Windshield Time

In this week’s podcast, Chris Elmore and Brandon Cockrell discuss a very important part of the service call process – Asking for the Order. Many times, we see the tech asking the customer to buy too soon, too vaguely, or not at all. Some techs assume the customer knows what to buy and when to buy it. By asking too soon, too vaguely, or not at all, the tech risks getting into awkward territory with the customer, making it hard for them to recover. This continues the cycle with the next customer.

Here are three things to do to make sure you can ask for the order at the right time, in the right way.

1. Be Confident – Confidence comes from your knowledge, experience, and training. You should always be looking to increase your knowledge through reading and studying the technical processes of your trade. Also, study and master the customer communication skills you should be using every day. You’ll gain experience over time and can use the collective experience of other techs. Training helps you gain knowledge and practice of the skills you are learning. All of these things lead to a more confident attitude. Customers are more likely to buy from someone with confidence.
2. Build Value – This point is about the timing of asking for the order. You must build value through your process. Raise awareness first, then stimulate. Use a color-coded checklist so you can be thorough. Educate the customer about the issues or products with evidence of why they need them. Always act ethically. Once you’ve stimulated the issue, the customer will have some level of desire to eliminate the issue. Once there is a desire to eliminate, offer solutions in the form of options. By doing these things in order you build value.
3. Be Direct – Too often we see techs that are confident and build great value but fail to ask directly for the sale. It usually sounds like, “so what do you think of these options?” or something similar. You are not asking for the customer’s opinion about the options, you are asking them to buy one of them! Ask directly for what you want, like this, “I can do this work now. Should I get started?” or something similar. This is how you ask directly for what you want.

Asking for the order is the end result of a great service call, with a great process that allows you to show confidence and build value. After doing those things, be sure to ask the customer directly for what you want.

Please remember to go to www.servextra.com for more podcasts. Send us an email with any topic requests for the podcast to [email protected]. Thanks for listening! Please like and share!

In this week’s podcast, Chris Elmore & James Walker give their perspectives on working with family in business. Having seen and worked with well over 1,000 businesses combined in their respective careers, they share their tips on how to make working with family the blessing it should be.

Owning a successful business is a blessing. It gives you the freedom to help others achieve their dreams. When you can successfully work with family in a successful business, the blessing can be multiplied. But Working with family can be a challenge if things aren’t understood upfront.

Also, you mustn’t fall for the myths of working with your family members, especially if you’re the owner or one of the owners. Chris and James talk about the 5 biggest myths that they’ve seen owners believe.

Here are the 5 Myths of Working with Family in Business.

1. Family cares as much as the owner – This obviously isn’t always the case. Most think it should be, but the reality is that each family member is still their own person. Family members should make sure to communicate their “whys” and determine if they fit the business vision. If not, there will be different levels of engagement and care about the business.
2. Family works cheaper – This myth sometimes looks true on paper. You may hire a family member at a lower rate than someone else, but you almost always pay for it in opportunity cost or in emotional cost. You should always pay for the position the family member is in and not for the person or relationship.
3. Family won’t mind working harder – This goes together with the previous myth. Sometimes, you may think it’s okay to ask more, or maybe even expect more, from a family member. This is also untrue. You should expect the same from them as any other qualified person in the position and hold them accountable.
4. Family has less drama – Some of you laughed out loud just now! Again, we’ve seen many businesses that think family members won’t bring family matters to work. This comes from another myth: it’s not personal, it’s business. With family, it’s always personal. How can it not be personal? Make sure to set aside time to discuss and deal with family matters away from the office so they don’t “spillover” at work.
5. Family is always capable – This myth is usually believed by companies that started from scratch. In the early days, the bookkeeping and call taking were simple. It was easy to get a niece or nephew to do it. Or even a cousin that did the bookkeeping at the factory. But as the business grew, the need outgrew the relative’s ability to perform the job. Don’t be afraid to make the changes to help your business get better when it comes to personnel.

Working with your family in business is a blessing but only if you set expectations upfront. Don’t continue to believe these myths. In the end, if you set expectations upfront and don’t continue to fall for the myths – in spite of the emotion -  your business, and your relationship with your family will be much better.

Service Agreements can be a huge benefit to your company, but many contractors struggle with converting more than 10% of their clients into Service Agreement Members.

This week, Terry Barrett shares with you the real results of his team at Air Now in Millbrook, Alabama.

His team is converting at 60% or more consistently month after month.

You will find the following content in this podcast.

The Old Standard of 25%: 3:36

Why it is About Educating Your People: 3:54

The Concern with Discounts: 4:33

The Anti-Service Agreement Movement: 7:12

Connecting Service Agreements to Technician Pay: 9:10

Remove the Anxiety of “Role Playing” and Start “Practicing”: 10:48

Skill Evaluations Not Just Ride-Alongs: 12: 51

Tracking and Posting Results of Producers: 13:38

How Air Now Designed their Service Agreements: 15:54

Terry presenting “How to make the service agreements a no brainer”: 18:35

Listener Questions: 28:00

1. The ratio of Service Agreements Per Tech: 28:16
2. How much should CSRs talk about Service Agreements before the tech gets there? 31:40
3. Monthly Billing for Service Agreements: 33:00
4. When do you do the first visit? 33:45
5. Employee Service Agreement Incentives: 34:41
6. Built-in Technician Retention Tool: 35:46
7. How to sell add-ons to Service Agreements? 36:46
8. Selling Service Agreements when the client needs new equipment: 39:27
9. How to change from annual to monthly agreements? 40:50
10. How many service visits per year? 42:54
11. Multi-Service Inspections: 44:54

On this week’s podcast, Chris and Chris talk about building a performance culture.

