satisfaction.
7. Assign efficient routes with GPS mapping
Creating logical routes that reduce travel time for your technicians improves efficiency and revenue potential while prioritizing work-life balance for your field team. Providing the ability for techs to dispatch from home saves on fuel costs, allows them time for more calls and improves employee satisfaction. And using GPS mapping for scheduling can help create efficient routes and track trucks so that your office knows which qualified techs are available and close by to take on urgent work orders.
A simple dispatching tip adopted by many commercial service contractors is to keep the last couple of hours on your technicians’ schedules open. This limits the possibility that techs will have to miss their last call of the day because other jobs took longer than expected. A cushion in schedules will also make room for urgent new work orders.
9. Keep customers informed
Today, communication is essential. Keeping customers informed throughout the day has a big impact on customer experience. In addition to sending customers routine service reminders, alerting them that their technician is en route signals that you care about your customer’s time and reduces bad surprises in their busy day.
10. Use dispatching software to modernize your process
Dispatching software makes life easier for your entire team and is an essential tool if you want to achieve max efficiency. Access to GPS information enables dispatchers to efficiently add last-minute repair calls and make adjustments to the schedule. Smart dispatch software will also automate communications, eliminating the need for back-and-forth phone calls between the office and the field.
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ServiceTrade, a robust software solution made exclusively for commercial service contractors, includes GPS scheduling capabilities, automated communications to customers and technicians, and one centralized location for shared data—so techs arrive at job sites with all the information they need. Want to learn more? Schedule a demo.
How to Recruit HVAC Technicians for Your Commercial HVAC Company
Skilled technicians are the backbone of successful commercial HVAC businesses. However, it’s no secret that finding qualified HVAC technicians and retaining them is one of the biggest challenges managers and business owners face. In a cut-throat industry, where employees are poached regularly by competitors, it’s essential to recruit the best HVAC technicians and keep them longterm.
In this article, we’ll talk about the most efficient and effective ways for commercial service HVAC companies to attract skilled labor, hire the best techs, and retain their top talent longterm.
Start with a great job description
Creating a job posting is the first step to finding and recruiting qualified technicians. Managers and owners with technical experience should contribute to job postings, even if you’ve tasked an outside recruiter with the hiring job. It’s all about crafting a standout job description that attracts top talent and clearly sets expectations for the job.
Write a compelling job post
Remember, as much as you’re trying to find the best candidate, job seekers are trying to find the best employer. For that reason, your job post should promote both the tangible benefits—like competitive pay, paid time off, and health insurance—and the intangible benefits—like company culture and mentorship opportunities—of the job.
Clearly define required skills and qualifications
Make required skills and qualifications easy to spot within the job post. This cuts down on bad-fit applicants and will save you time in the application review process. Many hiring managers also like to include additional desired skills and qualifications. This helps job seekers better understand the expectations of the job while helping you define what an ideal applicant looks like.
Tip: Use concise bullet points and bolding to highlight these sections. A standout skills section might look something like this:
Required Qualifications & Skills
5 or more years of HVAC service technician experience.
3 or more years of diagnosing, inspecting, repairing, and maintaining commercial grade HVAC systems.
Valid driver’s license with clean 3-year MVR.
EPA Universal Certification.
Additional Desired Qualifications
3+ years of installing commercial grade HVAC systems.
EPA Type II Certification.
You may also post a separate job posting for entry-level technicians with fewer qualifications. Be sure to mention that you’re willing to train these techs and welcome anyone with your minimum qualifications to apply.
Offer a competitive salary & benefits
Salary, wages, and benefits are top incentives for technicians when they’re searching for a job. Skimping on pay and benefits isn’t an option in a competitive market, and highly skilled, reliable technicians will expect competitive wages.
In addition to competitive wages, you can gain an edge over other companies by offering employee perks like hiring bonuses, fun company events, mentoring or on-the-job education, and performance-based bonuses.
ServiceTrade makes it easy for creative managers to incentivize performance by tracking activities like clock events, jobs completed on time, deficiencies found, rich media attachments.
Additional tip: While you build your budget and strategize recruiting tactics, don’t neglect your current technicians. Employee retention is the best way to keep your team fully staffed and your business healthy. Remember to appropriately compensate your techs as labor costs change, keeping in mind that the competition is eager to recruit your best HVAC techs.
Advertise your technology (and why it makes you better than your competitors)
In a competitive labor market, advertising how and why your tech solutions make you a better employer can go a long way. We suggest that companies who use ServiceTrade highlight the software in job postings and the advantages it gives their staff (less windshield time, dispatch from home, fewer distracting phone calls or trips to the office, and better info about every work order and customer.) Don’t forget to tie the software back to your why (ex. “We value our staff’s time and work-life balance.”).
