Expanding Dispatcher Role Improves Service Quality and Communication
The dispatcher role at a commercial mechanical service company is the cornerstone for successful communication, and ultimately, for successful project fulfillment and team efficiency. But don’t be shocked if you find you need to reevaluate the role from time to time.
The management team at Service Unlimited, Inc., New Castle, Del., -- Vice President/General Manager Brian Martinenza, Jr.; Director of Service Operations Rachel Sykes; and Service Coordinator Christine Rizzo -- made just such a reevaluation of SUI's dispatching methods and acted on improvements that helped to improve efficiency in field and office, and improve communication among all parties.
The team gave a presentation on the process they followed during the Unified Group’s 2022 Service Manager’s Forum.
Sykes said four issues needed to be addressed:
1. The role of parts purchaser had been vacant with no immediate sign of its being filled.
2. There were billing questions on job quotes that were not being answered in a timely manner, and overall billing was too far behind
3/4. Communication needed to be improved between dispatchers and technicians and dispatchers and customers.
“We’re a small company, with 47 employees, 33 of whom are field technicians, so there’s many areas where we are doing cross training.
“Our service department has always operated as a full-service group. We don’t have maintenance teams or project teams,” added Brian Martinenza, Jr., vice president and general manager. “Our service technicians are responsible for their customers and the jobs that come through in their geographic area related to their specific skill set. That remains unchanged.”
Service and replacement projects generate vast amounts of information, which Martinenza said required a greater focus on delivery.
Dispatchers as Team Leaders
Sykes said each dispatcher is now responsible for a technician “team,” and serves as a type of mini- Service Unlimited within the larger company. The dispatcher has taken on the role of purchaser, and now sources products, produces quotes, purchases parts, schedules the work and invoices quoted jobs.
During a typical day, Service Unlimited dispatchers will:
- upload technician hours completed through the company’s Jonas software platform - run the schedule for quotes requested by technicians - call or email suppliers for pricing and availability - create quotes through the Jonas system and present quotes to customers - create purchase orders and purchase approved quotes - follow up on parts, receive parts and schedule the work - prepare completed jobs and invoice approvals from supervisor - put out “fires” that can happen at any time.
“The dispatcher is now taking their customer’s call, scheduling the service, scheduling maintenance and invoicing projects. Every question the customer has can be answered by that one person, and the customer knows their first name,” she said.
Engagement & Ownership
Martinenza added that a greater sense of engagement and ownership has helped to heighten people’s performance levels.
“When people feel connected to specific tasks, they feel better. I have found our team has really grasped that, and has been able to convey it to our customers. In our 60th year, we’re living out our core values, we’re providing quality and dependability, seeing things through to completion and limiting the number of things that slip through the cracks. We’ll be going through another cooling season soon and will do what we can to strengthen the process, and are heading in the right direction,” he said.
DISC personality assessments were employed to understand more clearly what motivates employees in certain roles, and to improve alignment of duties with personalities.
“We did some personality surveys in which we tried to identify people according to DISC behavior profile testing, to try to understand more about what gets people motivated, and to improve job alignment,” Martinenza said.
Sykes said tasks are now completed faster, with more people contributing to fulfilling billing tasks.
“Every customer is getting a more personal touch, which is important as we grow. We have been here 60 years and that’s one of our trademarks; we know your name and we’re your partner.”
Said Rizzo, “We’re still getting into the flow of it and getting better and seeing what we can add to improve it. Things are definitely running better, and customer relationships have been greatly improved. I feel more comfortable with the people I talk to every day, and our relationships with our technicians are much better.”
Service Unlimited Inc., was the Contracting Business 2021 Commercial HVAC Contractor of the Year.
Successful COVID Recovery, Refrigerant Dialogues
Brian Martinenza, Jr. said that Service Unlimited’s business was on hold for a portion of the second quarter of 2020, due to state COVID-19 business lockdowns.
“We were considered an essential business, but we still could not access most of our customers’ buildings for about six weeks,” he said. “We had employees operating in an emergency services capacity, but the majority of the team was doing remote training from home. Then the state started to loosen some rules and said we could enter buildings if there are no people in the schools or offices.
“As we came out of that lockdown, we learned as much as we could about indoor air quality. We came out of it like gangbusters with bi-polar ionization, UV lights, MERV 13 filters, and we hit the market hard with that. Less than one-tenth of 1% of our 2019 revenue was related to IAQ products, and we did probably 5% in IAQ in 2020.
“It was useful to navigate the indoor air quality world, and filter information down to our folks who could then provide it to customers. The linear communication traveled from sales, down into the coordination side and to the field side to customers. The easiest sales come through good and close relationships, with the involvement of the person the customer is used to seeing most often.”
Martinenza does not expect a majority of SUI customers to demand a greater amount of indoor air quality.
“You have some who believe a certain thing, and some who don’t” he said. “We focused on the people who believe the IAQ message, but there are many who want nothing to do with it, and some who are in-between. We’ll remain in IAQ, but it won’t become a growth sector or stand-alone department.”
“We conducted some research among the different manufacturers, and got connected with iWave and Global Plasma Solutions, and testing equipment that measured ions in the air. We’re trying to emphasize that you should care about IAQ always, not just because of covid-19.
“Our indoor air quality has become more and more important, especially as building envelopes have tightened and energy efficiency readings have had to go up and codes have changed. Things that people have to be aware of in highly occupied spaces anyway. People have heightened awareness.”
The Service Unlimited team is also taking steps to keep customers informed about refrigerant phase downs.
“We’re making sure customers are aware of the refrigerant phase down facts,” said Rachel Sykes. We’re giving them a heads up to get them into a budgetary phase should we have to replace units and so forth. We’re advising customers to buy refrigerant from us and keep it on-site so they have it there, at the current bulk price, to buy sthem ome time and save money.”
“We put people through some training with R-290 (propane) and also Bluon [an R-22 replacement]; Bluon’s customer support has been outstanding. But there are still lots of moving parts with this refrigerant phasedown,” Martinenza said. “And as R-22 becomes less prevalent, it has been a challenge. Our market is comprised of a lot of older buildings and equipment, and older designs that are not as accepting of refrigerant replacements for upgrades. We have not gotten big into drop-in replacements. As the cost of R-22 continues to escalate and federal and state funds are made available for infrastructure, energy improvements and renovations, we have seen an uptick in replacements. People want proposals and engineering ideas.” - TM
About the Author
Terry McIver
Content Director - CB
As director of content for Contracting Business, he produces daily content and feature articles for CB's 38,000 print subscribers and many more Internet visitors. He has written hundreds, if not two or three, pieces of news, features and contractor profile articles for CB's audience of quality HVACR contractors. He can also be found covering HVACR industry events or visiting with manufacturers and contractors. He also has significant experience in trade show planning.