Equipping HVAC technicians with the right HVAC sales training and tools is critical, especially if you don’t have a dedicated sales team.
HVAC business owners who use software like ours, ServiceTitan, get a head start because we’ve been helping HVAC businesses (big and small) for over 10 years boost HVAC sales and profit by:
Nurturing existing customers (which costs less than finding new customers) with high-quality customer service, efficient follow-ups, and targeted upselling.
Driving new HVAC leads from potential customers via smart marketing strategies and sales process analytics.
In this post, we’ll share nine tips that we’ve learned from seeing them succeed.
9 HVAC Sales Tips
Schedule a demo to learn how ServiceTitan can help your HVAC business generate more sales.
Tip #1: Provide Awesome Customer Service
Prioritize customer experience and nurture customer relationships
Improve efficiency with real-time, accessible data
It’s obvious, but providing outstanding customer service is the foundation of any successful HVAC business, and it’s essential for maintaining existing customers and increasing HVAC sales.
"Nurturing that client relationship, so they do repeat business with you, then refer you to their friends, their clients, their family — that is a much more efficient and effective way to keep customers, rather than continuing to have to spend to get new ones, over and over again,” says Angie Snow, who is also Success Coach with Go Time Success Group and Vice President of Western Heating and Air Conditioning in Utah.
“The better you understand what your customer retention rates are, the more you'll profit.”
Here are two ways you can provide the best customer experience for your customers:
Super-Efficient Call Handling
Customers (including potential clients) want helpful, knowledgeable customer service reps from the moment they make their first phone call for your HVAC services, whether it’s concerning a faulty thermostat or HVAC unit, or a quote for new HVAC equipment like air conditioning. By contacting their local home service business, they’re looking for a quick response and efficient, top-quality service.
To help make this step super-efficient, ServiceTitan’s call booking software speeds up the entire booking process by letting CSRs gather the right information, ask the right questions, and efficiently book the job without keeping the customer waiting. Your sales team can automatically see who’s calling before they answer the call. Plus, drop-down menus and custom prompts help them note all the job details and finalize the booking, all from one screen, quickly and accurately.
Top-Notch Customer Communication
Nurture customers by showing them that you value their time. Customers don’t want to take unnecessary time off work to wait for an HVAC tech to arrive so, notify them when a technician is on the way to their home (if it’s a residential HVAC job), or to their commercial property to minimize wait times.
ServiceTitan’s software uses GPS tracking so team members always know exactly where HVAC techs are and how jobs are progressing.
This means that dispatchers can send customers a picture and bio of the tech, and even a locator map so customers can track their travel in real-time. Customers can also text your team if they have any questions or wish to reschedule.
With ServiceTitan, customers know who to expect and when they’ll arrive to diagnose their problem.
Learn more about how to improve the customer experience in this post.
Tip #2: Boost Booking Rates with HVAC Call Scripts
Create call scripts to standardize customer experience
Utilize call recordings to monitor and improve performance
Creating specific HVAC call scripts for CSRs (and other employees like sales reps) helps them understand customer needs and provide outstanding service. Standardized call scripts personalized by your HVAC company help your CSRs use the correct words and remember important questions so they can provide all customers with a high-quality experience, no matter which CRS answers the phone.
For example, “How old is your HVAC equipment?” helps you understand whether a more experienced HVAC technician should be sent for an older system, while “Where is your HVAC system located?” may provide you with potential access restrictions, which may dictate which tech to send.
Pairing your HVAC call scripts with our call booking software allows your CSRs to view the appropriate script for their situation and guides them through the booking process so they don’t miss any important details. It also helps them to spot upselling opportunities such as HVAC equipment upgrades or service contracts, and avoid promoting HVAC services that the customer has already bought.
Additionally, our add-on Phones Pro software provides live call transcripts to assist your CSRs, enabling them to quickly answer customers’ questions, even if they may not initially know the answer. This also helps the conversation stay on track when a customer asks about the price of an HVAC product or service.