Usually, when we talk about a performance culture, sports analogies come up. You can take any professional sports team or any professional athlete, and every aspect of their chosen sport is based on performance.

So what makes up that performance culture? We have identified five things to help you build a performance culture in your business.

There isn’t a professional athlete that takes the field without knowing their relevant statistics. They don’t rely on the team or computer software to give them that information. They track their stats themselves, every day. You should do the same. Even if you are “just a tech“, you should know your stats. This allows you to qualify your value and to see your strengths or weaknesses.

Keeping score is about tracking stats over the long term and comparing those to others in the same position. The same goes for individuals and teams. Keeping score allows you to see how you’re doing versus others in the same position, on the same team, or on a different team. This gives you a frame of reference for your own performance.

By knowing your stats and keeping score, you will know how you stand against industry standards, expectations, and your own personal goals. You will be able to identify the areas of weakness where you need to work, and identify the areas of strength where you can celebrate.

When you know where you stand and what you need to work on, you now need to practice. Most people practice until they get something right. Professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong. They practice until the skill is developed and they only call for assistance when it’s needed. And it’s usually needed in a time of high pressure or high stakes.

When you practice something until you master it, you gain confidence in being able to rely on that skill set no matter what else is happening in the environment. There’s no professional athlete or team that starts practicing once they make it to the big leagues. They practice even more at that level.

If you don’t know your stats, don’t keep score, don’t know where you stand, and don’t practice until you can’t get it wrong, someone will take your spot. Even if you do all of these things there’s always someone else doing them just as well, and that person wants your spot.

Every professional athlete knows that if they don’t do their very best, and use all of the tools at hand, then their back up person may end up becoming the starter.

Whether you’re a technician or a business owner, these five things must be in place in your business or your daily life. Building a performance culture takes time and work but it’s worth the effort to supercharge your performance.

This week, Chris and Chris talk about a few pet peeves. They’re actually the same – both Chris and Chris really have a problem when companies, techs, or salespeople “swing for the fences” or “hunt whales” when it comes to opportunities.

There are lots of companies out there that do a great job with celebrating wins. But what wins are the best at the company? What have you or your company defined as the best win? Do you celebrate memberships and good repair tickets as much as replacement leads? Are you sure? You might be thinking that it’s good to celebrate the replacements more. And you’re not wrong if you do, but you’re not exactly right.

If we celebrate replacement leads as the best wins, then we’ll get more of them proportionally than we do the other types of wins – memberships and good repair tickets. But we’ll get more leads at the cost of those things. Baseball gives us a great analogy. Consider the home run. Everyone loves it. It is a guaranteed score of at least one run but could be up to four.

There are great home run hitters in baseball. But there are also great singles and doubles hitters. For the home run hitters, their job is to do just that…hit home runs. But what about the single and double hitters? What if you tell them to go start hitting home runs? Do you think they can do it right away? What will happen if you tell them to start swinging for the fences? I think you know. They’ll start swinging at pitches they can’t hit. They’ll strike out more. They’ll produce less than they were before. They might get a few more home runs, but at what cost?

You may not specifically tell your team to swing for the fences and hit more home runs, but your actions and your focus might. Be sure you are celebrating all wins equally, so the message is sent that all are good. Show your single and double hitters that they are just as valuable by celebrating their type of wins.

The trend over the last 20 years or more has been to grow your company by replacement. Not just HVAC but also plumbing and electrical. The trend is to get to a business mix of 80-85% replacement and 15-20% maintenance/service. That’s good advice as long as your 15-20% is made up of the right things. You still need good repair tickets on those that don’t replace. You still need membership sales to build future business.

Be sure you are celebrating your wins equally. Track your numbers on a team scoreboard. Make sure to praise your wins in public. Send the message that your company is going to win with singles, doubles, and home runs.

This week, Chris and Chris talk about the first 15 minutes with the customer. This is the most important time with your customer and can make or break the success of the call. Far too many people minimize the importance of the first 15 minutes. Some get in a rush and skip steps in their process. This leads to uncontrollable outcomes that can mean lower closing rates and lower ticket averages.

Here’s what you need to do to make the first 15 minutes the best part of the call.

• Be prepared. Look, smell, and act the part. Customers will judge you and maybe even decide whether they’ll buy from you based on how you look.

• A Great Introduction. Show respect for the customer’s property, make the customer comfortable, and start to identify their personality profile.

• FORM Family, Occupation, Recreation, Material Possessions. Make a sincere attempt to break the ice by discussing something you have in common.

