If you’re looking to boost employee productivity, improve first-time fix rates, and provide better customer service then your HVAC employees should be thinking about time management before they leave the shop in the morning and when they check back in the evening.
Here are four HVAC time management techniques for your employees to help ensure that happens:
1. Begin Each Day With a Game Plan
Professional athletes don’t step out onto the field without a plan, and your employees shouldn’t be any different.The Non-Software Solution:
Have your employees set aside a few minutes before they leave the shop each morning to look over their schedules and to read work-order notes to make sure they have all the tools, equipment and materials they’ll need for the day. Before your techs leave the shop in the morning they should know exactly what needs to be accomplished at each service location so they can complete the work orders before they leave.
The Solution with Software:
A paperless scheduling system for your HVAC employees will ensure that they start each day with a game plan. HVAC service software that’s ready for mobile use will ensure that your technicians have real-time access to their schedules and the ability to reference a customer’s complete service history while on site. If they check their schedules first thing in the morning, they’ll also be able to check the shops inventory for any parts or equipment they’ll need for the day right from their smartphones, tablets or personal computers and reserve the items they’ll need for those jobs.
2. Keep Travel to a Minimum
If your HVAC employees are spending a lot of time on the road between service calls then you’ve probably already realized that that’s causing you to not be able to complete all the jobs you’d like in a day, and a huge drain on productivity.The Non-Software Solution:
Each morning, have your technicians also look at the location of their jobs for the day. Once they know exactly where they need to go, they’ll be able to create the most efficient routes possible. Optimizing routes will increase productivity and reduce your fuel costs.
The Solution with Software:
Since scheduling and routing complement each other so well, HVAC service software will also help your technicians create the most efficient routes possible. With software, once a job is scheduled you can plot and prioritize them according to their location. If one job isn’t fitting into the equation you can easily find another tech that can pick it up and assign it to them instead. Quickly swapping jobs make more sense than having two techs cross paths to complete the same amount of work, right?
3. Assess the Entire Situation
When your employees go out on a service call to fix a broken thermostat, for example, they should spend a few minutes or so looking over the customer’s entire system to identify the roots of the problem. A thermostat can break for a number of reasons and while every customer wants the quickest, cheapest fix, the “band aid” approach to fixing things isn’t always the answer. In the long run, you’re customers will respect you more and come back to you for quality service.The Non-Software Solution:
Starting each call with a brief overview of the customer’s entire system and service history will help your technicians determine exactly what needs to be done and how to do it best; which reduces callbacks and leads to better customer service.
The Solution with Software:
Because HVAC service software has the ability to connect your techs with real-time data, they can access any customer’s history while they’re out in the field. They’ll even be able to pull up the customer’s maintenance agreement and identify any further or additional problems that should be addressed.
Bonus Tip: Have a Checklist
When it comes to the evaluations of systems and the quality of the service you provide your customers, it’s important to standardize your services and processes as much as possible. Which means that all of your technicians should be able to offer the same customer experience and the same level of customer service.
The best way to accomplish this, in the most efficient way possible, is to have a standard checklist for your employees to follow on each service call. We’ll let you determine what this ‘inspection process’ looks like because regardless of what your checklist entails, it is always a good idea to have all your techs operating on the same level and performing the same steps.
4. Plan for Surprises
You never know when an emergency call will come in or what the nature of it will be and aside from emergency calls being unpredictable, you really never know what to expect on any service call. Sometimes your techs are dispatched for an AC refrigerant leak. Once on site though, they might notice that the condenser coils are in need of a dire cleaning, for example.Thus, scheduling jobs too close together will make tackling these service call “surprises” challenging for your employees. When the clock is against you, rescheduling your customers or needing them to book another appointment for the same issue is never ideal, and you certainly never want to ignore the problem until it creates a larger one before you can do something.
The Non-Software Solution:
While it’s important to provide your customers with as accurate a time slot of when your technician will arrive, it’s also important to leave enough of a “buffer” in case a tech is running later than they anticipated. If a tech is running 10 minutes behind schedule, that buffer will ensure that he has enough time to get to his next appointment, without having to involve or inconvenience the next customer.
The Solution with Software:
Gaining control of unexpected or stressful situations becomes much easier with software. With real-time access to vital customer and job information scheduling an emergency call on the fly becomes something that is manageable and doable. Software these days supports a great amount of mobility. So much so that you could potentially run your entire business on the road, and when you’re able to wrap your arms around what’s happening within every area of your business, the result you’ll notice is that those “surprises” aren’t surprising you anymore. If an unexpected situation occurs, regardless of what it may be, software provides the transparent visibility and flexibility needed to re-route a tech, update a record, reschedule a job, or create a new customer and schedule a job, on the spot.
What time management techniques work best for your employees?