ServiceTitan also automatically records every call to provide your HVAC company with a complete record of how your CSRs are performing. This means you can use sales calls as a training tool so they can learn how to improve.
In addition, there are specific call scripts that can be used for outbound HVAC sales calls. These can focus on offering additional services (such as maintenance contracts), following up on unsold estimates to secure sales, or renewing lapsed memberships.
For example, to follow up on an unsold estimate, after thanking the customer for the opportunity to provide them with a quote, you might say, “I see that you are still thinking about moving forward with the (service or install) that we quoted, so I wanted to follow up and see if you have any additional questions we could address.”
You can read this full script and additional specific HVAC call scripts here.
Learn how to run a successful call center and find our telephone answering and script advice in the ServiceTitan Playbook. See our tips on how to improve the customer experience here.
Tip #3: Dispatch Effectively for Profit
Send skilled communicators to high-value jobs
Utilize valuable property information
Improve your chances of closing HVAC sales and increasing your customer base by sending the right person to the right job. This is difficult to do without software that automates all the different elements involved.
Prior to signing up for ServiceTitan, Georgios Gounaris, Senior Operations Executive of Cyprus Air in Alexandria, Virginia, and a former dispatcher for the HVAC company, says he used a convoluted process to determine each day’s schedule.
“We used to do the schedule by printing out the jobs, laying all the papers on the floor and kind of making it into a puzzle to see if the areas that we can easily send everything matched correctly,” Gounaris says. “And of course, we didn't have any GPS trackers in the trucks. We had to call technicians to find out where they were.”
Using ServiceTitan as your dispatching software is simple because CSRs can see the available time slots for each technician without leaving the original screen.
While not every tech is a sales professional, with ServiceTitan you can make sure you send the most skilled communicators with HVAC sales experience to high-value jobs. This means you don’t need to hire outside sales reps to pitch for specific HVAC jobs. You can utilize staff that have the skills and years of experience in sales from your existing team.
ServiceTitan dispatch software enables your company to attribute certain skills to certain HVAC technicians, and build a technician scorecard so you know who’s capturing the highest average tickets and generating the most leads. This means you can dispatch the most suitable technician to every single job.
HVAC techs are also given a head start on the sales process with integrated property data information, so they know as much about the customer’s property as possible, including past work and any other communication with your company. The software records the complete service history, the techs who conducted previous services, existing parts and HVAC systems, and any current memberships or service agreements.
Note: ServiceTitan offers an add-on product, Dispatch Pro, with more advanced dispatching features. Using machine learning, Dispatch Pro’s algorithm runs thousands of scenarios to find the best technician for every job. This, plus its intuitive dispatch board automations saves your dispatchers time, improves customer service, and maximizes profit.
Learn more HVAC dispatching tips in this post.
Tip #4: Use Cutting-Edge Technology On-Site That Benefits The Customer (and Your Business)
Use mobile software to access customer data
Prioritize and quote for HVAC maintenance so repairs are made quickly
Create invoices and accept instant payments
Empower your techs with mobile HVAC software that gives them instant access to up-to-date customer data so they have all the information they need to deliver HVAC services smoothly and efficiently.
Quick Access to Customer Data
ServiceTitan’s Mobile App syncs with our call booking software so that technicians can access all the information the CSR collected on the call, including customer details, service history, warranty information, outstanding estimates, prior invoices, any notes, and call recordings.
Many HVAC companies that don’t use software find that information ends up scattered — customer details are stored in paper files or spreadsheets, job information is written down on loose pieces of paper or individual email or text exchanges. This isn’t efficient. Having all this information at their fingertips reduces the number of calls to the office and the chance of missing key details for a job or missing out on opportunities to upsell customers at the right time or follow up when promised.
Instant Quotes for Repairs
ServiceTitan Mobile also lets techs create branded digital estimates on the spot – no finding and flipping through old pricebooks or calling the office while the customer waits. Accurate, quick estimates help customers make decisions quickly, come across as more professional and can thus help close more business. This means that customers can make an instant decision about the job, without waiting days for an email or phone call from your company.
