How to Maximize Your Operational Efficiency

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Your operations schedule isn’t written in stone, and neither are your customers’ calendars. So why are you making your techs run ten calls on a Monday, and then having them sit around waiting for work on a Tuesday?

In this week’s episode of Cracking the Code, Contractor University faculty member Drew Cameron explains how to optimize your call calendar and restructure your leads for maximum profits and high-touch customer service.

Audio Transcription (in Beta)

Are you driving operational maximization? Well, you’re going to learn all about it on today’s show.

Today, we’ve got the one and only Drew Cameron talking about operational maximization. Now, if you didn’t know, Drew does a monthly webinar called Marketing Mastermind 360. You can log on, get all of your questions answered live, and And he’ll talk about what you should be doing seasonally each month specific to the marketing function.

Now it’s really amazing, and I want to encourage all you members out there to get involved if you haven’t already. Let’s join Drew now as he dives into operational maximization. Driving, uh, operational maximization. So In july, like I said, we don’t have to do a lot of Marketing spend if you will but we need to do a better job with the opportunities You’re being flooded with opportunities and you can’t be all things to all people when you try to do So you fail miserably and you’re nothing to anyone at some point and customer experience suffers and it should never suffer And so when calls are coming in if you need a prioritization Okay, DEF CON one through DEF CON five and you need a prioritization schedule for both your service calls and your sales calls.

You’re going to have my contact information at the end. Email me and I’ll send you my protocol for that, but I’m going to go ahead and triage the opportunities that are coming in. for the highest probability prospects. And so if I have an opening on my calendar, maybe for, let’s say, Tuesday of next week, and you call me and your new customer to me, and you’re a five year old air conditioning system, and you’re not my customer, I didn’t put that system in.

And you’re not my service or given customer, and you’re calling me and you have no cooling. And I have an opening on Tuesday, I will schedule that opportunity today. Yes, I will. Because I have an opening. Okay, i’m taking care of everything else up to that point, right? And that’s why that customer got pushed out if they’re willing to wait then i’m willing to go But i’ll tell you this come monday if I get flooded with calls to my surf streaming customers That customer on tuesday is getting bumped.

They’re gone, right? We take care of our warranty customers, our service agreement customers first, and then I take care of anybody who’s got a system that meets the protocols. Let’s say, for example, an air conditioner that is 10 years old and has no cooling. I don’t care if they’re my customer or not or under service agreement or not.

That’s a high probability prospect. The same holds true with sales calls. And so you got to make sure that your, uh, your call takers and dispatchers are working in coordination to fill that dish for a dispatch board. You just don’t schedule things and leave them in there. You got to move these pieces around, especially now you’ve got limited people.

You don’t want to be running six, eight, 10 service calls a day. Running more is not better for your people. You’re going to lose people. That’s not, that’s not good. That’s not healthy for your company, not healthy for your team. Right. So you may have to defer maintenance calls and start pulling your maintenance technicians over to run some service calls, the light ones like condensate leaks and whatnot.

And so you may have to do that, but don’t not run your maintenance calls. You know, make sure you’re reaching out to these people. You may have to just bump them to take care of customers with no cooling at that point. And then obviously in the fall and the winter, you do the no heating side of things.

Make sure you’re training weekly and coaching daily. If you’re not doing it as a group, you’re doing it, you know, when you can tap into people again, your company meetings, if they’re every week or your departmental meetings are every week, they’re sacred, they can should continue to happen. We need to train our people, make sure they’re at the best of their game when we’re flush with opportunities they need to, you know, again, I’m going to touch my people on a daily basis in the daily huddles.

And making sure they’re in a good place, you know, humanly first, before I apply to their role, but I just want to make sure, Hey, how you doing? How’d you make out yesterday? You know, what’s working for you. What’s not working for you. Hey, did you try that new script that we talked about? Did you try that, that, that handout that we gave you?

You can also have some informational handouts. Uh, I shared a couple of those with you here in the marketing mastermind on repair versus replace, but you can also hand out something maybe on air quality or airflow or other issues that you want to address that you want to help people get education while your technicians are in the home.

Okay internal promotions again, if we’re slow And then the weather doesn’t show up and all of a sudden calls drop off sales calls drop off for leads drops drops off And I only have a few of them. Well again, why not promote things internally? why not create a flyer give it to my technicians and I can be out there with a Uh a special on replacement opportunities if I have no sales leads coming in the front door and every service call every maintenance call We’re going to get out there and we’re going to hand out the promotion You You know, in the home.

