What type of changes can you make to set your business apart from the competition? One answer is simple but so often overlooked: partnering with an elite-quality HVAC-Specialized Answering Service! How do you know if your HVAC business can benefit? The tell-tale conditions are easy to recognize, and once you see these indicators, you will wonder why you went so long without seeking help! Here are the signs to watch out for…and then act on!
Keep in mind, literally tens of thousands of US-based HVAC businesses use some form of “live answering service” for customer care and call-capture.
After-hours: Your calls come in at all hours and it’s taking a toll
Incoming customer and sales calls during business hours are great when staffing is full. But what about customers who call in after hours, weekends and holidays? (And if you’re a smaller operation, do you get stuck taking those calls?) Is your staff working undesirable and unpredictable on-call shifts to help cover these odd hours? Of course, customers will call in whenever they have a need, and deciphering caller requests requires a real person to answer every call regardless of the time of day. Yes, this can be overwhelming! With the help of an elite-quality HVAC answering service you can outsource your incoming calls to experienced agents who handle each and every customer call with professionalism and care. Agents act as call-screeners and will route emergency messages to on-call staff for priority attention, while saving non-urgent messages to for next-business-day attention. What better way to alleviate the burden of after-hours calls while still guaranteeing important inquiries never get missed?
During the day: You and your staff are often disrupted…and productivity is suffering
Are incoming calls disrupting your staff’s workflow? How many of your technicians get interrupted on the job site? Customers and potential customers like to explain what their situation is and expect your people to carefully listen as they go through the troubleshooting they tried before giving up and calling. While one-on-one customer service is important and a critical component of an HVAC business, it can come at great expense to busy staff. Using an elite-quality answering service will ensure your callers always receive super-high quality customer service…while eliminating costly disruptions for your people. And again, emergency calls are always routed immediately to on-call staff so if someone is disrupted on the job it’s for good reason!
Your customers are complaining of long hold times…or must leave a voicemail
Are you short-staffed during business hours, unable to keep up with calls? Customers who call in expect to talk to a human being. If you put incoming callers on-hold or send them to voicemail, you’re going to permanently lose some percentage valuable business. (And always remember that it is impossible to measure the business that you don’t get.) While current customers are more likely to stay on the line, waiting on-hold is frustrating. And for the caller, leaving a voice mail message or filling out an on-line form, not knowing if or when a response will be forthcoming, is frustrating to the point of despair. It’s not good! Further, what about new customers? This incredibly important segment of callers is most apt to hang up if put on hold, and move down the online laundry list of other competing HVAC companies. New customers with emergency situations require immediate assistance. Hiring an elite HVAC answering service to capture over-flow calls, during the day or after-hours, will guarantee that every customer who calls your number will speak to a real live person without painful hold times or impersonal voicemail. In the answering service industry, this is known as “call capture.” This is huge!
Don’t wait. Act now!
If these scenarios are familiar to you and your business is facing one or more of these problems on a regular basis, it’s high time you consider employing an elite-quality answering service. Your new service can be up and running in as little as 48 hours – and the cost will be a fraction of what it would cost to hire a new employee. There really is no better way to energize your business than to partner with an experienced elite, HVAC-specialized Answering Service.