Make it easy to apply
A clunky, time-consuming application process can deter skilled technicians from applying to your company for a couple of reasons. One, it’s inconvenient and time-consuming! Even job seekers who want to find a job ASAP will opt to apply at companies with easy application processes. Because why apply to one job when you could apply to four in the same amount of time?
And two, it indicates that you’re not invested in making your technicians’ work (and lives) easier with technology. Valuing your employees’ time starts at the application stage.
Where there’s already a small applicant pool, you need to remove barriers to job seekers by making it as easy to apply as possible. If you’re still using a manual-fill application, consider providing an option to attach a resume instead. Or start accepting 1-click applications from job sites like LinkedIn and Indeed.
Promote your open positions
Successfully promoting your open positions will result in a better candidate pool. Sometimes, finding the best places to promote job postings depends on the type of role you’re filling. If you’re searching for an apprentice or entry-level technician, you might have the best luck at colleges or trade schools. Social media can also be a great place to connect with young, entry-level techs.
If you’re searching for a senior-level technician, you might consider using a recruiter to assist in your search, or posting on LinkedIn. All positions can benefit from being promoted by current employees (employee referrals), on job boards, and via community networking (word of mouth).
Job Boards
Posting open positions on job boards like Indeed, LinkedIn, and ZipRecruiter allows job seekers to discover your open positions and gives them an easy way to apply. Many trade associations also provide job boards.
Colleges & Trade Schools
Posting HVAC technician job ads at relevant colleges and trade schools and attending job fairs is a great way to meet the talent where they’re at and spread awareness about your company.
Social Media
Posting about or advertising open roles on social media can help you reach a larger audience of prospective candidates.
Recruiters
Tasking an outside recruiter to source and qualify candidates can be a great solution for busy hiring managers. The best recruiters will be familiar with hiring skilled labor professionals and the HVAC industry.
Referrals & Networking (community relationships)
Employee referrals are among the best ways to hire skilled and reliable technicians. For this reason, a high incentive referral plan can often be a great investment of your budget.
And the value of human connection doesn’t stop with referrals. Networking at HVAC industry events, trade schools and online can help build awareness of your company and introduce you to your future best technicians.
Before interviewing, you’ll want to carefully review each application to identify the candidates who meet the job requirements. Offer interviews to the top applicants whose experience and ability meet or exceed your expectations for the role.
Verify the applicant’s skillset
Take the opportunity to speak with the candidate about their certifications and experience to verify they have the needed skills. Asking skills-based questions allows candidates to display their knowledge and expertise. When interviewing less experienced technicians, create an open environment that allows them to speak honestly about what on-the-job training they’ll need.
Make sure the applicant has the right soft skills
The interview is your opportunity to confirm that in addition to having the right education and hard skill abilities, the technician is also a great personality fit for your team. Techs are the face of your business in the field, so good interpersonal skills and trustworthiness are important.
Onboarding and managing your team
Once you’ve found and hired the best HVAC technicians, you need to retain them. Many employees churn during the training period, so it’s essential to make sure new techs see you as a competent and welcoming employer in this phase (and beyond, of course).
Commercial HVAC companies with the best employee retention rates provide fair compensation, training, mentoring, and opportunities for advancement and continued growth. Additionally, the best companies make their techs feel comfortable, heard, and respected. They provide a fair workload and maintain open lines of communication.
ServiceTrade can help streamline workflows and make your technicians’ lives easier. The mobile application makes it easy for techs to keep their service calls and all related information accessible in one spot, and makes real-time communications and updates easy, saving techs valuable time.
How Centralized Data Benefits Your Team and Your Customers
From scheduling to servicing to billing, the work of commercial service contractors is a big collaboration. The key to peak operational efficiency and excellent customer service is centralized data that is consistent and accessible to all team members at all times.
That’s why collecting and organizing your data is the first order of business when you join ServiceTrade. In fact, it’s our objective to compile all data and import it into ServiceTrade before your onboarding window even begins—whenever possible.
6 Key Types of Data to Gather From the Start
Every ServiceTrade Contractor works with their implementation specialist to gather and import data into ServiceTrade as a first, essential step when onboarding. You can visit this Help Center article for more information on how you prepare your data for import into ServiceTrade.
Here are 6 key types of data you’ll be asked to bring to the table and why they’re necessary.
Customers – Making your customer’s contact and billing information easily accessible to everyone ensures your team doesn’t have to spend time searching for contact details and that your invoices always make it to the right place.
Services – Both one-time and recurring services performed at a specific location with descriptions, tasks, and frequency of recurrence. Setting up recurring services means less scheduling work for your staff and that you’ll never miss a routine call.
