Growing a commercial service business requires strategy and serious effort. But when you take the right steps to build your business, the results may far surpass your expectations.
Whether you own a large or small business offering commercial services, successful growth involves taking a hard look at your business operations, financials, marketing, and reporting. Once you identify areas of improvement and implement strategies for growth, you lay the groundwork for your business to:
Hire more employees
Offer additional services or new products
Expand your service area
Generate more revenue
Software tools like ServiceTitan give business owners in commercial services better insight about where to improve and how to implement effective solutions.
Ready to take your business to the next level? Keep reading for tips from service business pros about how to achieve growth in your commercial services business.
Establish an optimal business system
Your company’s growth depends on a well-defined operating system that includes an organizational chart, operating manuals, and checks and balances for each department to maintain accountability.
“There’s three reasons why we make mistakes,” says Al Levi, The 7-Power Contractor author and contracting business expert. “No. 1 is we don’t have a system. No. 2, we have the wrong system. And No. 3—this is a lot of the time—the system is not being followed correctly.”
If you plan to expand your business in a new location, or acquire other companies, proper procedures ensure every location operates under the same business model.
This was key for Shane Jaeger, President of Operations at the Texas-based Lawton Group, whose four operating companies include Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, Lawton Mechanical, Lawton Commercial Services, and Buckaroo Pest Protection.
“We did not want HVAC doing something one way and plumbing doing it another—or San Antonio operating differently than Dallas,” he says. “We had to get our standard operating procedures streamlined so we were all moving in the same direction.”
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Streamline service business operations
Streamlining your commercial service business operations with automated technology enables your employees to work more efficiently and reduces chances for manual error.
Commercial service software improves your scheduling, dispatching, team and customer communications, estimates, purchase orders, inventory management, invoicing, payments, and much more.
It also works to centralize operations, which is important for a multi-location service business.
For Edelman Inc., ServiceTitan streamlines its in-house operations, maintaining one around-the-clock call center servicing each location. This allows the company to leverage its overhead and offer a better price to customers.
“We can answer the phones from anywhere and have that all streamlined through ServiceTitan,” says Tyler Edelman, Chief Financial Officer of the company based in Champaign, Ill.
Another benefit of streamlined operations? More profit.
“What the technology brings is at least an extra service call a day,” says Mike Fortin, owner of Putnam Mechanical in Mooresville, N.C., and Sarasota, Fla. “Everything being instantaneous, we actually get at least one more service call per day out of that service tech compared to before, and that’s huge. With an average ticket of about $700 or $800, times nine guys, it’s a lot more money every day.”
Utilize digital tools in the field
Software tools connect your office and field, giving commercial service techs access to important information when they need it.
With the ServiceTitan Field Service App, techs can view important job details like customer contact information, pinned notes, system and equipment information, and related photos, so they arrive at the job site fully prepared.
To ensure that techs follow procedures, you can trigger technician forms for a certain job type or during a certain point in the job cycle, such as completing an inspection checklist or obtaining the signature of a facility manager.
A mobile app enables your tech to present tiered options to customers, showing the value of a higher-priced option and increasing ticket sizes.
A tech can present multiple estimates side-by-side in a clean format, showing customers, “‘Hey, this is an option,’” Edelman explains. “‘This is the bare minimum I can do today. But while I'm here, I also noticed you could also use this repair to prevent a larger replacement down the road or at least prolong the life of your system.’”
After your tech completes the job, ServiceTitan payments enables techs to securely capture checks and credit cards in the field, or send customers a link to a personalized online payment portal.
Provide exceptional customer experiences
Commercial service providers know that delivering high-quality service is key to retaining customer partnerships and gaining new business.
How important is it? In the U.S., 90% of people use customer service as a factor in deciding whether to do business with a company, according to Microsoft.
Enhance customer communication with ServiceTitan customer experience software by sending property or facility managers appointment reminders and notifications, so they know when technicians are scheduled to arrive.
One Texas plumbing company that provides residential, commercial, and new construction services discovered how much their customers appreciated job arrival notifications.
Before using ServiceTitan, Intown Plumbing notified builders and general contractors about a week prior to showing up at a construction job, says Brittany Grose, Director of Business Operations at Intown Plumbing. Now, the company notifies them when they’re on the way, allowing for better work coordination at job sites.
"Two guys that I know for sure have said, ‘We love this, don't stop doing this,'" Grose says.
ServiceTitan’s customer management tools make it easier for your customers to do business with you. They can book appointments online through their customer portal, view invoices, or pay statement balances.
When you build trust with your customers by consistently offering great service, you gain more online reviews and word-of-mouth referrals.
Invest in effective digital marketing strategies
Online marketing tools work to reach prospective customers and increase your customer base. Depending on your message and the demographic of your ideal customer, commercial service businesses will find that having a variety of marketing channels generates the best results.
Some effective marketing strategies include:
Boost your online presence: Maximize search marketing with your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) and pay-per-click ads, to give your local business greater visibility when potential customers perform a Google search.
Enhance your website: Use content marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO), on your website’s blog posts and landing pages. Consider podcasts and webinars to establish your expertise.
Email marketing: Don’t blast your entire email list. Instead, send emails to a target audience to maximize results, such as follow-ups on potential commercial contracts. ServiceTitan Marketing Pro streamlines your marketing, so you can quickly design emails with templates, automate your marketing campaigns, and track return on investment in real time.
Social media marketing: Social media posts work to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and attract new customers. Make sure to use the same social media platforms your target market uses.
Find opportunities in your marketing efforts to make a personal connection. John Akhoian, Founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based Rooter Hero, used creative methods to build customer relationships, including sending birthday cards to local property managers.
Crystal Williams, founder and marketing strategist at Lemon Seed Marketing, who also helps her family’s HVAC and plumbing business, McWilliams & Son, highlights the importance of making a personal connection.
“At the end of the day, people buy and want to do business with who they feel like they know,” she says.
Track key business metrics to boost profit
To optimize your commercial service business performance, it’s crucial to accurately track and measure key business metrics. Key performance indicators (KPIs) show whether your company meets, exceeds, or falls short of goals.
ServiceTitan’s data reporting capabilities make it easy for commercial service contractors to assess and analyze company data.
Lawton Group leverages ServiceTitan’s automation to track project gross margin, overall profitability by division, and overall company profitability. On the commercial side, the business tracks billable efficiency and overall efficiency.
“Everyone on the team has a goal, all the way down to apprentices, and they have to get those reports,” Jaeger says. “If they don’t know where they’re at, they don’t know where they’re going to go. I have weekly scorecards sent all the way down to my techs and all the way up to ownership and board members.”
Data-driven insight shows what areas generate the most profit, so you can grow your company successfully.
Ready to take your commercial service business to the next level? Get started with our Commercial Contractor Software Buyer’s Guide.
ServiceTitan Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and substantially elevate the trajectory of their business. Our comprehensive, cloud-based platform is used by thousands of electrical, HVAC, plumbing, garage door, and chimney sweep shops across the country—and has increased their revenue by an average of 25% in just their first year with us.
