Answering Service
If you already have one you already know that having a high quality answering service in place is imperative to running a successful HVAC business. It allows your clients to reach you quickly in an emergency, it provides you with some freedom from constant interruption of nonsense phone calls and it is the best way to capture new business and capitalize on your marketing efforts. A quality answering service is a credit to your operation and a money maker, but conversely, a bad answering service can be a nightmare. Dropped calls, lost leads, poor customer service, these are just a few of the many problems with hiring a bad service. The fall months are a great time to explore the idea of implementing the use of an answering service if your business is not already using one, or it can be a good time to look into upgrading to a higher quality answering service if your current one is not living up to your expectations. No different than any other industry, when it comes to answering services, you get what you pay for.
Ask any HVAC business owner what happens if you don’t answer a phone call and they will tell you matter of factly that you just lost business. If you miss out on a service call, odds are that you just lost out on a substantial amount of money and, possibly on a new customer. It doesn’t matter if it’s day or night, normal business hours, after-hours or the weekend; missed calls equal lost profits.
The answering service is your assurance policy that every call gets answered and you do not ever miss a call. Their job is to then filter through calls to determine whether it is a service call and dispatch it to your team or to just take a message for situations that are non-urgent in nature. They weed out telemarketing calls and provide real customers with real customer service.
HVAC companies need someone who can take calls after hours for lead collection, and to provide a service that can integrate with their company’s brand. Most importantly, answering services need to be able to distinguish between an emergency and non-emergency situation to properly dispatch personnel according to the customer’s individual needs. HVAC companies need an answering service that knows the immediate and non-emergency issues to properly dispatch personnel, and they need to know industry standards to provide a seamless method of taking calls.
Twenty-four hour phone coverage for your business is equally important to providing twenty-four hour service to your customers. Make sure that you partner with a reputable and high quality answering service that specializes in taking calls for the HVAC industry. The early bird gets the worm and business owners who take a proactive approach during the slow months of fall to prepare for the busy rush of summer will surely reap the rewards of their labor.