And so where needed, I can go ahead and have a promotion out there, uh, you know, right away to drive opportunities. I’m going to drive tech leads. I’m going to make sure my techs know, hey, I’m incentivizing you to make things happen. I need, we need more leads, uh, add on sales, bundled repairs, duck modifications as, uh, as well.

Consider contests, uh, and increasing incentives to incentivize behavior. So I need more leads. Guess what? If I’m paying $50 a lead, spiffs just went to a hundred dollars per lead. You get to a five, you, you, if you get to five leads in the next week, every lead after the fifth one is $200 a lead. Hell, I’m paying 3 75 to create ’em myself.

I’ll pay 200 a lead every day of the week if I have to. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And so when things aren’t working the way you need them to, you can incentivize the behavior. And then when you get those leads, you need to optimize those leads and sales, right? And so if my guys are running out there and they’re selling systems, and we have a little bit of a backlog, or we can’t get the equipment or something like that, Portable air conditioners, temporary AC units.

I might hook a, hook up, hook up a condensing unit temporarily that I’ve got sitting in the, in the back, you know, recycling pile. Uh, and I might paint that thing blue or orange so that they don’t seem compelled to want to keep the thing, uh, that I just put in for them as a temporary fix. I may go make a temporary repair, okay, just to buy myself and my team some time if I have to.

I’m going to make sure that I’m bringing all open leads to conclusion. You’ve got to make sure your salespeople are debriefing after every sales call and they’re scheduling any follow up activity. You start running them more than three leads, you’re burning leads. And so I would only schedule people a maximum of three new leads a day because they’re supposed to be doing some two call closes.

And so with two call closes plus windshield time plus, You know, if they have to do some paperwork or digital files that they got to put together, that’s a long day for salespeople don’t run these people into the ground. This is a marathon. It’s not a sprint, right? Happy calls. You got to be making happy calls to your customers after your sales calls, if you’ve got to open leads, what, uh, what we know is that, you know, sometimes people just are not, you know, looking to, you know, to act best, interestingly enough.

People will act faster on a replacement opportunity in the air conditioning season than they will on the in the heating season but uh again If your sales people are out there and are running out there and are quoting and they shouldn’t be trying to one call close Everybody just because it’s hot and they’ve got a lot of opportunity and the schedule’s full Again, stay relevant to the customer’s buying process If you don’t have enough sales people to cover all the leads that you got then you need to hire more sales people um, so Obviously a little, a little late in the game to be doing that right now, but now would be the, I mean, in July, since we’re talking about July, but now would be the time to get ready for July so that we have enough sales people and that we can feed them.

And then you could think about getting, um, well along as rehash leads app. It’s a great tool. Where you, I don’t wanna say it should replace the sales person, but it can, uh, enhance and supplement obviously where, where they fall short a little bit on occasion and send, uh, follow up messages and little, uh, little tweaks to kind of, you know, poke the customer a little bit along with some video links, educational content and shows your professionalism and weldon’s seeing like about a, a 30% bump.

And so they’re closing, you know, 20 high twenties to mid forties on the initial visit, and they’re getting about another. 20 mid 20s to 40 on the follow up with the Rehash Leads app in his company. So offer incentives at the end of the season as you head into the end of the season. And so at the end of the summer, you want to make sure that you have incentives to get people off the fence who maybe didn’t do anything during the summer.

Referral rewards could be doubled. Self generated lead SPIFs could be doubled as well, since the market is ripe with opportunities here. Make sure that as a serviceman in the service department that you’re reviewing all service invoices to make sure you’re maximizing the opportunities. Look for the diagnostic fee only is the P.

T. U. Only calls where we only did a precision tune up. We only did a diagnostic fee or we got a 0 ticket in service. And if you see opportunities where the, you know, The opportunity met the 4k rule and you don’t know what the 4k rule is. You need to watch the crack in the code video where I talk about what the 4k rule is, because that would have been an opportunity to flip a lead.

And the customer wasn’t given all the information to make an informative, intelligent decision. Maybe at the time, maybe they didn’t want to schedule an opportunity with a comfort advisor at the time. Maybe they just wanted to get back in business and get cooling reestablished as quick as they possibly could.

And he made a hasty decision to spend 600 to repair the old thing. And it’s the old things. 12, 12 years old. Well, 600 times 12 is 7200. That’s more than 4000. That customer should consider replacement. Maybe they didn’t want to at the time. Maybe time was pressing and they just, you know, made that hasty decision.