Items – Parts and labor line items that are usually exported from accounting and essential for invoicing customers and tracking costs.
Assets – Lists of customer-owned equipment that you inspect and maintain. They include details, such as description and serial number, making educated service calls and routine maintenance simple.
PDF Paperwork – ServiceTrade turns your paperwork into fillable forms and makes sure your techs have the forms they need.
Logo and Branding – Not technically a type of data, but an important addition to the list. All of your customer touch points will be branded with your company name and logo, forming your Digital Wrap.
5 Ways Centralized Data Benefits Your Team and Your Customers
Scattered data is often the root cause of errors and inefficiencies for commercial service contractors. With disparate systems and dispersed data, it’s difficult for teams to keep track of the information needed to provide good service and correctly invoice customers.
Here are five key benefits ServiceTrade customers experience after centralizing their data.
1. A Reduction in Time to Invoice and Better Cash Flow
Office staff no longer have to track down coworkers to decipher service records, wait for techs to deliver paperwork, or search for updated customer contact information. With everything in one place, invoices get sent to the right place quickly, improving cash flow.
2. Better, More Consistent Customer Service
When technicians, service managers, and office staff have a complete picture of customer communications and history, customer experience drastically improves. Shared data brings your whole team into the loop so it’s easy to get up-to-speed on customer issues and better serve them.
3. Easier Communication Between the Office and the Field
Adding a repair call to a technician’s schedule no longer requires frustrating back and forth on the phone. With time tracking data, GPS, and shared schedules, dispatchers can see where techs are on their routes and who has time for an added job. They can then alert the technician and provide all work order, customer, and equipment information needed via ServiceTrade.
4. Faster Quoting
Instant access to service records and discovered deficiencies allows office staff to prepare quotes faster, improving acceptance rates. Quotes also become more accurate and detailed with the inclusion of shared rich media like photos and audio notes stored in ServiceTrade. Many ServiceTrade Contractors provide a repair quote within 24 hours of finding a problem.
5. Better Prepared Technicians
With access to customer data, techs can arrive on site with all the information they need. They’ll have knowledge of past maintenance, repairs, and open deficiencies. Informed techs can be confident fielding customer questions and doing their best work.
ServiceTrade customers can view the status of their data imports and other onboarding tasks at any time via their Journey Dashboard.
Don’t Use Residential Software for a Commercial Service Business
Commercial and residential service contractors work completely differently. So why would a commercial contractor adopt service management software designed for residential contractors?
While they work in similar fields — HVAC, plumbing, electrical — commercial and residential service contractors work in altogether different ways.
Three key differences highlight the complex work demands that face commercial contractors — and reveal ways in which the right service management software can drive success.
Commercial contractors generally work:
In long-term relationships wherein both maintenance and repair work is structured contractually.
On complex systems of capital equipment that require years — sometimes decades — of precise, detailed, and documented maintenance.
With facility owners and managers who require a clear understanding of the condition of the equipment in their facility so they can make good decisions that reduce the risk of costly downtime.
Let’s examine each of these three differentiators more closely.
Long-term relationships with customers wherein both maintenance and repair work is structured contractually.
The work of residential contractors tends to be transactional in nature — a home’s air conditioner isn’t cooling properly, so the homeowner calls for help. That homeowner may not experience a similar problem or interact with the same contractor again.
So, the residential technician must capture the homeowner’s consent and credit card information immediately, while still at the property, lest the company not get paid for its work.
This contrasts significantly with commercial service contractors who sign long-term contracts with customers detailing exactly what maintenance and service repair work is involved before a technician steps foot on the property.
The commercial service contractor performs their work under contract to make workload and cash flow more even and predictable throughout the year. In return, the customer realizes better outcomes with higher equipment uptime, fewer emergencies, and predictable pricing.
Commercial service contractors require software that manages the delivery of complicated recurring services on specific pieces of equipment within each contract. They also want to communicate information to the customer in a way that validates the value of the contractual relationship.
Complex systems of capital equipment that require years — sometimes decades — of precise, detailed, and documented maintenance management.
Commercial service contractors work with complicated, integrated, and expensive systems — the failure of which puts customers at serious legal, financial, and reputational risk.
The right service management platform helps the commercial service contractor intervene early by delivering on an established preventative maintenance schedule, staying ahead of potential problems, and mitigating that risk of failure.
Say, for example, a commercial technician performs routine maintenance on three compressors for which there are six blowers, and identifies that one blower needs repair. Consulting the equipment’s service history, the technician sees that the same blower has been repaired two times already for the same issue. At that point, the technician might escalate the repair to recommend replacement.
