base come next year. For smaller marketers that are not offering A/C installations, offer mini-splits and be sure to develop a service plan and give it to customers free for the first year. When we tested product diversification in consumer focus groups, the highest rated were: air conditioning installation, air conditioning service plans, propane gas service plans and energy-efficient products. Hence, if you offer propane and have not gotten around to developing a service plan, consider it in your 2016 planning. Certain appliances such as pool heaters rank high in terms of comfort-reliability among consumers. Meaning that for those that have them, they want them to work reliably. This is a good add-on. 4 Do What Your Dentist Does Evaluate your marketing and scheduling process for tune-ups. Driving tune-up volume is another way to effectively capitalize on an existing core competency and facilitate utilization. Most marketers do not take a proactive approach to the process. When tested in focus groups, only about 20% of those customers that got tune-ups (only) thought that it was not necessary every year. The main reason this demographic did not get a tune-up every year is simple: they forgot to schedule it. About 25% thought it was the marketer’s responsibility. Hence, approximately 80% of your base of regular tuneup customers is waiting for your call. If you do not have a proactive approach to scheduling tune-ups, or if the current practice is not meeting expectations, consider implementing a dentist-style approach. Dentists and veterinarians proactively schedule next-visits. This is a very effective way of keeping the book as full as possible with futures. Implementing a similar scheduling process can be easily achieved with tune-ups. Producing a postcard mailer and providing the customer with a date and approximate time (morning or afternoon) will result in one of two outcomes a majority of the time: the customer will accept the schedule or call with a conflict. If the latter happens, your customer service representative has the opportunity to reschedule when it’s convenient. Either way, a proactive schedule has driven work. Our experience is that less than 10% of the scheduled appointments result in a no-show. (i.e. your tech gets to the residence and can’t get in.) This is a small inefficiency that is more than compensated for when customers can be aggregated into planned preferential geographies, reducing travel time. These opportunities are not common to all marketers, but many can implement one or more that are applicable with little risk and significant upside. ICM Mike Hatch, MBA, President, ServicEdge™. Mike has been working in the oil heat and propane industries for 15 years. ServicEdge™ provides financial analysis, marketing services, business process reengineering and training for technicians, CSRs and service managers. 12 ICM/May/June 2016
ICM May-June 2016
To see the actual publication please follow the link above