But maybe by the end of the season, they might want to reconsider that. And I can maybe offer a refund or double the refund, you know, towards a replacement, uh, you know, scenario. So think about that. Okay, buyback campaigns, which is exactly what I’m talking about there, especially at the end of the season.

Follow up technician recommendations. Your technicians do some work when they’re out on the calls, but they don’t probably do all the work that they’re recommending. Their job is to go out there and find things and diagnose everything and give the customer options to address every concern and every issue that they found.

It’s the customer’s choice and decision to make a prudent buying decision as to what they want to do. And maybe they only want to just take a baby step at this point in time. And that’s okay. But what about all those other recommendations? Is anybody following those up? You certainly should, especially as, again, maybe you get a window of time.

Maybe it rains for two weeks and it cools off. Follow up on the tech recs. Fill the schedule with the tech recs because your phone’s not ringing. What are you going to do? You got to maximize these opportunities. Get the juice for the squeeze. Everybody always says to me, Drew, I need more leads. I need more sales calls.

I need more service calls and maintenance calls. Not necessarily. You’re not doing a great job with those that you got. And that’s why I’m trying to help you get the juice for the squeeze. And again, a person who would be hired to do this would pay for themselves. Somebody who basically follow up tech tech recs, uh, review all service invoices and handle rehash leads pays for themselves, cross the board.

Right. That is what we call an inside sales team. They support outside sales and service. You need to be thinking that way. Okay. Contractors are heading in that direction. Many have already had the best in class. Companies do have that customer experience and work scope should not scuff suffer just because the calendar changed and the temperature changed outside, if it got so hot, you shouldn’t have to shortchange the sales call process, the service call process, the maintenance call process, and try and more opportunities into the day.

No, you need more bandwidth. Now’s the time to start planning for that. That’s why I’m giving you this 90 days in advance so you can be ready for this. If a new system requires additional ductwork for it to perform and, and, and function, Optimally and give the customer the comfort experience and the efficiency that they desire and that they deserve, quite frankly, and you don’t say, well, listen, we’re only going to do the replacement systems.

All duct systems are off during the summer. Well, then don’t run those calls. So on the East coast, for those of you, like I’m from Philadelphia, again, that’s a cut in market. Those are up in, uh, up in new England as well. That’s a cut in a retrofit market. You’re going into homes, maybe in July, June and July, and they don’t have air conditioning and they want air conditioning.

Don’t waste the schedule by putting in these retrofit opportunities in June and July And trying to have your guys go out there and sell them Number one if you’re priced right you’re going to be four to six thousand dollars more than anybody else’s it is The customer may or may not probably isn’t going to buy from you in many cases because you’re four to six thousand dollars more Which means you’re four to six thousand dollars different than somebody else and the reality of it is Is you’re not going to get those opportunities anyway, so you’ve wasted a high probability opportunity in June and July, where you could have plugged in a replacement lead and you ran a retrofit lead.

No, tell customers we don’t put our customer, our people into addicts in those months to do full blown duct systems. We wait until after September 15th, or whatever works for you, as far as the weather, uh, Because we don’t want our people to suffer from heat stroke. And again, it’s just a very dangerous situation.

And right now we are really focused on taking care of the majority of the market, which is those who have air conditioning systems. I’d rather not go out and give the customer a bad experience and fall on deaf ears. Now, here’s the thing, Bill and Susan, if you’re willing to wait, here’s a voucher for 10 percent off anything that we do for you at that point in time.

I will honor the book price that I have. Our book prices won’t change by that point in time. And again, I will honor the book price and you get 10 percent off of today’s prices at that point in time. So again, think about incentivizing customers to wait for that kind of stuff. How about policing your happy calls, making sure when you’re, you’re, You know, recording those happy calls that nobody’s upset with anything, you know, that your people are doing, that the reviews are not allowing for any, any tolerance or social media posts are not allowing for that customer experience to suffer there.

If I ever hear that my sales people are not getting back to customers with quotes, they no longer work for me. You don’t get a warning, right? You were told how to handle leads. Management internally should be holding salespeople accountable, giving quotes on a timely basis. But when customers start calling and saying I’m still waiting on a quote, I have not heard back from your salesperson, I’ve left him voicemails, I’ve sent text messages, I’ve sent emails.

Trust me, I’ve seen this happen. That is a cardinal sin. Why run the call to begin with if you weren’t going to play it through? So make sure you’re policing your people and holding them accountable, right? Offer free second opinions. If your customers aren’t happy with what your first technician told them, offer to send out a field service supervisor or the service manager to offer a free second opinion.