Likewise, commercial service technicians need to see incremental movement on potential problems — a pressure gauge registering 8% now, whereas it registered 4% the month before. More than seeing the potential problem, a commercial service contractor needs to share that information with the customer in pictures, videos, and notes to help the customer fully understand the problem, and appreciate that a repair may be necessary now or in the future.
Appropriate intervention on expensive and long-lasting capital equipment can extend lifespan — and help safeguard the customer against short-term and long-term risk.
With facility owners and managers who require a clear understanding of the condition of the equipment in their facility so they can make good decisions that reduce the risk of costly downtime.
A homeowner can tell right away that the residential contractor did the work they were paid to do because the problem went away.
The facility owner pays for annual preventative maintenance services that may not result in detectable changes. So how does the customer know that the contractor did the work they were paid to do? Moreover, if the contractor delivers their work well, the customer will see no disruptions, no downtime, and experience no drama.
To validate that customer’s trust, commercial service contractors must share reports with the customer that detail what equipment was maintained, when it was serviced, and if any problems were discovered. This is a challenge; commercial customers are busy with non-facility matters, so vendor interactions must be fast, easy, and readily available.
Modern commercial service management software should deliver reports online and offer other conveniences, such as the ability to request service and or view a detailed service history in a portal — showing work in ways that help keep the customer a long-term customer.
Putting relationships over transactions.
ServiceTrade enhances a commercial service contractor’s ability to demonstrate long-term value to commercial service contractors by fostering communication and transparency, and mitigating customer risk.
To learn how ServiceTrade can help your commercial service business build stronger and more transparent relationships with customers, request a demo with an application expert.
Solving the problem bigger than double data entry
Is the administrative burden of data entry in your back office the biggest problem you face as a service contractor? Just imagine how much easier life would be if you could eliminate all of that wasteful double data entry. Just imagine what it would be like if your technicians could capture data in the field that would flow directly into your accounting system without any additional steps. Your technicians, after all, are known for their accuracy and attention to detail when it comes to recording financial information, right? And, no big deal if they make a mistake! You can easily reconcile data on the backend and make adjustments all while trying to close the books, right? Is your blood pressure elevated yet?
Though it may feel like the infamous “double data entry” is your most important problem to solve, think again. Double data entry, also known as two-pass-verification, is actually an established quality control method where two people enter the same data separately into a system in order to find errors. Sound familiar? How often does your back office catch errors made by your service team? Never, right? Jokes aside, the back office and double data entry are not fully appreciated for their role in catching errors and making sure that financial data is accurate.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that all double data entry is good. With quality control in mind, you should eliminate as much unnecessary administrative burden as you can with integrations and bulk-data imports to your accounting system. However, the time spent on data entry pales in comparison to the time wasted on a much bigger problem that is often overlooked. This problem spans all the way from data entry to collections and leads to delays and issues in running your payroll and closing your books every month. You can refer to this as the “what happened” problem.
How much time does your financial team waste and how often is month-end delayed when they have to drop everything to chase the details about exactly what happened on a job so they can accurately account for costs and bill the customer?
How often does your team have to chase techs to find out what happened this week so they can run payroll on time?
How much time does your team waste chasing payments only to get push-back from customers because they don’t understand what happened on a particular job?
Once your financial team finally figures out what happened, how much time do they waste correcting data, reconciling accounts, making adjustments, and issuing customer credits?
Be the back-office hero by solving the “what happened” problem.
“What happened” is killing your back-office efficiency and, even worse, tarnishing your customer service delivery. The good news is that there is a solution to this problem. ServiceTrade not only integrates with your accounting system or enables bulk data imports to reduce unnecessary administrative burden, it is specifically designed to answer the question “what happened?” by enabling techs to capture rich information about every job including pictures, videos, equipment details and issues, digital paperwork, payroll details, items used, and much more. All that information is not only easily accessible by your entire team, but also by your customer, so everyone will know exactly what happened on every job.
Just imagine what it would be like if your team knew exactly what happened on every job and had all the information they needed when accounting for work delivered. Just imagine not having to chase payments because customers understood exactly what happened on every job and pay you promptly because they know you did a great job. Double data entry may seem like the most important problem to solve, but “what happened” is the hidden problem that’s really killing your back-office efficiency.
Commercial Service Contractors – Can You Reduce Busy Work in the Busy Season?
Busy season is here for many commercial service contractors. Being busy is much better than the alternative, but this busy season may be a good opportunity for you to examine your current operations and workflows and ask, “What are my people busy doing?”
Busy doesn’t necessarily mean productive. In fact, busy often means hurried, overwhelmed, and constantly running in reactive mode. This isn’t good for you or your company. Eliminating the unnecessary busy work can go a long way in improving morale during a stressful busy season. Instead, focus on working smarter and increasing productivity across the board for all your employees.
