Do you know what HVAC market trends your peers and industry insiders expect will be relevant in the next year? Keeping on top of what the market expects you to know and what your customers will want from your services will give you a competitive advantage, so make sure you have an idea of what the future will bring.
At ServiceTitan, we’ve been observing service industry trends since we launched in 2007, and we’ve made it our business to keep our customers fully equipped to face every new development with our software for commercial and business contractors.
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In this article, we'll discuss 12 trends our customers and HVAC industry experts believe HVAC business owners and professionals need to prepare for in 2024.
Top 12 HVAC Market Trends for 2024
We’ll also point out how ServiceTitan’s HVAC business software can help you keep ahead of these trends. ServiceTitan’s software serves thousands of HVAC contractors, helping them streamline their operations and grow their business by implementing efficient and automated processes.
To discover how ServiceTitan can help you keep ahead of HVAC industry trends by streamlining your operations and automating your daily service processes, request a free demo today.
HVAC Industry Statistics & Trends You Need to Know
1. The HVAC Industry Is Growing Rapidly
What’s the biggest HVAC future trend? Growth.
An AHR Expo and ASHRAE Journal survey found nearly 88% of respondents in the HVAC industry reported a “good” or “excellent” business year in 2019, and 43% of those respondents expected 5-10% growth for their business. Another 23.5% expected growth to exceed 10%. This is a slight dip from the previous year’s survey, but still a remarkably positive assessment of how HVAC businesses are doing.
If your HVAC service shop expects even more growth in 2024, make sure you’re operating with the right infrastructure and HVAC software to scale. Critical processes of your business, such as reporting and payroll, need to be responsive enough to incorporate new team members, new customers, and new sources of income. Only a leading business software solution can provide the agility to grow…and not lose a step while doing so.
Keep Up with HVAC Business Growth Using ServiceTitan
If you need to scale your business efficiently, using specific HVAC business software like ServiceTitan helps to automate critical processes. ServiceTitan gives you everything you need to run an HVAC business — whether you are a manager in the office or a tech in the field, and whether your customers are commercial or individual homeowners.
Specifically, our HVAC software helps you with the following business processes:
And more…
Each of the features of our all-in-one software communicates directly and in real time with all the others, which means you don’t need to spend time transferring information.
For example, call booking and scheduling transfers all customer information to the dispatch board, which can be set up to send customer notifications about arrival times and delays. Also, after the tech finishes the job, invoices are automatically created using the customer’s information, sent by email, and are payable by credit card, check, or bank transfer through the ServiceTitan platform.
Automating and integrating all these tasks also gives your teams in the office and techs in the field a framework they can rely on to apply consistent processes and methodologies as they work. No more scribbled invoices and estimates lost in the back of a van, no more haphazard call booking, scheduling, and dispatching processes — tons of efficiency gains, and loads of time and hassle saved across the board.
2. More People Are Working in HVAC Than Ever Before
The most recent employment numbers for the HVAC industry are record-breaking. In 2018, 1.2 million people in the U.S. were employed by HVAC companies, a more than 5% boost over 2017. The HVAC industry outlook also predicts 13% growth through 2028, which clearly speaks to the overall health of the industry.
Have you seen growth at your shop? Noticed new competitors in your service area? More people and money in any industry can be a double-edged sword: Yes, it means the HVAC pie is bigger, but it also means fighting harder for your piece.
Keep Up with New Competition by Advertising Your Services with ServiceTitan
ServiceTitan integrates with Google Local Services, making it easy to advertise your HVAC services on Google. When potential new customers click on the ad you create using ServiceTitan, they are taken directly to a job-scheduling page.
If a potential customer searches for “Air Conditioning Service Albuquerque,” for example, your paid Local Services ad shows up in the top search results in Google.
When a searcher clicks on your ad, they can directly book a job with you using ServiceTitan’s automated web booking widget. They don’t have to call you or find your website to make an automatically confirmed appointment.
With Marketing Pro, an add-on service offered by ServiceTitan, you can also monitor the ROI of your Google ad campaigns in real time to make sure your HVAC marketing and advertising budget is being used in the best way possible.
