Make Each of Your Customer Interactions During Service Agreement Service Call a Selling Opportunity
August is almost over. That means the hot weather and the summer busy (or crazy) season is drawing to a close for much of the country.
It also means it’s time to take a look at the health of your service agreement program. Did your technicians sell more new service agreements than they did last year? Did your renewal rate improve? Do you have enough service agreements to keep your technicians busy through the winter? How has your service agreement base affected the overall value of your business? These are all good questions to ask to get ready for next summer’s busy season.
The summer busy season was a great opportunity to sell service agreements to your new or repeat customers. I hope your company had a successful year for selling service agreements. I also hope that the service agreements you sold are more than just a way to keep your technicians busy during the slow times.
Service agreements do give you revenue throughout the year and help to spread out the annual work load, but they also give you an opportunity to sell to your customers. A routine service check can uncover major problems for your customers before they become emergencies.
Those same routine checks also get your technicians face-to-face with your customers, which will beat the odds of door-hangers and direct mail any day of the year. You have a huge opportunity here. Your customers are expecting you to come. They’ve invited you in.
However, this direct interaction will be a huge waste if your techs just go into the house look at the equipment, change a filter or two and move on to the next service call.
This doesn’t mean you can invent problems or be dishonest with your customers, but your technicians should approach each service agreement call as an opportunity to find a way to help the customer through suggesting an equipment upgrade to save energy, proposing automated climate controls to make their house more comfortable, or some other way that you can benefit your customers.
You’ll want to make sure your technicians are prepared to sell during each encounter they have in the home of your service agreement customers.
Conversion Rate on a Service Agreement Call
Conversion rates on these routine calls will probably be much lower than your conversion rate of service agreements or ordinary service call, but it stands to bring in more sales dollars because you’ll be selling a more tangible product or service.
During a service agreement service call is the best time to bring up more extensive tune-ups to prepare equipment for cold weather and seeing what equipment is in need to replacement.
Conversion and sales rates are going to vary by your type of Service Company, but there are a few principals that will remain consistent.
- Set a conversion rate goal: Every one of your technicians needs to know what the goal is and how well they are doing to reach it. Each tech should know where they stand.
- Sales Training for Technicians: First and foremost, your technicians are technicians and the good work that they perform will have to stay priority number one. However, they are also the ones on the front line of your business. They have the most face-to-face contact with your customers, and therefore are best suited to selling to them.
- Provide Strong Marketing Materials to Your Technicians: Your technicians can sell and talk about solutions, but many times it will not be a one call close. However, the marketing materials they leave behind after the sales conversation can help in the decision making process, as well as fill in many of the technical gaps that don’t get talked about in the sales conversation.
- Reward the Results: The technicians that succeed in converting more sales should be rewarded generously for their efforts. Give them the incentives they need to stay motivated and focused on their goals.
You worked hard to get these service agreement customers. They trust you and count on you. Make sure that you serve them well by finding ways to make them more comfortable and making sure they’re equipment doesn’t break when they need it the most.