For the purposes of this post, we are looking at the busy work that arises when customers are calling in emergency repair work. Let’s look at four basic stages or phases of an emergency repair job to identify areas where you can potentially reduce busy work, and reduce stress levels for you and others in your company.
Phase 1: The customer calls
A customer with an emergency calls in a repair request. One of your front office staff members fields the call and gathers all the necessary details. They may scribble notes on a piece of paper, or type information into a spreadsheet saved to their computer. Either way, it’s likely the beginning of information about the job being recorded everywhere but one central location, which is going to cost you a lot of time over the course of the job.
Busy work time drains:
Retyping job details into the work order.
Failing to have an online emergency request form. (Which could reduce the amount of information your staff has to type in to a work order, or even allow the customer to go directly to phase 2.)
Searching for the customer’s contract to find the SLA for emergency service calls.
Phase 2: You schedule the service call
Once the work order is created, it’s time to schedule the service call, and fast. But unless you have real-time visibility to your techs’ schedules, an increased volume of emergency calls can create a lot of distracting, time-consuming phone calls in just getting the tech to the job. The pace that comes with the busy season can make even the best organized spreadsheet or whiteboard outdated by mid-morning.
Busy work time drains:
Identifying techs who can take the emergency call.
Figuring out which techs are nearby.
Distracting phone calls to technicians who are on another job.
Phase 3: Your service techs do the work
Once the tech is on site, questions they have about the location or facility will require that they search through a stack of papers, search their email, or call the office to get more information. Even worse, you may find the information your tech needs is on a piece of paper you can’t find, or in the head of an employee who is on vacation.
Busy work time drains:
Techs driving to and from the office to pick up paper copies of work orders and schedules.
Techs calling around to get facility or equipment information.
Phone calls to the customer to let them know the tech is on the way.
Phase 4: You invoice the customer
Once the tech drops off the paperwork (unnecessary in and of itself), the fun for the back office begins.
Overwhelmed techs are filling out paperwork faster than ever. Sloppy handwriting and incomplete descriptions can be an even bigger than usual source of frustration for your back office staff. Someone in your back office has to retype information from work orders into your accounting system. Techs are hard to get a hold of when your accounting team has a question about the paperwork, or, even worse, an irate customer calls in with a question about their bill.
Busy work time drains:
Trying to decipher tech handwriting and notes on paper work orders.
Double data entry – retyping all information from the work order into your accounting system.
Searching for the contract to find the customer’s agreed upon rate for emergency service calls.
All these time drains assume the paperwork is already in the office. Waiting on paperwork to get back to the office is a common problem for commercial service contractors. Techs keep paperwork in their trucks until the end of the day or week, and then bring it into the office for back office staff to process. (Unless they’ve lost it somewhere along the way.) While it’s more of a bottleneck than busy work, it’s a huge opportunity for companies who want to streamline processes. While you are identifying busy work tasks, take a look at this process within your organization to see if there are opportunities for improvement.
Use this busy season to better your business
Commercial service contractors can save time for techs in the field, front office staff, and back office staff by reducing busy work that comes with a higher volume of jobs. Use this busy season as a discovery period to identify inefficiencies in your processes. Then, you can use your slower season to implement solutions based on your findings. Otherwise, you’ll be losing time and money from the same busy season busy work this time next year.
Cyber Attacks in Fire and Life Safety
In 2019, there’s a fresh wave of ransomware hackers targeting US-based fire and life safety contractors that have legacy server systems. Several have been either forced to pay a bounty or face devastating disruptions when the cyber attack is unleashed. If you believe you are safe because no one is going to notice or care about your business, you are wrong. And the weakest link on your network that hosts your legacy server systems is no match for the professional criminals that are extorting you.
Now is the time to move all of your critical customer operations data to a modern cloud architecture. It is no longer a matter of being competitive in customer operations in your market. It is now about a choice to remain an ongoing business concern or be wiped out by a cyber criminal. The idea that you want to connect all of your technicians and all of your customers to a server on your network for them to collaborate in delivering your service value opens up innumerable vulnerabilities. It is just a crazy idea. If instead, they are all connecting to Amazon’s network (all ServiceTrade applications are protected by Amazon’s security) or Google’s network or Microsoft’s network, you are largely insulated from attack.
No one keeps their financial assets in a safe on their property any longer – they trust a commercial financial institution to be a good steward and use computers to deliver interesting applications to protect those assets while growing their value. It is time to take the same approach with what is arguably the most valuable asset of your business – your customer operations data. Who do you serve? What is the schedule? What equipment do they have? How do they pay you? What is your contract with them? What new opportunities for revenue are at their locations? If this information is protected by Amazon or Google or Microsoft, your business can continue to deliver value everyday. If it is vulnerable because of a legacy server on your network, that value can slip away pretty quickly. Don’t lose what you have worked so hard to build simply because you did not take the time to transition to a modern customer management platform.
