As the country continues to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic, several vaccines are now available, revealing a light at the end of the lonely tunnel. Yet not every citizen will take the vaccine. Mechanical contracting firms will need to continue providing field personnel with personal protective equipment and working under pandemic protocols — protecting customers as well as workers.
No-contact sales calls may seem strange, but it’s been a necessity over the last year. Much can be done through today’s technology, video calling being the predominant method of keeping in touch. But a combination of text messaging and photos is one technique HVACR techs can use to work with customers and solve problems — while saving time and money.
“Recently, we had a contractor start with Podium that was in near lockdown,” explains Marc Glutz, Podium’s director of sales. “A new customer came to the HVAC company website, asked about scheduling a time via Webchat (a website texting tool), communicated via text with the service manager, and even sent and received photos of the perceived problems via text.
“The technician was dispatched to the home with access to earlier conversations, was able to enter the home, replace the part, take and send a photo of the final
Not all your customers will have a smartphone with Internet access, but almost everyone has a mobile phone that receives and sends text messages.
Text messaging has a 209 percent higher response rate than phone, email or Facebook, notes software testing and reviewing firm TechJury. And that was before the pandemic hit our shores. And keep this in mind: not all your customers will have a smartphone with Internet access, but almost everyone has a mobile phone that receives and sends text messages.
Because of the medium's immediacy, text messaging is an ideal way to communicate with customers to help with their home service needs. There are many ways this technology can help home service contractors benefit from “becoming textable,” Glutz says.
Other tools that HVACR contractors can benefit from include video chatting via text, internal feedback, creating and tracking marketing campaigns, and automation of appointment reminders.
“It is customizable to each company and their desired process and customer interaction philosophy,” he notes. “Podium has different tools within the platform to generate text conversation from a website, send photos and updates, collect secure payments and send bulk text reminders. Being able to execute on business processes via text seamlessly is great, but allowing access to techs, administrators, office staff and owners for oversight on a singular system for communication can save hours of time and stress.”
Other tools that HVACR contractors can benefit from include video chatting via text, internal feedback, creating and tracking marketing campaigns, and automation of appointment reminders, he adds.
“It’s about modernizing local businesses to help ensure communication is simple for the entire HVAC process via text,” Glutz notes. “Text messaging is imperative in today’s economy and marketplace. It saves us time, energy and opens conversations we may not usually have. So when HVACR contractors and homeowners can connect via text, it can become a win-win for both.”
Kelly Faloon is a contributing writer to Contracting Business magazine and principal of Faloon Editorial Services. The former editor of Plumbing & Mechanical magazine, she has more than 20 years' experience in the plumbing and heating industry and B2B publishing. Faloon is a journalism graduate of Michigan State University.
SEE TWO SIDEBARS BELOW
SIDEBAR
No-contact Works, but People Still Matter
Tim Flynn, founder/owner of Winters Home Services, Watertown and Needham, Mass., uses Scorpion for website marketing and lead generation.
"Scorpion makes clients call in," he said. "With Scorpion, I realize the more money I put into it the more money I get out of it. They're the only ones that told me the truth. They're the only ones that backed up their claims and did what they said they would do. They've got a customer for life with me."
Founded in 1995, Winters Home Services is an award-winning full-service company specializing in plumbing, heating, cooling, drain cleaning and quality air products.
“I think what people should also realize is Scorpion is a team of people. They call, they talk to you. Owners like me are so jaded by web-based companies trying to sell us their services, we blow them off. Scorpion is sincere about what they're doing. You usually speak with one person, but there are about 15 people on your team you never meet. There is an entire staff behind my one phone call or email. If someone doesn't get back to me for whatever reason, two or three people get back to me in a matter of hours. It's a really good, smart outfit.”
The owner's responsibility is ancillary training.
"If you're going to be a partner with Scorpion, the phone's going to ring. If you've trained your people to answer the phones correctly, your technicians are going to run a call. If you've trained your technicians to close the call for money, you're going to gain revenue. Any break in the chain along the way means you're not being a good partner for Scorpion," Flynn said.
Flynn uses ServiceTitan for no-contact sales, scheduling, invoicing and sharing information. And if it looks like the trend is rushing even faster towards “no-contact,” that’s correct. Pandemic or no pandemic.
“Millennials, for example, don’t want to make any contact. They want to do everything on their phones, without even making a phone call. If you look at the latest and greatest things that are being added to systems, there's touchless booking of appointments, from their phones," Flynn said. "But one of things we train on with ServiceTitan, is the importance of understanding and listening to the customer to know what they want. You can’t do that with texting, and the emotions surrounding the purchase of an HVAC system can't work with texting. The element of talking to a customer still has to exist. It's still very much a phone-to-phone/face-to-face business."
-- Terry McIver
'No-contact' Supports Financing Transactions
Mosaic is a financial technology pioneer, providing over $3 billion in solar and home improvement financing through its online lending platform since 2012. Portal 2X, the Mosaic financing web portal, is designed to allow home improvement contractors to simplify the process of offering financing options and close home improvement deals quickly on any mobile device or desktop computer.
Mosaic sources report that allowing homeowners to complete the financing process online, through their own mobile device or computer, has now become an even more important feature. By minimizing or eliminating in-person appointments between contractors and homeowners during every stage of the financing process, from credit application to loan signing, Portal 2X helps home improvement contractors continue closing deals despite social distancing.
THIS LINK provides a free whitepaper on the Mosaic no-contact process.