• Ask great questions. Show you know what you’re doing. Identify the customer’s DISC profile and adapt.

• Establish your credibility. If you don’t let the customer know how long you’ve been in the trades and the training or certifications you have, how will they know? You’ll have to rely on them to ask. This may or may not happen. To ensure it does, share your credibility with the customer. Settle their anxieties by expanding what you’ll be doing and how long it will take.

Whether you are new to the trades or a veteran, the first 15 minutes is the most important time during the call. This is the time to establish the process and set the expectations. You can establish your credibility and at the same time break the ice. Make it a point to do these things every time so you can maximize your results.

This episode of The Service Contractor Radio Show is for CSRs. Chris Elmore and Brandy Loudermilk discuss how CSRs can handle the price over the phone objection.

This topic is important because an untrained CSR who has not developed the skills to handle this objection falls into the “we don’t have pricing in the office” trap.

This trap makes your clients not trust you. It will decrease your CSRs ability to book calls. And, it can hurt your reputation as a company.

Chris and Brandy provide a few options for handling this objection, as well as an impromptu role play.

Here are the 4 simple steps to avoid treating your clients like they are dumb.

• Give them a good reason.
• Put doubt in their mind if anyone gave them a price over the phone.
• Be Assertive. 
• Transition into booking.

We also discuss some of the objection handling techniques taught is the PRESS PLAY for CSR classroom series.

If you would like to know more about Service Excellence Training, feel free to contact us.

On this week’s podcast, Chris Elmore & James Walker discuss paper vs. paperless for techs in the field. They even throw in a version of plastic as well!

The Tech debate over paper forms or tablet/digital forms has been going on for several years.

The technology really became viable about 10 years ago and cost effective soon after that. We’ve had clients that use the whole range between paper and paperless. It really depends on the principles behind whichever process, product, software, or presentation tools you use.

The underlying principles of any presentation should be a color-coded diagnostic checklist, packaged options, and proper presentation. Any product, process, or system you use should have these things at its heart to be effective. If you’ve recently implemented a new process and it is working for you, it probably includes these principles.

The process your tech uses in the field, regardless of the product or method of delivery, includes two pieces: the presentation and the transaction.

The presentation is the presenting of the findings and the packaged options.

The transaction is the invoice and payment.

When choosing paper or paperless, or a hybrid of both, you have to be mindful to preserve the presentation. Some would say that going paperless took the effective tangible, tactile presentation tools out of the tech’s hands in favor of a better and more efficient transaction. You can get the real-time data from a tablet and you don’t have to wait on a paper form.

However, with paper, you preserve the effective tangible, tactile presentation but have a slower, less efficient transaction and gathering of data. Some have even stayed with paper for the presentation and just use the tablet for the transaction.

No matter which method you choose, remember that the underlying principles of a color-coded checklist and packaged options presented in the proper order are where the effectiveness really exists.

If you need help with choosing software or a presentation method, or just have general questions about your business, please contact us.

Angie and Ryan Snow of Western HVAC join me (Todd Liles) on this week’s Service Contractor Radio Show.

Ryan has been in the business since 1997. He started as a duct cleaner and worked his way up into management. In 2007 Angie and Ryan purchased Western HVAC together.

This is an interview podcast, which means I take the time to get to know Angie and Ryan better. Yes, we cover plenty of business in the show, but my first focus is on the relationship. We had some fun in this show. 

On this week’s Service Contractor Radio Show, Chris Elmore and Chris Loudermilk talk about how to deliver bad service. That’s right…BAD service. We often hear about the best service, or more often, we hear about terrible service. But what about the worst type…really bad…the worst…mediocre service?! Mediocre service is the worst because it makes no impact. Your customers can take it or leave it. In fact, if you deliver mediocre service, they won’t be your customer for long! Consider what really differentiates you from hundreds, or even thousands, of competitors. Is there much at all? It should be your service. If you deliver the same service as everyone else, but charge a premium for it, you’re taking advantage of your customers!

In this podcast, Chris & Chris help you recognize the signs of mediocre service:

• Anonymous Service – This is the service given by a tech that doesn’t give his name or even get the customer’s name.
• “Too Techy” Service – This is the service given by a tech that tries to build value in what he or she sees as valuable…technical knowledge. Customers retreat from you if you overwhelm them with technical details.
• Uninformed Service – This type of service happens when the tech doesn’t give all of the information to the customer before a decision is made. You can give all the information without overwhelming the customer with volume or technical information.
• Just a Tech Service – This type of service happens when the tech thinks they are there only to tell the customer what is wrong. The tech is really there to do that AND tell the customer what should be done to fix what is wrong.
• Checked Out Service – This happens when the tech becomes apathetic with work or life. We all have those days. These are the days you just don’t want to be there. It’s not about the extremes. It’s about those mediocre days. You have to make sure you’re enthusiastic about the job.

Remember that most qualified techs can go in and be an expert tech. They can give anonymous, too techy, uninformed, “just a tech”, checked out service. That’s the worst kind of service. That’s mediocre service. It gets the job done, but not done well, and definitely is not memorable. That’s bad service. Make sure that’s not you!!