Need help buying SaaS software?
You’ll always make good software-buying decisions when you follow the 6 pieces of advice in the Software Buying Guide for Commercial Service Contractors. Download and read it here.
5 Questions to Help Service Contractors Build More Valuable Businesses
Much of the popular culture in management consulting today is focused on the customer experience. Matt Dixon, the author of one of my favorite management books, The Challenger Sale, is spending many of his cycles promoting another of his books, The Effortless Experience. Shep Hyken is a customer service guru with a new book called The Convenience Revolution. And my latest book with Shawn Mims, Money For Nothing, focuses on the science behind making a customer feel good about their experience buying from commercial service contractors.
Yet even with all of this focus on customer experience, I still find that most service contractors remain firmly entrenched in a war to optimize the effort expended in their back office instead of directing their management attention to enhancing customer service. I have come up with a couple of questions that might help challenge that back office focus if the goal is to build a more valuable business.
Question 1: How easy is it to hire a new back office administrator versus hiring a new skilled technician?
This is an easy one, right? The answer is that hiring an administrator is very easy when compared to hiring a technician. Management’s focus should be on maximizing the productivity of each technician so that they deliver the maximum amount of revenue each day while simultaneously eliminating the risk a customer faces due to potential equipment failure. Your goal should be to increase revenue per technician 20% per year every year. Never yield in the pursuit of greater productivity for the technicians. Hiring administrators is easier, so transfer as much work as possible off the technicians and onto back office staff.
Question 2: How easy is it for your customer to review and approve a new quote?
If the answer is that they have to download an Excel file or PDF, print it, sign it, scan it, upload it, and email it back to you, that answer sucks. That is difficult. Not easy. Compare that level of effort with an online quote with pictures and video of the issue and a single button to push to “Approve” (or request changes) and provide a purchase order for billing purposes. Oh, and it never hurts that when the customer has viewed the quote online, the salesperson knows it has been viewed and can follow up to answer any questions. Don’t make it difficult for the customer to give you more money and remove risk from their environment by upgrading or repairing equipment (which is also good for you).
Question 3: Which is more valuable: eliminating all administrative overhead or showing an ability to sustain 20% revenue growth every year?
Again, it is an easy answer. Eliminating all of the administrative effort is worth perhaps 5 – 8% of revenue. Growth is MUCH more valuable if you can demonstrate you have a systematic way to sustain it due to your customer sales and service approach. If you ever intend to sell your business or bring on a new shareholder, focusing management effort and technology purchases on enhancing sales productivity is where you should spend your thought cycles and investment capital.
Question 4: How easy is it for you to show the customer the value of your work online?
Or do you just send them an invoice with a bunch of text and cryptic accounting codes to represent the value you deliver? If a customer has to wade through a detailed invoice, guess what is going to draw their eye? You got it, the numbers on the far right and in the bottom right corner. Guess what they are going to want to talk to you about? The value you delivered? Nope. “Why does it cost so much?” is the most popular question generated by an invoice.
Make it easy for them to see that value without digesting a cryptic invoice. It should be easy for them to see your work online in the form of service history for their equipment with photos, videos, risk assessments, quotes, etc. so that they see you are thoughtful and thorough in your approach to managing their important assets.
Question 5: How easy is it for your salespeople to show a new customer prospect how you are different?
Do you demonstrate the value of your unique approach to customer service? Pitching a value proposition of “we try harder” or “we care more” or “we are cheaper” sucks. It is much better to show the customer an online experience where they can conveniently review and engage with your company on ways to reduce risk and eliminate disruptions through a rich set of service history and equipment risk analysis.
If you cannot show prospective customers examples of this capability, what are you selling? Invoices? How do you expect to command a premium in the market compared to the low price competitor? Simple answer – don’t expect a premium and be prepared to compete on price.
I find all of these questions to be obvious indicators of where management should spend their effort – front office innovations that make customer service and revenue generation easier because the customer gets an effortless, or, better still, a feel good experience. So where are you spending your management effort? Front office and feel good? Or back office? Think about it.
5 Reasons Why Hiring Millennials No Different Than Hiring Previous Generations
For the last decade, my career has been centered around recruiting and managing millennials. Plus, I am one.
When we talk about recruiting and retaining millennials, I know what a lot of people are thinking: I don’t want to.
Millennials have been labeled as entitled, unfocused, and job jumpers. Some even call us narcissistic. When you think about the stereotypical millennial, this may resonate:
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants.”
Said every generation about the next. Don’t believe me? This quote is from Socrates.
