5 Secrets to Growing Your HVAC Business
It's no secret that HVAC companies are in high demand. Regardless of the weather, we all need our air conditioner or heating system fixed or upgraded.
Your HVAC contractors or technicians come to help during a crisis. Whether it is scorching weather in Florida or freezing winter in Alaska making people uncomfortable, your technicians sure know how to help these households in need. This means that technicians play a key role in having a successful business, so creating favorable working conditions for them and providing the right tools and equipment will ensure happy clients and a job well done.
But having happy clients is not always enough to grow your business. Your HVAC company can potentially have hundreds of clients. But how you can reach them?
Read on to learn how how to grow your HVAC business.
Create a Referral Program for Your HVAC Business
We place a higher value on our loved ones, friends, and even strangers than we do on advertisements and companies. We are influenced by recommendations, reviews, testimonials, social chatter, and most importantly, referrals.
Word-of-mouth marketing may help you promote your business at a lower cost than traditional advertising. The heart of referral marketing is to get your biggest fans to help spread the word about your brand.
However, most businesses are unaware of how to turn consumers into brand advocates and eventually bring more clients to actual businesses. If you are unsure how to start, offer your customers a credit worth $25-$50 in the form of a gift card when they recommend you to a new potential client. If you’re giving customers a discount for referrals, you may also provide discounts to your new and returning clients.
Invest In and Spend Time Training Competent HVAC Contractors or Technicians
HVAC companies frequently have a difficult time finding skilled employees in a tight labor market. Instead of focusing on hiring, concentrate on establishing an effective organizational structure and building a strong company culture.
Investigate different strategies for recruiting candidates. Develop and put into action a thorough applicant selection procedure that includes extensive training for each individual employee. For example, you can utilize on-the-job training. OJT is something that everyone has probably heard.
New hires are assigned to more experienced workers. They closely work with experienced technicians and assist them in daily operations. In turn, the experienced technicians teach the new hires and groom them into more responsibilities.
Although this technique is popular, there are some potential concerns:
- How competent is the trainer?
- How can I tell if the new hire has matured?
To overcome these concerns, you should focus on creating a training system for your HVAC company. This system should be used to highlight all of the specific skills:
- Mechanical aptitude
- Time management
- Customer service
- Troubleshooting skills
These are the main skills needed to be an excellent technician and should be your focus when training new hires.
Use HVAC Marketing Strategies
One thing you can consider implementing to be the leader in the HVAC industry is digital marketing. In this age of digitalization digital HVAC advertising might be one of the best ways to gain more leads and popularity.
Here are 11 HVAC marketing ideas that you can implement today:
- Use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to connect with potential customers.
- Utilize search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure that your website appears near the top of search engine results pages for relevant keywords or phrases.
- Send out email marketing campaigns to previous and current customers.
- Advertise your business in local newspapers and online directories.
- Offer discounts and special promotions to attract new customers.
- Make sure your website is up-to-date and easy to navigate.
- Provide excellent customer service to ensure customer satisfaction.
- Stay up-to-date on the latest HVAC industry news and trends.
- Produce high-quality content on a regular basis, such as blog posts, articles, infographics, and videos. This will help you attract attention from potential customers and establish yourself as an authority in the industry.
- Advertise your services online using targeted ads that appear when people are searching for related terms on Google and other popular search engines.
- Participate in trade shows and other events where potential customers are likely to attend.
Keep Your Employees Happy
As an HVAC business owner, you need to keep your employees happy. If your technicians are happy with their jobs, then they will be more likely to provide great results when they show up at customers’ homes or businesses. They will also be more likely to stay with your company for a long time, which can result in less turnover and a more stable workforce.
One of the best ways of keeping your employees happy is by setting reasonable expectations. If an HVAC technician is not given clear expectations or if they feel like it’s impossible for them to do a good job, they will most likely leave.
Managing employees well means setting reasonable standards and ensuring that they have all of the tools necessary to be successful at completing tasks on time and with quality results. This also goes back into creating positive work environments; when there isn’t pressure from management that makes it difficult for people to get things done correctly, then more stability is created within the company itself as well.
Offer Top-Notch Customer Service
One of the most important things that you can do to grow your HVAC business is to offer excellent customer service. This means being courteous and helpful to customers, responding promptly to inquiries and requests, and fixing any issues as quickly as possible.
When HVAC customers have a good experience with your company, they are more likely to recommend your services to others and return in the future. Providing excellent customer service is essential for building long-term relationships with your clients.
Another way of building trust is keeping the promises you make and being as transparent as possible in all of your communications. For example, if a customer asks how long it will take for an appointment and you tell them that their technician can arrive within two hours, then they expect him to arrive within those two hours. If he ends up arriving several hours later than expected, this could cause frustration or distrust on the part of your client because now they feel like you lied to them.
Growing my HVAC Business
There are many ways to grow and make your HVAC business stand out, but the key is in employing these tactics. The more customers that refer others to you or invest in a service contract with you, the better off both parties will be. Investing time and energy into recruiting competent technicians can help reduce costs for training new employees down the road. Ensuring your team members are happy at work by offering competitive compensation packages and flexible schedules also helps ensure they’ll do their best while on-the-job.
Digital marketing strategies like paid advertising should be used alongside traditional customer relations methods such as phone calls, email newsletters, social media engagement, etc., so all channels of communication remain active and don’t fall through the cracks due to neglect.
Need financing for any of the initiatives above? Select Funding provides affordable and quick loans for HVAC businesses to either acquire equipment or enhance business operations. Apply today if you meet the qualification requirements:
- Registered small business
- Time in business: 6 months
- Minimum FICO Score of 500
- Monthly revenue of $10,000
Apply here or call us at (866) 264-7007