It’s 6:45 PM, and your technician has already run five calls. At an average of $500 per call, that truck has produced $2,500 for the day. The technician is tired, dinner is waiting, and their daughter has soccer practice.
Then the phone rings. “We need someone tonight!” Instead of heading home, your technician turns the truck around and drives across town for one more urgent call. They arrive around 7:00, diagnose the situation, and after the extra drive, fuel, mileage, dispatch time, and stress, the customer pays a $79 service charge.
Now imagine a different day. Your technician runs three calls and maximizes each opportunity. Those three calls average $2,500 each, producing $7,500 in revenue. That's three times the revenue with two fewer calls, and at 5:00, that technician is headed home.
That's the difference between simply being busy and being productive.
When contractors want to grow, the natural reaction is often to generate more calls. But every additional call has a cost. You have to generate the lead, answer the phone, schedule the appointment, dispatch the technician, and pay for the truck, fuel, insurance, labor, software, and overhead required to put someone in that driveway.
Before investing in more opportunities, make sure you're maximizing the ones you've already paid to create.
That doesn't mean selling customers things they don't need. It means using your expertise to identify legitimate concerns and giving homeowners an opportunity to address them before they become tomorrow's emergency.
Consider a customer who calls because their five-year-old kitchen faucet failed. If the faucet is five years old, the drain, trap, disposal, and potentially other plumbing components throughout the home may be around the same age. If one component has reached the point of failure, it makes sense to evaluate related components for signs of wear.
We've all experienced what can happen otherwise. You repair the faucet, everything is working when you leave, and a month later the garbage disposal fails. The customer calls frustrated: “You were just here! Why didn't you catch this when you were here?”
Technically, you may have done nothing wrong. But that's not necessarily how the customer sees it. Now you have an unhappy customer, another appointment to schedule, another truck going back to the same house, and potentially a discounted repair to preserve the relationship.
A better experience is to identify legitimate concerns during the first visit and give the homeowner the opportunity to address them.
This is where The New Flat Rate's five-option approach becomes so valuable. Instead of diagnosing one problem, presenting one repair, and creating a yes-or-no decision, technicians can present five options.
One option may address today's immediate problem, while other options can incorporate preventative work or more comprehensive solutions based on legitimate concerns discovered during the service call.
The technician's job isn't to pressure the customer or decide what they can afford. It's to diagnose the situation, communicate it simply, present the options, and let the homeowner choose.
Some customers will want the immediate repair. Others may say, “If you're already here and those other components are showing wear, let's take care of them too.” Both are good outcomes because the customer made the choice.
When a homeowner chooses to address multiple concerns during one visit, everyone can benefit. The customer may avoid another unexpected breakdown. The technician performs more meaningful work at one location. And the company generates more revenue from an opportunity it has already paid to create, while potentially reducing fuel, travel time, vehicle wear, and pressure on dispatch.
That's working smarter.
Now multiply that approach across your entire team. Success shouldn't be measured simply by how many calls technicians can squeeze into a day. A technician racing through six or seven homes isn't necessarily more productive than one who runs three great calls, identifies legitimate preventative opportunities, presents all five options, and allows each homeowner to choose.
The goal isn't to squeeze more out of your people. It's to build a process that allows them to accomplish more without working more.
Revenue matters. Profitability matters. But there's another measure of a successful company that doesn't appear on the P&L: What happens at 5:00 PM?
Build a company where your team maximizes the opportunities already on the schedule, generates more value from fewer calls, reduces unnecessary travel and overhead, and still gets to have a life outside of work.
This month, don't challenge your technicians to cram one more call onto the board. Challenge them to maximize every opportunity already on it. Look beyond today's problem. Identify legitimate preventative opportunities. Present all five options. Let the customer choose.
Fewer trips. More value. More revenue. Less stress.
And when 5:00 comes around?
Go home. Cheer for your daughter at soccer. Have dinner with your family. You've earned it.