Love them or hate them, millennials should be embraced into your organization. That is, unless you’re ok not employing anyone between the ages of 23-37. This makes millennials the largest generation represented in the workforce today. We’re extremely underrepresented among skilled trade workers in the U.S.. There are a higher number of skilled workers over the age of 45 and a higher number of them between 55-64 getting ready to retire. So during the skilled labor shortage, the largest generation available to you is being underutilized. That’s the bad news. You need millennials in the business and in your industry, and right now, they’re not there.
The good news is that once you start attracting millennials, they can help you attract more. If you create an environment to retain them and help them to thrive, they’ll not only be the future leaders of your company, but they’ll help drive you forward.
So, what do they want? Millennials prioritize these five attributes when looking for a job opportunity:
Money
Job security
Benefits
Time off
Great people
It doesn’t sound too different from what previous generations valued. What is different is how we define each of these. Remember, I’m an older millennial, and in 1998, I was 14 and a freshman in high school. This was the same year that Amazon started selling more than books and Netflix made it possible for me to rent movies without leaving the house.
About a decade later, I’d graduated college and moved to Montana with the dream of being on ESPN someday. It was also the time we went from
to
Suddenly, information was in the palm of our hand and we were connected with people across the country and around the world. We had an inside look into people’s lives. This was also the time of the great recession with home foreclosures, the stock market crash, and bank bailouts. And in 2008 we went from 630,000 Americans who were unemployed to 11,400,000.
Millennials grew up in a world of constant innovation throughout our adolescence. We became used to instant gratification, information at our fingertips, and glorified easy-money lifestyles. While many of us were impacted by the recession in our adult lives, we’ve really only seen a growing economy and we’re trying to optimize our own growth through it.
So let’s look at those five priorities again.
Money. As always, money is important. But what I hear is that millennials don’t want to pay their dues. They want it now. They don’t want to work for it. Well, you could blame Mark Zuckerberg. He became a millionaire at age 22 and a billionaire at age 23. So in one year, he want from a millionaire to a billionaire. It took Warren Buffett 26 years to do the same.
Social media has opened the door for us to see those glorified lifestyles. We get to see the best part of people’s lives. Lifestyles and experience let us show off the best part of our own. We want to be able to afford it. The skilled trade industries are increasing wages at a slower rate than others. Be competitive. Know what industries you’re competing against for employees.
Job Security. While most millennials don’t remember details around the last recession, we weren’t blind to the millions of people who were suddenly employed. For older millennials, we entered the job market and were suddenly competing with people with 10, 20, 30 years’ experience for entry-level jobs. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg went from a millionaire to a billionaire. So job security meant having the experience, the skills, the ability to self-improve, grow, and have the opportunity for growth.
It’s not just the second-highest priority that millennials look for while job searching, it’s also the second-highest reason why people leave their existing jobs.
Most millennials would prefer staying with the same company for the long haul but only if the growth opportunity exists. Ask yourself, when you have millennials who were in the business for a short period of time, how valued did they feel? Did they make an impact? Did they have an opportunity to grow, and did they know that?
Benefits. Traditional benefits like healthcare and retirement still apply – but those have become basic requirements. Lifestyle and experience have really expanded the concept of benefits.
This picture of me was part of a recruiting campaign for a company I worked for. There isn’t a software company that doesn’t advertise benefits like free snacks and things that some people call silly or distractions like Nerf guns, video games, or beanbags. They all play into the concept of lifestyle and experience that aren’t restricted to after 5pm. Ask yourself, what kind of lifestyle are your benefits supporting? Fun and fitness? Fun and creativity? Furry friends?
Time off. Growing up in a world when you’re constantly connected means that work doesn’t happen between 9-5. You aren’t restricted to an office or a desk. Because we’re constantly connected, the flexibility to step away is more important. We want the ability to take care of our personal lives, even if that’s during the week. Things like taking extended vacation is highly valued. I know these things are easier to do with office staff than with technicians, but I’ve talked to several companies who have worked with technicians on creating some level of flexibility. Get creative. It takes some work, but that work pays back dividends.
When millennials talk about time off, it’s not about unplugging. We’re addicted to our phones. We don’t unplug that much. It’s more than anything about flexibility.
Great people. Back during that recruiting campaign I mentioned earlier, I did a radio ad with a tagline “I have fun at work.” I wasn’t lying. I had a lot of fun at work. When I left six years later, the people were the hardest thing to leave. Looking back, the people kept me there for an extra year.
There are studies that show that having a work best friend increases productivity, job satisfaction, and retention. Those miscellaneous reasons in the chart above why people leave are often because of a toxic workplace and bad managers. So great people make a big difference.