Within ServiceTitan, you can connect your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts to simplify the process of tracking the ROI of your campaigns to the specific jobs booked and the real revenue generated from each ad. This lets you make informed decisions about which ads to keep running and which to improve based on real ad ROI figures.
3. Keep Recruitment for New HVAC Techs Top of Mind
While the HVAC industry outlook for jobs remains strong, the lack of interest in the trades as a career among young people continues to cause concern. Despite the worry, other experts such as AHR Expo and ASHRAE Journal predict HVAC jobs will grow 15% over a 10-year period (2016-2026).
Is your HVAC company taking the necessary steps to find and recruit new HVAC talent? What makes your business a better place to work than your competitors? Are you adopting the kind of technologies and processes that make onboarding new talent easy for your infrastructure and exciting and engaging for people new to the industry?
As the trades face expected growth and staffing issues, these are the kinds of questions you should be thinking about for your HVAC business.
Attract Top Talent by Highlighting Your HVAC Company’s Use of ServiceTitan
Attracting the best talent to your vacancies is not only about offering great HVAC technician salaries and benefits — although these are fundamental. The tools your HVAC company uses to make the lives of techs and other team members easier can also have a significant impact on recruiting.
Implementing ServiceTitan’s comprehensive contractor services software can help in this regard. Streamlined and integrated call booking, dispatching, and customer notification processes alone mean no more scheduling mistakes and no-shows that waste techs’ time and cause frustration.
Your techs can use our flexible and functional mobile app to:
Present good, better, best proposals for future work.
Offer a range of customer financing options that can be approved on the spot.
Access fully updated HVAC pricebooks, including high-quality product photos and product descriptions to show the customer.
All of this adds up to your techs appearing more professional, avoiding busywork (creating an invoice or showing options in a pricebook via ServiceTitan is significantly easier than doing so manually), and being as cutting-edge and efficient as possible. That’s an attractive proposition for any potential employee.
Read our article on the best HVAC technician interview questions to ensure you select the best candidates.
4. Company Culture Matters
HVAC future trends indicate the importance of how company culture will only increase in the coming years.
As experienced Baby Boomers are retiring, the HVAC industry needs to court a younger generation of talent to fill its ranks. For Millennials (and a growing number of other workers — 88% in total), company culture is central to a successful business.
One of the most popular strategies is to incentivize performance and regularly provide individual awards and team-wide perks for achievement. But measuring performance in an HVAC business can be difficult if you’re not using the right software solution.
How ServiceTitan Improved Communication & Company Culture at One Company
The Happy Outlet, based in Carson City, Nevada, found communication between team members much easier after it implemented ServiceTitan’s software. ServiceTitan gave the company’s techs and office staff direct access to detailed job information, call history, and customer communication details in a single interface — both in the field and at the office.
“We’re able to be more productive as a company because everything is all in one system,” says Rebecca Tenorio, Dispatcher and Client HAPPYness Representative for The Happy Outlet. “With ServiceTitan, it’s all at our fingertips, no matter where we are.”
After the business switched to ServiceTitan, it grew by an estimated 50%. It now employs 14 team members and expects to generate $3 million in revenue for 2022. Tenorio says that success is mainly due to the new software system. “It’s allowing us to focus more on training and the future,” she says.
“All the information is in one program where everybody can access it,” Tenorio says. “It’s very convenient. It’s made so many things a lot easier.”
Read the full Happy Outlet case study here.
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5. More Employees Prefer Mobile-First Communication
Company culture isn’t all about bonuses and team outings. It’s also about adopting tools to make the job easier and simplifying company communication. Today’s workforce views phone calls as time-consuming and emails as a burden.
In a 2019 survey by SlickText, nearly 45% of workers said they prefer text over email.
How can HVAC shops leverage this shift in employee productivity and communication preferences? Reducing phone calls between your techs and your office is one surefire way. The latest dispatch boards allow dispatchers to send texts to techs in the field with just a few clicks.
