This is the second part of a continuing series that highlights the free Service Roundtable downloads available from Contracting Business Magazine. Each month Contracting Business Magazine presents a free business tool prepared by the Service Roundtable that anyone can download from the magazine’s website. Below you will find another half-dozen freebies you might have missed from past issues. Read the description and click the links to any you want to download.
Temperature/Pressure Chart For R410a Refrigerant
This is a Temperature/Pressure Chart for R410A refrigerant. It's a full page design so your techs can insert it into their field service price books. It also includes formulas for calculating total heat, sensible heat, and latent heat.
This handout is designed to be printed on regular 8.5x11 in. paper. The chart is saved as an Adobe Portable Document File (pdf). Click the link below to download the file.
Download: click here for PDF.
Satisfaction Comes From The Contractor
This sales support tool emphasizes that there are more variations between any two contractors than any two manufacturers. In other words, homeowners should be more careful in the selection of the contractor who installs their comfort system than any other decision.
For decades contractors have kicked around the 80% contractor and 20% equipment satisfaction relationship. It’s interesting that an empirical study of contractors yielded the same results. While some gave the contractor and equipment equal weight and others thought it all came down to the installation, the average matched the decades old conventional wisdom.
The file was prepared as an Adobe Portable Document File (pdf). Click the link below to download the file.
Download: click here for PDF.
Field Service Reminder Sticker
On any repair, there's a broken product and a broken customer. Use field service reminder sticker to remind your field service personnel about the need for human relations skills. Place the sticker on the inside of the lid of a mechanic's toolbox. The reminders on the sticker are...
• You are a guest in the customer's house. Act like one.
• Half the communication battle is standing up straight, making eye contact, smiling, and listening with interest.
• On every service call, there's a broken product and a broken customer. Fix both.
• Don't assume you know what the customer wants without asking. Present the options - all the options, and let the customer pick what he wants.
• The customer is counting on you. Don't disappoint him.
The file was prepared as an Adobe Portable Document File (pdf). Service Roundtable members have fully editable versions where the copy can be changed to stress the points emphasized in their service training. Click the link below to download the file.
Download: click here for PDF.
Boost Your Local SEO With Customer Feedback
Many contractors have used postcards and happy calls to solicit feedback from their customers and in some cases, even testimonials. While that feedback helps identify the good and the bad at your company, it's not often used effectively as a marketing tool. Nobody sees it but you.
Here we're encouraging the use of a popular online review system (Google) that will help establish your company as an expert in your local market and likely boost your local search rankings as well.
Have your techs hand out this flyer on every service call (Service Roundtable members have a fully editable version, plus an email version). Let the customer know that you'd like them to post their opinion, whether it's good or bad. If you're doing things right, your good comments will far outweigh the bad, and if there are a few 'not so good' reviews, it actually legitimizes the good.
Reviews are thought to play a role in where your company is listed on the 10-pack of local map listings on Google search. There are many other factors as well, but obtaining reviews might just push your listing up to the top.
To make this program work, you need a local listing for your business on Google. If you don't have one, simply go to http://local.google.com/ and click on 'put your business on Google maps.' Whether you decide to use this review promotion or not, make sure your company is listed. Let your customers market your company!
The flyer is prepared as an Adobe Portable Document File (pdf). Click the link below to download the file.
Download: click here for PDF.
Service Rate Calculator
How do you set your prices? Do you set prices based on what your competition is charging or what you need to earn a targeted net profit? If you price based on your competitors, how do you know they’re pricing correctly?
This manual service rate pricing calculator is based on the pricing approaches of legendary contractors, Aaron York and Frank Blau. It’s excerpted from the book “The Power of Positive Pricing.” In a few minutes, you can set a price based on your costs that will yield your targeted net profit.
This pricing calculator was prepared as an Adobe Portable Document File (pdf). Service Roundtable members have access for a Microsoft Excel version where they can punch in the numbers and let the spreadsheet crunch the numbers. Click the link below to download the file.
Download: click here for PDF.
HVAC Industry Recruiting Brochure
This recruiting brochure was designed to attract entry-level service technicians. It was prepared to improve the public perception of the industry, including the perception that the industry offers attractive career options.
Contractors desiring to use this brochure should distribute it to high school guidance counselors, offer it at career fairs, military bases, state unemployment offices, and so on. The brochure calls attention to the challenge, freedom, responsibility, satisfaction, pride, variety, growth opportunities, and great pay offered by the HVAC industry relative to other industries. It’s not an immediate solution, but a contributor to a long-term solution.
The last page of the brochure promises technician candidates truck rides. If you don’t want to offer the truck rides, delete the line mentioning them. The brochure was prepared as a pair of Adobe Portable Document Files (inside and outside). Service Roundtable members have access to a fully customizable version where they can easily drop in their company branding and contact information. Click the links below to download the files.
Download: click here for brochure outside PDF.
Download: click here for brochure inside PDF.
Matt Michel is the CEO of the Service Roundtable. Each business tool discussed above, first appeared on the Service Roundtable, where new sales, marketing, training, and management tools are introduced every week. Give the Service Roundtable at try at www.ServiceRoundtable.com. Membership is only $50 a month, includes access to millions of dollars worth of downloadable, customizable business tools, free membership in the Roundtable Rewards buying group that includes thousands of dollars of rebates (e.g., up to 3% of parts purchases, 5% on major manufacturer equipment purchases, etc.), and access to the HVAC Roundtable where you can tap into tens of thousands of years of contractor and consultant business experience with the click of a mouse. Try it for a month. If you don’t like it, quit. There’s no obligation to stay.