We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy.
Success requires knowing about the intricacies of the services and products you offer to the public. It also obliges you to be congenial and considerate when dealing with consumers. After all, it’s said that “the sweetness of honey helps mellow vinegar’s puckery taste.”
Nowhere is that sweetness more needed than the method with which your phone is answered whether it be by a receptionist or yourself while you are in the field servicing other consumers. That’s because if the consumer seeking your assistance senses an indifferent or rude person during that phone call, you may not get a chance to make a second impression.
Positivity is necessary for success; negativity is an element of failure.
Negativity is fueled by Nastiness in conversation.
Erraticism and Guessing do not give consumers confidence in the abilities of your plumbing, heating and cooling business.
Arrogance leads consumers to believe that you think you are more important than they are or more serious than their situation is.
Tentativeness and Insecurity lead to being unable to communicate that your business can address and remedy the consumer’s situation. In turn, this leads to the consumer telling you he will get back to you, but he never does.
Vindictiveness certainly doesn’t lead to you booking an appointment with the consumer.
Enigmatic behavior most assuredly won’t lead to a satisfying feeling for consumers when they must decide whether they will make an appointment with you.
To be positive in the consumer’s mind, you must be polite, optimistic, sincere, intelligent, truthful, informative, versatile and efficient. The first letter of each of those requirements spells positive.
Politeness puts consumers dealing with a plumbing, heating or cooling situation that needs attention at ease.
Optimism gives consumers the feeling that they called the right business to address their circumstances.
Sincerity tells consumers that you care about their situation.
Intelligence in your approach to their needs tells them you are well-versed in what can remedy their situation.
Truthfulness leads to consumer trust in your business.
Information and Versatility offer consumers options regarding the varied ways to solve their problems or address their requests.
Efficiency in scheduling appointments in a timely manner that syncs up with consumers’ schedules leads to your opportunity to give a second impression by delivering excellence as you address their requests and bring revenue into your business.
Obviously, certain information must be exchanged during the initial phone call so your call taker knows with whom they are speaking, what the consumer is calling about and the location for which the service is requested.
Call takers should be well-versed in your business’s policies so they can pleasantly inform consumers of those policies so that consumers have a chance to decide whether they want to accept them.
It is important to understand that you, as the business owner, have the right to create any legal policies you need to run your business in a proper and profitable manner. However, it is equally important to realize that consumers are the people who decide whether they want to avail themselves of your services under the terms of your policies.
Service call charges versus free estimates
During the first phone call, consumers will probably have questions. That’s when the aforementioned attributes of positivity really come into play and separate the professional contractors from the mediocre, stumbling and bumbling contractors. It’s another reason your call taker must be well-versed in your business’s policies to give expeditious, correct, intelligent and truthful answers to consumer inquiries.
It is common for consumers to ask about how you charge for services or whether you give free estimates.
In service work, you may choose to give free estimates. However, it most certainly costs you money to send a qualified tech in a properly equipped service vehicle to diagnose a problem and offer a remedy.
If you are wondering about service call charges versus free estimates, allow me to explain. Regardless of whether you charge a service call charge or give free estimates, one thing is certain and always present: it costs your business money to send a qualified tech or an estimator to visit the consumer’s jobsite.
Large jobs that can bring in extremely large amounts of money (e.g., more than $10,000) into your business can cover the cost of free estimates and estimators in the said large amount of money for the job.
However, calls for plumbing leaks and heat or air-conditioning problems require qualified service techs and properly equipped service vehicles. Selling prices for travel, diagnosis, description of options and quoting of upfront prices to remedy the situation are usually lower than those aforementioned larger jobs.
It is difficult to recover the cost your business incurs to send that qualified tech and properly equipped service vehicle if the consumer decides not to proceed with the service without requiring a service call charge.
If you don’t require a service call charge when the task is performed at that initial service call and the consumer agrees to have you perform the service at your quoted selling price, you must include those costs in your task selling price to recover those costs.
You’ll have to decide which policy is best for your business.
You may choose to charge a service call charge to cover that legitimate business expense. This policy will lead to another question: “Do I have to pay the service call charge if I agree to the remedy and the charges for the remedy?”
Be careful when answering that question. You must recover your true operational costs as those expenses pertain to any service, and you deserve to earn a profit above your costs. So, be truthful and choose your policies and words carefully and intelligently.
Charging by hour or task
Consumers usually want to know prices to perform a task before giving you the nod to accomplish said task. Plumbing and HVAC contractors usually charge by the hour or by the task.
If you charge by the hour, you are not answering consumers’ pricing questions because no one knows the price until the task is completed, and you can paint yourself into a corner that leads to an argument after the task is performed.
If, when charging by the hour, your business’s call taker answered that price question during the initial phone call by stating an hourly rate and an approximate time to perform the task, but the time to provide the service was a much longer amount of time, an argument could occur.
Also, if the consumer believes that your tech took longer than the consumer thought it would take, the potential for an argument arises yet again.
The same problem pops up if you quote over-the-phone contract prices for services because it is difficult to see all circumstances over the phone.
Answering the price question over the phone is very risky at best. Charging by the hour does not address consumers’ desire to know the price before deciding whether or not they agree to your price.
With an upfront pricing policy and a service call charge for small jobs, you have a little more wiggle room. You can explain that your tech will quote a price prior to performing any task. If the consumer agrees with the proposed task and price and the task is performed at that visit, you will not charge them the service call charge.
With this method tendered with sweetness, you give the consumer congeniality, a timely appointment, upfront pricing and no cause for arguments as long as you deliver excellence in performance.