ServiceTitan’s Dispatch Board: Adjust Schedules and Communicate with Techs and Customers
The ServiceTitan dispatch board is straightforward to use. This is where dispatchers can keep an eye on — and communicate with — techs in the field, without having to call them on the phone and disrupt their day.
Dispatchers are able to see information such as:
Alerts
Unassigned jobs
Scheduled jobs
Unconfirmed jobs
Dispatched jobs
Jobs that are Working, Paused, Done, Canceled, or On Hold
Dispatchers can clearly see which jobs are already assigned to an HVAC technician and which have yet to be assigned. They can quickly assign jobs to techs or make immediate schedule adjustments.
As technicians work through the day’s appointments, dispatchers can track their progress in real time. The activity feed updates dispatchers on when techs are traveling to a job, when they arrive, and when they’ve finished a job and are about to set off for the next appointment. It also provides real-time GPS tracking to monitor each tech’s location as they drive between jobs.
With mobile-first communication in mind, dispatchers can message techs within the dispatch board, providing streamlined communication with techs in the field. They can also send group messages to the entire tech team, as needed.
ServiceTitan also automates mobile-first communication with customers. Our dispatching features include sending out automatic customer notifications for a range of job-status updates, including:
Appointment reminders and job confirmation requests.
Changes to appointment times.
Notifications that their tech is due to arrive soon.
And more…
6. The “Internet of Things” Isn’t Going Away
A few years ago, the Internet of Things was a buzz-phrase referring to a growing number of Wi-Fi-enabled household appliances like TVs, stereos, refrigerators, and thermostats. Today, it’s estimated that more than 14 million homes in the U.S. use “smart home” or "smart technology" devices and products — and that number is only expected to grow.
What does this mean for HVAC market trends? Does your shop offer the latest line of Wi-Fi-enabled products and properly install them? Do they know how to speak to them and demonstrate the value of automation to customers? If not, it might be time to update that pricebook and start speaking your customers’ language.
Use ServiceTitan to Give HVAC Techs Direct Access to Pricebooks and More
ServiceTitan’s mobile app gives HVAC technicians, business owners, and office staff direct access to a fully updated pricebook, helping to avoid costing and estimate errors. Techs get on-the-go tools to create Good-Better-Best proposals using the prices and services included in the pricebook.
Techs can build their estimates and proposals directly on their mobile devices right in front of the customer. They can opt to use estimate templates for the most common services and customize them for each new customer, or build their own estimates from scratch.
The ServiceTitan pricebook includes high-resolution photos and full product details, so techs can show products, packages, and services to the customer on their tablet out in the field.
The customer can quickly choose the service they want, without waiting for an estimate to be drawn up back at the office. HVAC techs can immediately set up work orders, offer financing options, generate invoices, and even collect payments before they leave the customer’s location.
7. A Double Meaning for “Going Green”
More and more consumers express concerns about the environmental impact of the products and services they buy. They’re often willing to pay more for the sustainability of options that are more environmentally friendly than others, whether in new building projects or retrofits.
GWI found a rising number of consumers were ready to pay for more expensive, eco-friendly products, including 46% of Baby Boomers and 61% of Millennials.
That means your HVAC shop can be helping the environment by offering more efficient, eco-friendly products that satisfy the new trend — capturing more market share and bigger tickets tied to the HVAC market trend.
Consider researching and possibly stocking products to help reduce your customers’ energy consumption and carbon footprint.
8. Personal Touch is Now a Must-Have
It isn’t just employee expectations that are changing in HVAC market trends. Consumers’ expectations are changing, too.
A State of Global Customer Service survey found 78% of younger consumers expect customer service reps to know their purchase history and contact information as soon as they start speaking to one another.
Is your HVAC business using customer relationship management (CRM) tools and initiatives to provide the most convenient experience possible for your customers? Are you collecting customer and job information you can later leverage to customize marketing efforts and target only relevant customer segments? Ask yourself these kinds of customer service questions if you’re looking to make a bigger splash in your service area this year.