The customer is not happy with the initial diagnosis. Also offer free second opinions on your competitors and be willing to go back and QC their installation. Hey, if I don’t win the job, Bill and Susan, I understand you made a decision that you’re happy with and I’m thrilled that you did. Appreciate the opportunity for having us out here.

Again, Um, if you like, I can come back after, after the job is done and I can make sure it’s up to industry standards and meets the, uh, you know, the specifications of what you and I talked about and that you’re getting what you’re paid for. You’re not an expert, nor should you have to be. And I want to make sure that you get what you pay for.

I’m not going to come out and bash the competition. That’s not what this is about. You gave us the courtesy, professional courtesy of having a, having us out here. And I want to make sure that you get what you’re paying for, whether you do business with us or not. If I sold a job, I’m going out after the job.

So why not go out and make sure that the competition is doing what they’re supposed to be doing, right? Here’s the thing. That may change a review that they write. That may change a social media post that they write. That may basically, you know, change if, you know, who they use going forward or, or the next time out, or who they choose to refer going forward.

And it also gives me some, uh, competitive intelligence as to what my competition is doing, not doing, and how well they’re doing. If I have to change my game and up my game, now I know what to do because I’ve gotten out there. You got to make sure you attend these marketing masterminds, uh, all summer long.

There’s going to be, uh, content out there. In addition to that, we’re going to refer back to the old content and some new educational videos, and you’re going to get access to these plans. So don’t miss a month because you’re going to get a your schedule, right? Internal and operational stuff, right? Set, uh, Set your summer.

That’s not set you. It should be set your summer operational plan in motion with your team. Bring everybody together, right? In May, uh, probably timeframe as things start to heat up end of April for you. Those of you already, in fact, it’s already 90 some degrees down in Texas. So you probably already should be having this conversation, but rally team, the weather’s coming.

The days are going to be long. We’re going to be targeting weekends. Who can I count on? Here’s what the on call schedule is going to look like. Get people ready. Let them know don’t just wait till the weather shows up Have a plan broadcast the plan. Make sure we got buy in from our team any concerns any issues Don’t just work these people to the bone.

They will quit you staff and allocate your resources accordingly here make sure you have the things necessary to take care of your people cool vests and fans and Portable ac units for your people as well as for the customer, right? You should have an ice machine or bags of ice that you’re bringing in and you’re filling the coolers.

You’re giving the company coolers to people and you’re giving the Yetis to the, you know, Yeti drinking cups to your people so they can stay hydrated. You’re providing them with the electrolyte drinks and you’re visiting the jobs and you’re taking them snacks and, um, you know, maybe popsicles and stuff like that.

And you’re letting them know that you appreciate them, that they care and that they matter and that the work they do matters. Get it. I get it. It’s tough out there. So notes via email, handwritten notes, texts, calls, signs of appreciation, acknowledgement, both to the worker and to their family. Hey, if you’re people working nights and weekends, The family’s sacrificing.

Do you not say thank you? You certainly should. All right. Acknowledge the family sacrifices by sending them to the movies or out for ice cream or to dinner or to a ball game or, you know, uh, to, you know, something, something to do. Axe throwing, whatever. There’s some kind of outing that they can have. When they do have that downtime, celebrate the wins daily and weekly, you know, send out texts and letting them know who sold a service agreement, who sold an add on solution, who, uh, who, who sold bundled repairs, who sold a replacement system, create that buzz amongst your team.

When that popcorn starts happening amongst your people, they start ricocheting off each other. Um, you know, that energy is, you know, creates inertia, creates momentum, creates acceleration as well within your organization, right? So make sure you’re having your daily huddles. Now is not the time to start compromising the way we show up in business, weekly meetings, daily huddles.

We’ve got to be taking the temperature of our people. I need to lay my eyes or ears on my people every day and just check in with the human. You know, the role will suffer if the human is struggling. And now, more than ever, people need to know that you care about them. It’s not just a buck and a means to an end.

So show your humanity. Weekly meetings. Okay. Text updates as to what’s going on. Weekly mini celebrations, include the families in some of the events. Um, again, one of the things I’m going to share with you as I dive into the plan here in the last little bit is including the families in the events.

Awesome content right there from Jew as always. Now, listen, if you liked this episode, feel free to share it on Facebook. And if you want to unlock more premium training content to take your business to the next level, click the link in the Facebook post for a free 30 day trial. Well, that’s it for this week, folks.

We’ll see you next week here on Cracking the Code. Until then, bye bye for now.