Mosaic provides this description of the contact-free process:
- Connect with homeowners remotely via a phone call or a video call.
- Send the homeowner a link to a secure web portal where they enter their name, address, email, social security number, date of birth, and annual income – all from the privacy of their own device.
- Mosaic does a soft credit check at pre-qualification, with no impact on your customer’s credit score.
- In seconds, contractor and customer are both notified of the maximum amount of financing they are pre-qualified for.
- Contractor then enters the project costs and Portal 2X displays a variety of financing options with a range of APRs, terms, and monthly payments the homeowner may choose from. You can discuss these options via screenshare or phone.
- Once the customer decides on the financing product that’s best for them, the contractor triggers Mosaic to send loan documents to the homeowner for review and e-sign on their mobile device or computer.
This contact-free process can save contracting businesses time and help their businesses, even under normal conditions. For example, in a post-pandemic scenario, if a homeowner decides they are ready to move forward with a project a day or two after an in-person meeting, the contractor can avoid an extra trip back to their home just to get their signature on loan documents.
In-Step with the 'No-Contact' Trend
We interviewed Josh Smith, Vice President of Marketing for the Home Services division at Scorpion, to learn how Scorpion has adapted to the 'no-contact' trend among some HVAC customers.
CB: How is Scorpion helpful for “no-contact” sales transactions?
Josh Smith: At our core, we help drive home services companies towards business success. One of the ways we do that is by paying attention to consumer trends and online behavior, as well as how homeowners interact with businesses. Success leaves clues, and successful businesses show us new ways of operating that help guide and inform the consulting advice we give others on how to run their businesses. Scorpion has seen that people care about no-contact solutions during the pandemic if they are to transact in a sale, so we share ways to make that happen in coordination with the technologies each business is using.
CB: Did customers start telling you that their residential customers were looking for a “no-contact” solution?
Josh Smith: When the pandemic hit, we had a number of customers coming to us with an increase in appointment cancellations primarily because people were looking to avoid contact and interaction in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. What we were finding was that the most successful businesses, even amidst the challenge of the pandemic, were taking this fear that people had and providing a solution for it. One of the solutions was to provide a customer experience that removed the need for contact with the client and also stressed social distancing. From there, it was important to make the public aware that they were taking those steps.
CB: Has Scorpion been acquiring more business due to the pandemic? (Though of course that’s not necessarily ideal given the situation.)
Josh Smith: I realize many companies have been struggling this year, but Scorpion has actually grown, and I think there’s a good reason for that. We ultimately focus our efforts on finding new and innovative ways to help business owners connect with customers that need them. With the pandemic forcing more people into a work-from-home state, where they are doing more out of their houses than before, several areas of usage in their houses have increased. This means that appliances, AC units, piping, etc. have seen more wear and tear, expediting problems that arise in those systems. This increased the need for home services businesses to help these customers, and in order to get in front of and help as many new customers as possible, these businesses turned to Scorpion to guide them in that direction.
CB: Is it accurate to say that tablets have become ‘old school’ and that smartphones are doing it all?
Josh Smith: I wouldn't say that at all. While the technology is very similar, tablets still have a place, in my opinion. For one, because they are bigger, they are much more suitable for displaying things like invoices and pictures to customers. Presentation is 90% of the law when it comes to the experience, and details really matter. When you stay at the Ritz, you’re willing to pay more for that experience because they pay attention to the details. The same rule applies here. If businesses pay attention to the little things, like presentation of options and solutions to a customer's problem, it enhances the experience, and that is what we are after. Smartphones should primarily be taken advantage of to assist in contactless transactions — allowing customers to pay from their own phone. This can be done by quickly emailing them an invoice that they can pull up and pay for on their cell phone.
CB: What are some additional features and benefits that Scorpion has developed toenhance the “no contact” sales/service call experience?
Josh Smith: Scorpion is a technology-driven company at its core. As such, we are continually developing tools that help clients engage with their customers to secure a business connection, deploy a transaction, and follow up to gather feedback on the client's experience. Through these technology avenues and our professional consultative approach, we can respond to market and industry changes and demands with our clients to ensure they are evolving with the demands for a "no-contact" sales or service call experience.
Josh Smith is the Vice President of Marketing for the Home Services division at Scorpion. He manages the development of the marketing team that handles all of the home service accounts across the organization. He works to continually provide the team with industry knowledge, support, and tools to ensure that home services professionals increase their revenue and grow their businesses.
About Scorpion
Scorpion is a premium provider of marketing and technology solutions for the home services industry. As a partner for business owners, Scorpion delivers a better way through honest guidance, effective strategies, and award-winning advertising technology for clients who need a clear path forward. To learn more, visit ScorpionHomeServices.com.
About the Author
Kelly L. Faloon
Freelance Writer/Editor
Kelly L. Faloon is a contributing editor and writer to Contracting Business magazine, Contractor and HPAC Engineering. The former editor of Plumbing & Mechanical magazine, Faloon has more than 20 years experience in the plumbing and heating industry. She started a freelance writing and editing business in 2017, where she has a varied clientele.
Faloon spent 3 1/2 years at Supply House Times before joining the Plumbing & Mechanical staff in 2001. Previously, she spent nearly 10 years at CCH/Wolters Kluwer, a publishing firm specializing in business and tax law, where she wore many hats — proofreader, writer/editor for a daily tax publication, and Internal Revenue Code editor.
A native of Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, Faloon is a journalism graduate of Michigan State University. You can reach her at [email protected].