Every HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company should strive to be a memorable independent contracting company to their current clients as well as their prospective clients. It is important for every HVAC, electrical, and plumbing company to place purposeful time, training, and attention on the important action-steps that make up the service process inside of their HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company. When an independent contracting company takes time and energy to be sure that their service goes above and beyond the industry standard then they will be positively remembered by their clients for their unique and excellent service. This is important for companies because clients remember the outstanding experiences they’ve had with companies along with the horrible experiences, generally the average experiences get quickly forgotten. Thus it is very important to ensure that service excellence is the “name of the game” for every team member inside your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company from sales technicians to service technicians to CSRs. Providing positive and memorable experiences can be boiled down to three important components. In today’s post, we’ll delved into these major aspects that make up memorable service standards:
Accessibility
Doing business with an independent contracting company that is easily accessible and readily available is a key to being a memorable independent contracting company that clients will continue to use and potentially refer to others. Accessibility comes in several shapes and sizes in today’s world. Accessibility within an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company’s hours of operation is a key to standing out and being memorable. A part of providing great service is serving clients on their time and around their needs rather than what is convenient for the independent contracting company. Expanding a company’s hours of operation as well as implementing a rotation “on-call” schedule for nights, weekends, and holidays may be a great way to create an independent contracting company that is accessible, convenient, and available.
Along with availability in regards to hours of operation, a great independent contracting company will also have a memorable, clean, fresh, easy-to-read, and up-to-date website and social media sites. It very likely that a great majority of a company’s clients and potential clients will explore the HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company’s website or social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter). So it is important to be sure that these web resources are accessible and easy to navigate for new and returning visitors. It is also a great idea to provide information resources on these websites such a link to your company blog, links to informative videos, and posts related to promotions happening inside your independent contracting company. When an independent contracting company maintains accessibility in regards to convenient service, accessible hours of operation, and user-friendly web resources then that independent contracting company is growing strong service excellence and is working to become a memorable and positive experience for all clients.
Engagement
Working with your HVAC, plumbing, and electrical independent contracting company should be an engaging experience because it should be like building a strong all-around relationship whether the customer is chatting with a technician, calling a CSR, visiting the independent contracting company website, or surfing on the independent contracting company social media sites. An HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company must work to ensure that they maintain a relationally driven attitude and mindset because retention, growth, and service excellence are built when companies purposefully work to maintain and cultivate relationships with their clients. Working to develop and nurture relationships start from the moment that a client is in contact with a representative from your service company whether a manager, CSR, or technician. For example, technicians should work to build client relationships from the moment that they enter a customer’s home. A technician builds an engaging relationship when he takes the time to use proper body language such as greeting the client with a smile; or when he asks if his vehicle is in a good spot and uses floor protection properly before entering the home. All of these examples are great ways for an independent contracting company to build a strong first impression that can lead to sustaining strong client retention. Clients want to do business with an independent contracting company that is professional, respectful, engaging, and relationship-driven.
Excellence
This last main point to becoming a memorable HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company involves maintaining an overall status of service excellence in every facet of your business. Growing service excellence encompasses both of the previous points: maintaining accessibility and developing engaging relationships with clients. When an independent contracting company team is united by a common goal of growing, developing, and maintaining service excellence then the independent contracting company and the company team has an attitude and mindset to achieve success. Service excellence doesn’t mean perfection (there will sometimes be mistakes but they will be handled efficiently and properly) but it does mean striving for perfection and maintaining an overall company goal to provide service that is above and beyond the industry standard. Training on the proper action-steps that make up your company’s non-negotiable service steps as well as training on professionalism, systems and processes, and communication skills are all strong steps in the direction of successfully developing service excellence and becoming an independent contracting company that is memorable for all the right reasons.
An independent contracting company that is memorable to its clients through maintaining accessibility, developing engaging relationships, and striving for service excellence is one that is on the path to success. We love working with independent contractors to help them grow success and service excellence inside their independent contracting company and within their company team. Thank you for following our weekly posts. Here at Service Excellence Training, we turn learning into earning!
-Resource curated by Whitney Stewart of Service Excellence Training.
[…] There are many different outlets of training when working with HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting companies such as: team building, technical training, customer service skills, or internal company procedures. But no matter what the topic or subject, training takes a service company to the next level in many different respects. While some of the positive repercussions of training are upfront, there are several benefits that are subconscious and “below the surface” but they play a major role in boosting individual and team morale. There are three great benefits of training that work to grow company and team success as well as foster a company culture of service excellence: […]