Five Ways to Standardize Your HVAC Company’s Processes
When you dip your toes into business management, you’ll quickly come across the idea of standardizing processes. This means taking any task that your business does and outlining exactly how it should be done. There are many advantages to standardizing processes, including making sure you offer consistent customer service, improving efficiency or quality of work, and making it simpler to train your new employees. However, most of the advice about standardizing your processes is for offices. How can you do this as an HVAC company? Here are five ways.
1. Outline Your Emergency Response
If you offer emergency HVAC services, it is essential to standardize your response to them. Emergencies can call for quick thinking and improvisation. But they also call for quick, standard actions. Shutting off the gas to the house, calling the local authorities like the fire department, and taking the time to explain what’s happened to your homeowner should all be in your emergency plan, so you can ensure every employee will do it.
2. Standardize New Installations
The process of installing any equipment is already outlined by the manufacturer and your employees will likely understand this process. So, what could your standard add? Steps like how to greet the customer when you first arrive, get their signature on key documents, how to clean and test the new equipment, and how to clean up the space after you’ve finished are all essential for quality service. When your standard demands them, all employees will know to complete them.
3. Develop Your Customer Complaint Process
How you handle complaints is one of the most important processes of any business. Your receptionist needs to know how to diffuse the situation, empathize with the customer and also know when the complaint needs to be addressed by a manager or you, as the owner. Build situations you’ve already had into the complaint process and review it frequently to add in new possibilities.
4. Add an Invoice Follow-Up Procedure
One of the toughest parts of running an HVAC company is handling customers who do not pay. Adding digital payment options to invoices can help, but it won’t catch every customer. To keep your cashflow healthy you need a process of following up with your customer and escalating. Start with a reminder at a set date from when the invoice was due and work up to passing the account off to a collections agency. When this process is standard, you can have your virtual receptionist or an employee do it for you.
5. Create a Repairs Process
Providing repairs on a wide range of equipment is a large chunk of the work of most HVAC companies. You can make this kind of work go faster by offering a standardized troubleshooting process built on your experience and the experience of your top-performing technicians. This helps to make repairs faster.
Once you have standardized some of the most important processes in your HVAC company, you’ll quickly see how it can apply to the rest of them. Good luck making your business more efficient.
You can also check our phone answering services for HVAC companies to see if they can help you even more.
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