Customer Relations
The Service Call Blueprint
A Case Study Roger Daviston
Doug is a service technician in Atlanta. He is a
single parent with three children. Doug would
get all his calls in the morning and rush through
them in order to be with his children when they came
home from school. This is known as “run and gun.” Doug
would run as fast as he could and get about 10 calls done
each day, bringing in about $3,000 per week.
This pattern was duplicated with all the techs, who
received their calls for the day at once and were pushed
to answer them all. The idea was that to make more
money, we must run more calls.
Each call is not worth much money. Right? Service is
a necessary evil. Right? Sound familiar?
Doug is a novice with “The Service Call Blueprint,”
however, he is growing and learning. Doug ran 3.8 calls
per day the week ending on July 14. He sold $9,825.11
with 19 calls and went home on time by 4:00PM.
Expectations drive behavior.
Leaders set expectations.
Dispatch now is expected to give Doug one call at a time
and Doug is expected to take his time and execute The
Service Call Blueprint. Dispatch is expected to ensure
that Doug does not work past 4:00PM. Do you see the
boundaries that we have established?
President
The Daviston Group
Let’s look at the math. Under Run and Gun, techs
went on 40 calls per week, bringing in $2,000-$3,000
compared with The Service Call Blueprint in which
there were 19 calls per week, accounting for $9,825.11.
Owning the service call
This was a process and it took time to build trust between
coworkers. Doug was angry about getting one call
at a time because he lost control of “run and gun.” We
asked him to trust dispatch to get him home by 4:00PM.
Now dispatch owns dispatch and Doug owns the service
call. Lets look at some other boundaries
we set for Doug. He is expected to
slow down, execute the greeting as
taught, the diagnosis as taught, the
presentation of the option sheet as
taught and collect the money up front
as taught. Doug is expected to think
only about the call he is on.
This company is implementing
“The Service Call Blueprint” and it
is still a work in progress. Call backs
are being minimized. Work load is
being reduced and service revenue is
tripling.
A second generation business, this
company was recently purchased
by the son when his father retired.
The son initially told me, “Roger we
have always lost money in the service
department and we have to change
something.”
Do you need to change too?
The Service Call Blueprint-field tested
strategies for higher revenue, my
latest book available on Amazon, describes
a systematic process of how to execute a service
call. In this article, I’ll summarize the process.
Put two bookends on the service call by exiting the
truck immediately on arrival and pulling away immediately
when finished. You risk leaving a bad impression if
you linger after finishing the call and you risk irritating
the customer by hesitating before you knock on the door.
Check the customer history file before you arrive.
For those of you who have access to a mobile device, go
through all of the history. Familiarize yourself with the
past service calls and anything else that is important to
know.
For those of you who do not have mobile technology,
you must call dispatch and you must take ownership of
10 ICM/September/October 2017