According to Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI), the HVAC industry grew 23.6% in 2021 and will continue on a similar pace this year. Healthy equipment sales are increasing demand for installations, repair, and servicing. For HVAC field service companies, 2022 is an excellent year to bring in more work and build a sustainable income stream for the future. If you’re ready to fatten up the bottom line, take a look at these five revenue-raising strategies.
-
1. Attract More Customers Through Marketing
Many HVAC field service companies rely on referrals for increasing income, but if you want to expand faster, consider using advertising and marketing. With outreach, you can highlight your company’s unique strengths and differentiate yourself from competitors.
As a first step, ensure your website represents the company well. Most people do online research before contacting a service provider. A professional, mobile-friendly site that instills confidence and shows up on the first or second page of a Google search attracts prospects and encourages them to make appointments. Emails also drive business. Stay in touch with current and past customers through an opt-in campaign that shares expert information and keeps them up to date on your latest services and offerings.
If you haven’t done a lot of marketing or advertising before or you’re not sure where to start, take a look at the budget and determine how much you’re willing to invest, then work with a marketing specialist to help get the most return for your money. With every new customer, you’re not only adding revenue, but creating a new source of future referrals, which fuels growth even more.
2. Improve Efficiency with a Field Service Management Software
Getting the appointment is just the first step in growing revenue. Once you have a customer’s attention, you need to keep it with quality service. But bringing on new accounts stresses your operation. There’s more work to track, more bills to submit, and more customers to communicate with. Slow manual work order and billing management procedures can’t keep up, and your team will struggle to keep old and new customers happy. To increase your revenue without raising costs or sacrificing quality, invest in a field service management (FSM) platform that automates work order requests, technician scheduling, work updates, and billing.
With field service management software, you can approve work orders, assign them to technicians, and schedule the job with a few clicks. The system provides a single source of all information associated with each work order so there’s no miscommunications and no appointments are overlooked. With an FSM software, technicians arrive on time and have what they need to complete the work.
Management can track inventory, hours spent, expenses, and equipment in the field. Plus, you’ll have instant updated status when work is complete so you can bill immediately for faster cash flow. When the time comes to bring on more technicians and managers, an FSM software also helps you keep everyone accountable and provides oversight into all your operations.
3. Offer Additional Services and Products
Your team has expertise and experience in the HVAC field service industry which you can translate into revenue while helping customers improve their systems and reliability. For example, help clients save on energy costs with new solutions, such as packaged heating and air conditioning systems. Or offer a regular maintenance plan that keeps existing equipment operating more efficiently and cuts down on emergency service calls.
You can also upsell useful accessories, such as Wi-Fi thermostats, air purifiers, or humidifiers. Run specials for new accounts or bundle these products with upgraded services like annual maintenance contracts.
4. Increase Your Pricing
As your customer base and reputation grow with efficient operations, strong marketing, and high-value service, you can charge more for the work. If customers regularly refer you to others and have been with your company for a long time, they’re happy with your partnership and will likely pay more to keep it. Also, when your brand is well-known in the market and you have good online reviews, you can charge a little more.
If you’re not comfortable rising prices across the board, start by increasing charges for emergency or fast-response jobs. When you do make a change, let customers know what you’re doing and why. Try to stay in line with competitors, but don’t sell your brand short.
5. Expand Your HVAC Field Service Team
If you want to drum up new business, at some point, you’ll need more help. Job functions like sales, field technicians, and managers are essential to finding and serving additional customers. Take a look at your team and determine whether existing employees have the bandwidth and skills to cover these areas. If not, bring on new people. Start the hiring spree in sales. Then, once new accounts are signing on, bring in some technicians or a manager to handle the extra work.
Protect your investment in human capital by training new people well, giving them time to shadow experienced colleagues, and holding everyone accountable for productivity. Also, if you want to keep growth going long term, ensure there’s an FSM software in place before adding team members. Efficient, automated operations help new people become productive faster and minimize errors as they learn their jobs.
Bonus Tip: See How BlueFolder Helps You Grow Revenue
BlueFolder’s HVAC service dispatch software is designed to give your team the competitive edge in the market with a feature-rich application that’s simple for everyone to use. As you bring on more work, BlueFolder keeps all the details straight, streamlines work order management, and ensures the right technicians are assigned and scheduled.
Most HVAC field service companies get BlueFolder set up and running in less than a day, and the interface is so easy to use, most employees need little or no training. In addition to assigning and tracking work orders, BlueFolder offers reports, management dashboards, equipment tracking, and a customer portal for high-touch communication and transparency. Integration with common business software such as Google Calendar and QuickBooks® further reduces your administrative overhead and helps you focus on keeping customers happy and the bottom line healthy.
Check out how easy BlueFolder is to deploy and use.
