Finding the right HVAC phone answering service is essential.
When you’re managing an HVAC business, there are a lot of things that take up your time. So it’s no surprise that one of the biggest problems many companies face is answering their phone calls.
The fact is that it’s more than inconvenient to put aside your work every time the phone rings.
With the projected global heating and cooling market in 2027 at 288 billion dollars, finding scalable processes for answering every call is essential for any HVAC business owner.
What if you had a professional answering service answer all of those missed calls and deliver messages to your team?
It’s a lot easier on your schedule and a lot more convenient for your customers—after all, their call might be about an emergency, and they need you to get back to them immediately! With the help of an answering service, you can get back to the people who need support right when their call is received.
But how do you find the best HVAC phone answering service? Finding one that matches your needs may seem like a tall order, but following these tips will make the search more accessible!
The 7 Best HVAC Phone Answering Service Tips
As your small business grows and you expand into the realm of providing a service, the last thing you want to worry about is making sure the phone is answered, and calls are returned promptly.
An answering service can be valuable if you have an HVAC company, allowing you and your employees to focus more on customer service.
With 40 years of experience supporting HVAC businesses, we’ve compiled this list of tips to help you find the best company for your needs. Keep these in mind, so you stay informed.
How Can the HVAC Phone Answering Service Support You as You Grow?
The HVAC industry is booming right now.
And the current economy is putting a lot of pressure on businesses bottom lines. That means companies are looking for opportunities to increase efficiency and reduce operating costs. That’s why more and more companies are turning to outsource their customer service needs.
As you think about outsourcing parts of your business, asking the right questions when choosing vendors is essential. You’ll have many responsibilities beyond just picking the right partner for the job.
Ensuring the business has the right customer service agents is essential. You’ll want to make sure your HVAC phone answering service offers additional training so your agents are constantly plugged into best practices.
Why is this essential? The customer service agents will represent your business when calls are made.
They will be responsible for helping customers through appointment setting, answering questions, and ensuring their installation goes smoothly.
Asking about training programs and your HVAC phone answering service’s capacity to increase agent coverage during busy seasons is essential to finding the right partner!
What is Your Budget?
It would be best if you considered your budget to get the most out of your HVAC phone answering service experience.
You’ll want to make sure there are plans you can afford and are set up in a way that works for your business.
Three main categories affect your budget: your account size, your needs and requirements, and how much time you want to dedicate to setting up and managing your service.
With a smaller account, you probably don’t have as many calls coming in, so there’s less work for an HVAC phone answering service to do.
However, the cost can add up if you have a small account with a lot of variety in your calls. You’ll need to partner with an HVAC phone answering service experienced at handling many kinds of calls, which is why asking about training is essential.
Ask how much the company will charge for answering a certain number of calls per month and how many employees they expect you’ll need.
It’s best to be prepared before speaking with a company representative. You should even keep a list of questions handy and use it as a go-to guide throughout your search process.
Can the HVAC Phone Answering Service Provide Dispatching and On-Call Support?
Your HVAC company is only as good as your customer service.
Incoming calls often come in at unexpected times and for different situations. For example, your staff may be at lunch or on the way to a job when these calls come in.
What happens when something goes wrong on the weekend, and you have no technicians available to provide quick assistance?
If you need an HVAC phone answering service to relieve your team from dispatch duties during the day and after hours, they may get stuck with several calls that distract them from other essential work for your business. These missed calls can cause stress and delay your team’s customer response time.
An HVAC phone answering service like Call Experts can instantly provide dispatchers and on-call support wherever you need it.
With Call Experts’ HVAC phone answering services, we’ll take care of any additional concerns your customers might have while you focus on the needs of your staff and business.
We’ll provide prompt and helpful answers to questions about products or services.
We can also offer repair scheduling, and we can route to on-call technicians with ease!
As an HVAC Phone Answering Service, What is Their Availability?
Suppose your company is a 24-hour heating, ventilation, and air conditioning service. In that case, you need to know that your HVAC phone answering service will answer calls at 3 a.m. on Christmas morning because heaters aren’t working.
And to provide the best chance at a positive customer experience, you should always give your customers as much flexibility as possible. Finding the right HVAC phone answering service partner is essential in providing 24/7/365 support to your customers. In addition, you should always take advantage of every call to your HVAC business.
When looking for a new HVAC phone answering service partner, make sure they’re always available to support calls.
You know that HVAC never sleeps, so you need customer support that’s always available!
Do They Offer Tools to Help Retain Employees?
If you’re a business owner, you know the importance of employee attendance—but you also know how difficult it can be to track.
There are over 212,509 HVAC technicians currently employed in the United States. And, that equates to a lot of absences!
Many things contribute to employee absenteeism: family illness, doctor appointments, and personal appointments. There are ways to prevent absences through scheduling and flexibility. However, if you want better attendance, you need a way to track it.
One of the most effective ways of tracking HVAC employee absenteeism is to use a service like Attendance Bridge™️.
Attendance tracking is a must-have feature for any HVAC business, and with Attendance Bridge, you can easily track employee absences.
With Attendance Bridge, you can track attendance easily and see the big picture of absences over time.
Use email reminders to inform your employees of upcoming events they must attend or request vacation time.
You can view and export reports of an individual or multiple employees’ attendance history quickly and easily on your computer or mobile device.
Final Thoughts on Finding an HVAC Phone Answering Service
Knowing who your customers are, what they want, and what they need is the cornerstone of any successful business. Finding a good HVAC phone answering service can help retain employees, sell more, and improve customer service.
After all, there’s limited time in the day for your team to do everything it needs to do. If your company is getting tons of calls from customers who have questions about air conditioning and heating, an answering service can help you ensure that no question goes unanswered.
Please contact us to learn more about how Call Experts can support your HVAC business!