Know what is important to all your prospective employees. Give your managers the resources and support to create an environment that makes everyone thrive. Millennials may value things a bit differently, but you’ll find that at the end of the day, they share common personal and professional goals with your more experienced employees.
Two Ways for Contractors to Attract More Service Technician Job Applications
Your reputation has always been important when recruiting talent because the best techs want to work at the best companies. But the mediums job seekers use to search for potential employers has changed. Word of mouth is still around but pales in importance compared to your company’s online reputation. Before a job seeker even applies, your website, social media presence, and online reviews help them through the first two phases of the job hunt: Discovery and research.
1. Be Easy to Discover
When a technician starts their job hunt and isn’t familiar with all the local companies, where do you think they start? Google, of course. They’ll search for companies in their industry and the top results will be the first companies they research. That’s how Google has trained us all. The top search results are the best bet, and searching for local companies is no exception. Fortunately, the fresh, dynamic content created by your Digital Wrap is exactly the kind of indicator Google uses to rank websites. Just by performing the day-to-day tasks associated with the services you offer, your techs will be collecting customer reviews and generating rich content that will help prospective employees (and customers) discover your company.
Millennials, almost exclusively, find and research new job opportunities online. Most of my millennial friends discovered, researched, and applied for their current job completely online without talking to a single person. From discovery on Google or a job board to exhaustive research of prospective companies, they did everything on their laptop or smartphone. They browsed the company website and social media for information about the mission and culture. Where applicable, they researched customer reviews. They paid especially close attention to the reviews from current and past employees.
Indeed and Glassdoor, two of the largest job listing websites, are the dominant players when it comes to company reviews by former and current employees. When you Google a company by name, the employee rating of that company on Indeed or Glassdoor are often in the top results. Very quickly, a potential candidate can see what real employees think about a company. This can work for or against you. From a job seekers perspective, zero company reviews is concerning, a bunch of bad reviews is a death knell, and a mix of mostly good reviews is a great sign. I say a mix because people will be suspicious of your reviews if they are all five stars. Just like with your customers, it’s ok to ask your employees to leave a review of your company, just be sure that the review truly represents what they think, not what you think. Don’t instruct them to leave a good review and be responsive and respectful of any results you receive.
2. Be Easy to Research
If they find your company online, potential employees are going to look at your company website before they apply for a job. Is your website going to help recruit them? Does it have the information they ‘re looking for? Candidates aren’t just searching for a company that has an opening. They want to know about company culture and values. What do you stand for? They want to get a feel for what it’s like to work there. Is it fun? Is it challenging? They want to know what the opportunities for growth are. Will they advance their technical skill set or have an opportunity for advancement? They also want an easy application process. The bigger the barrier to applying, the fewer candidates you’ll receive. For example, a simple, mobile-friendly web form that collects their name and phone number with a call to action like “Are you a skilled technician and want to learn more about working at Aardvark Services?” will receive a lot more candidates than a Byzantine application process that asks candidates every possible question and requires them to upload a resume. You’ll definitely do more work to qualify candidates and get more that aren’t a fit but, in the midst of a skilled labor shortage, that’s an acceptable cost. Chances are, you’ll lose candidates you want before they even have a chance to apply if your application process is too difficult. Keep it simple.
Social media is a powerful tool when recruiting, especially Facebook and LinkedIn. When a candidate is considering a company, most will review the company’s social media profile and posts to learn about the brand. Compared to the corporate website, job seekers expect to find a candid representation of the company’s personality. Posts about company events, employees, and corporate values go a long way to help them get a better feel for the company.
It’d be nice if you could meet all of your hiring demand with a flood of great candidates that found you online, but that’s not going to happen for every company. Most likely, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty and actively recruit new employees. Armed with a reputable brand and a strong presence online, it will be easier. All you have to do is ask.
For entry-level office and field positions, one ServiceTrade customer Guardian Fire Protection has another interesting recruiting approach. Once a month, they host an open door interview day. Anyone who shows up is guaranteed an interview. Now, some interviews are MUCH shorter than others, but everyone gets a shot. They advertise the event through craigslist, social media, and through their website. For a relatively low investment of time and money, they’ve filled multiple open positions. When they ask successful candidates that show up on the interview day why they didn’t just apply online, candidates often say that they didn’t feel like their resume was good enough.
If potential employees don’t already know about your brand, your website and reviews should drive discovery through search engine optimization. Once they discover your brand, your online reputation should drive their research to the conclusion that you are a great company to work for and that they should apply. You can do a lot to help your recruiting efforts by making the discovery and research easier for job seekers. Want a big bonus? Being easy to discover and research will help out your potential customers, too.
You’ll always make good software-buying decisions when you follow the 6 pieces of advice in the Software Buying Guide for Commercial Service Contractors. 