Improve Customer Experience with ServiceTitan
ServiceTitan’s customer experience software gives today’s HVAC customers the on-demand services they have come to expect. With ServiceTitan, you can trigger automatic customer notifications so they will know exactly when your tech is due to arrive. They are notified of delays in real time so they don’t have to hang around for a whole morning, or even the whole day, to get their air conditioner fixed.They can also track your techs as the truck gets closer, the same way they do for an Uber or a pizza delivery.
Additionally, with ServiceTitan, you can use automated text messages to communicate with your customers, which many prefer. By automatically keeping customers in the loop, ServiceTitan reduces potential frustration for customers and makes the entire customer experience much smoother.
9. No One’s Writing Checks Anymore
OK, not “no one,” but it ’s no secret that check writing has steadily plummeted since the invention of the credit card and more digital ways to pay. People don’t pay with cash as much anymore, either.
Instead, mobile point-of-sale (POS) systems such as Clover and Square help small- and medium-sized businesses — and even independent vendors — conveniently capture payments at commercial premises and homeowners’ porches.
Are your HVAC techs still writing invoices and crumpling up receipts? Or maybe your point-of-sale system doesn’t play nice with your reporting or accounting software.
Either way, HVAC market trends indicate that now is the time to give your HVAC customers the same, easy POS credit card and check capture, online payment options, and other speedy payment features they’re offered everywhere else.
Taking Payments with ServiceTitan
With ServiceTitan, you can take faster payments from anywhere. Our mobile app allows techs to take payments in the field, while our online payment features let customers make payments within their account on the ServiceTitan portal.
ServiceTitan Payments allow techs to take a photo to securely capture checks and credit cards in the field, or send customers a link to a personalized online payment portal. Techs no longer need to drop off checks at the office, which speeds up the clearance process since check and credit card payments are processed the next day.
Online payments within ServiceTitan allow you to be paid 2-3 times faster.
With ServiceTitan Payments, reconciling bank statements and payments is simple. Our software automatically matches your electronic payments to your bank deposits, so you can create an easy-to-export batch report for your accounting software.
10. 2024 Could Finally Be Geothermal’s Moment
Geothermal heat pumps have been an eco-friendly solution for warming and cooling houses for a long time, but they don’t seem to get as much attention as solar panels and other energy- and money-saving solutions. Is that about to change? Some industry watchers think so.
Geothermal heat pumps account for about only about 1% of the U.S. HVAC market. But now that Congress has reinstated a tax credit for the HVAC technology, forecasters hope for a bump in awareness, demand, and installations.
According to the Department of Energy, about 50,000 geothermal heat pumps are installed across the country each year. If that HVAC industry number begins to increase, is your shop ready to reap the benefits?
11. Keep Homes “In the Zone”
Many homeowners want the ability to use smart thermostats to set air conditioning systems to different temperatures in various parts of their home. While this isn’t new, it’s a big one among HVAC equipment trends.
In addition to convenience, homeowners also desire this feature for energy-efficiency reasons. HVAC manufacturers can offer advice on what types of zoning are best for homeowners, depending upon their situations.
12. HVAC Future Trends Get Smarter
Smartphones, smart homes, and smart HVAC systems are in demand more than ever. From self-regulation to sensors to remote temperature adjustment to integration of energy controls, technology gives us more control than ever over our homes’ energy output.
Organizations such as the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) offer guides for manufacturers and HVAC contractors, so they can provide the best and safest service possible to homeowners, commercial customers, and other consumers.
Get HVAC Smart with ServiceTitan
Customers have come to expect smart HVAC businesses. Manual processes with pen and paper just won’t cut it anymore. You can become immediately high tech with ServiceTitan’s contractor service software to run your business.
ServiceTitan is an all-in-one platform to help you streamline business processes and much more. Automate your HVAC business with the following ServiceTitan features:
To find out how to grow your HVAC business and keep up with industry trends, request a demo of ServiceTitan now.
ServiceTitan HVAC Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive HVAC business software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and achieve growth. Our award-winning, cloud-based platform is trusted by more than 100,000+ contractors across the country.
