Are you running a field service business? Do you experience ups and downs with the market? Seasonal highs and lows usually depend upon the type of services you are providing to your customers. For example, if you are providing HVAC repair services, you may experience lows during winter months. And, if you work on plumbing, you may experience more work during the rainy seasons. For your home service technician, this can be a difficult time!
Regardless of your industry, when your field service technicians have less work to do, it can become more comfortable for them to reduce engagement. As a business owner, you must find ways to keep your teams engaged during slower seasons!
Here are a few tips and tricks to help you keep your home service technicians engaged during winter months:
Tips to keep your service technicians engaged during winter.
Offer resources to encourage education and new skill development.
When you have less field service requests, help your technicians acquire some new skills, onboard new technologies, and learn about the market’s products. This less busy time also provides an opportunity to maintain and update existing skills.
Technology is an excellent resource for improving your efficiency and updating your teams’ knowledge base. New technologies often require training. Slower seasons provide a great time to learn how to optimize workflow and enable real-time communication.
Benefits from new technologies include:
- work automation software to save time and money.
- job and appointment management to keep experiences smooth.
- on-call scheduling to make sure every call receives an answer.
A great, often overlooked, source of knowledge is online product reviews! Visit manufacturers web sites, YouTube, and more to increase your technicians’ understanding of product application, consumer feedback, and most appreciated benefits.
Want to learn more about how technologies optimize your business? Click here to request info about our partnership with ThermoGRID!
Be emotionally supportive.
Do you have hourly employees? Remember, when there is less work to offer, your technicians cannot make a regular paycheck. These situations can stress out your field employees. Listen to their frustrations, issues, and troubles. Create easy lines of communication to support your team when they are in need!
Set realistic goals.
When sales go down, you may also need to revise your business goals. If you target 30 service calls per week for a field service technician in the peak season, you may need to adjust when it’s slower. Do you track your seasons so you can look year over year to understand seasonal averages? Once you start, you can set realistic goals to help your staff feel motivated, and they will be more likely to perform better. Head to this blog (link to another CE blog) to read more about absence tracking.
Celebrate small wins.
When your field service technicians execute specific repair projects, take some time to appreciate their work! Your team is already going through a tough time during the winter season; it is better to plan a day out with them to celebrate the small wins than to let them go unnoticed.
Recognizing their efforts and accomplishments may help improve employee morale by a considerable level. Offer them some rewards such as a gift card to keep them motivated for the peak season.
summary.
Every business faces ups and downs in different seasons, but the blame should not fall on-field technicians. Develop strategies and plans to keep your employees engaged and help them stay motivated. It may help you enjoy higher productivity with their improved morale in the peak season.
At Call Experts, we have over 40 years of experience providing operational support to businesses. Our home service solutions make it easy for your team to manage appointments, on-call schedules, customer support, and message taking. Understanding your business and offering outstanding service is essential to maintain and grow your business! Please email us to learn more.
