Success during the Slow Season: Involve CSRs in outbound calling

The milder seasons of the year tend to bring about slower business for those in the industry of HVAC, Electrical, and Plumbing.  But just because a majority of inbound calls are not “demand” doesn’t mean that your business cannot be successful and productive during the fall and spring.  Slower times call for company creativity and a renewed focus on the important foundations of service excellence.

This is the last week of our exploration of tips from Matt Stewart, Operations Manager at Advanced Comfort Systems, that aid independent contractors in maintaining success during the “slow season.”  Matt explained the third way he prepares his company for success during these slower times is to “Involve CSRs in outbound calling.” Here are a few ways outbound calling can effectively benefit your company:

• Steady outgoing message– Customer Service Representative outbound calling goes hand-in-hand with the idea of investing in lower cost marketing efforts from our blog, Success during the “Slow Season”: Key 2 of 3-Marketing (posted October 25, 2011).  Just as investing in marketing efforts such as door hangers, in which an employee from your company must purposefully place the marketing piece, the same is true of outbound calling.  A CSR must go into the archives of the company database and intentionally select the customers to call.  This type of purposeful yet low cost marketing can reap great rewards during the slow time through broadcasting your company message to your target market in a direct and personal manner.
• Information that creates a sense of urgency– When a CSR calls a customer to offer a limited-time special on a full system tune-up or some other type of promotion, it creates an opportunity for customer education.  Offering this type of limited-time maintenance promotion creates a sense of urgency in the subconscious of customers in two manners.  First, by simply informing the customer that a special is limited and not ongoing creates an immediate sense of urgency from a financial perspective.  Secondly, when a CSR has an opportunity to inform the customer of the importance of performing tune-ups twice a year and the positive benefits of following through with a maintenance plan, then the customer is faced with the immediate decision of what they will do with that information.  Will they ignore the facts or will they follow through and gain the highest system efficiency? Either way, “the ball is in their court” after the CSR has effectively handled objections and answered questions.
•  Creates opportunities to get technicians in the door– CSR outbound calling can promote a steady outbound message and create a sense of urgency over the phone but the most important result of these calls doesn’t happen over the telephone.  Outbound calling has the potential to get technicians in the door, which is the biggest hurdle for service companies during slower business times. CSR outbound calls offering a limited-time special may be the best technique that an independent contracting company can implement to get technicians face-to-face with customers when demand calls aren’t coming in.  When the technician is inside the home and has an opportunity to prove the company’s high value of service excellence then it creates an “open door” for setting a lead, club, repair, replacement, add-on sale, or even a referral.

Having a plan for employees in every branch of your service company is vital to the overall health of your business year-round.  CSR outbound calling is a great way for independent contracting companies to maintain contact with their clientele and create opportunities for service technicians or sales technicians to interact with customers face-to-face. If you want to reexamine certain areas in your company that may need a boost, allow Service Excellence Training to aid in the evaluation process. Thank you for following Service Excellence Training’s weekly posts.  Here at Service Excellence Training we want to help you turn learning into earning!

-Resource curated by Whitney Stewart of Service Excellence Training.