Prioritizing repairs for a customer shows your company’s honesty, and allows the customer to make the right decision. For instance, if your technician finds 10 problems during a HVAC inspection, customers should know what needs to be fixed right away, what can wait, and what is optional.
A professional, digital pricebook that a tech can share with the customer via a tablet on the spot helps give that sense of transparency and clarity to the customer. You’ll likely receive repeat business, and even referrals on social media, if you prove your HVAC company is trustworthy, efficient, and fairly priced.
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Get Paid on the Spot
Another advantage of ServiceTitan Mobile is that HVAC techs can create invoices on-site so that revenue can be collected as quickly as possible.
With ServiceTitan’s free Invoice Generator tool, techs can input the relevant information into a customized invoice template and send it directly to the customer via text or email. This saves time, looks professional, and reduces mistakes (such as pricing errors or lost paperwork).
ServiceTitan allows you to attach before-and-after photos of the job, and even video, to customer invoices. It’s especially beneficial for commercial jobs or property maintenance contracts, where the owner is often not present and really drives home the value of your work.
Techs can also take payments directly from customers by capturing checks and credit cards via their mobile device camera, or you can add a credit card swiper. This is super-convenient for customers and means you get paid faster.
Tip #5: Price Accurately and Competitively to Build Trust
Create competitive, accurate estimates
Offer flexible financing options
Pricing your HVAC jobs upfront helps your customers by avoiding any nasty surprises, while pricing jobs accurately and competitively helps you win business.
Learn how to create HVAC pricing by working backward — start by figuring out how much your business needs to make in hourly wages each week. After determining wages based on actual billable hours, add the cost of taxes, insurance, and overhead, as well as HVAC supplies and profit margin. Compare the hourly rates of other HVAC businesses in your area to make sure your rates are competitive.
You can use ServiceTitan’s Pricebook Pro to give accurate prices to customers. This follows the flat-rate pricing model and comes pre-loaded with content. You can customize it by using the built-in feature to calculate prices to charge for each service while setting your own company’s markups and labor rates. This means you can create a dynamic flat-rate pricebook that lets your team build accurate estimates that bring in profit.
By presenting detailed good-better-best options, you help aid homeowners in their decision-making. Plus, when HVAC companies provide three service options for customers, it generally increases HVAC sales (and most will opt for the mid-priced option).
ServiceTitan Mobile makes it easy to prepare Good-Better-Best proposals when out in the field. ServiceTitan’s Pricebook Pro provides photos and prices for thousands of items, and includes upgrades and recommendations. Techs can show customers exactly what they are recommending when discussing repair or replacement options.
For example, techs at Cardinal Plumbing, Heating & Air in Virginia were trained to always present customers with multiple options for each portion of the job estimate.
“They’re required to give the customer a couple of options and educate them,” says owner Nikolai Matveev. “We don’t leave customers in the dark. We want to make sure we’re taking advantage of every call we go to, and that it’s benefiting the customer.”
Presenting the proposal is made easier with ServiceTitan’s presentation mode, which converts the proposal into a polished, customer-friendly interface. With a few taps, the technician simply hands the mobile device to the customer, who can review multiple options, compare value, and read product descriptions — similar to an online shopping experience.
Techs can even add special pricing rules for commercial clients with pre-negotiated rates.
“Once you attach the rate sheet to a specific customer, it only allows those prices to be seen for that customer,” says Vanessa Gonzales, co-owner of Albuquerque Plumbing, Heating and Air, and a ServiceTitan employee. “We don't have to have another person in accounting. We don't need to have another person in commercial to answer these questions for the technicians. It speeds everything up.”
To win more customers, offer flexible financing options. With ServiceTitan’s integrated financing feature, you control which plans you offer and set the rules to suit your HVAC business.
The ability to offer flexible financing options in person when on a service call gives customers instant access to funds and increases the likelihood of techs closing bigger jobs and boosting sales.
Tip #6: Follow Up Every Estimate to Maximize Opportunities
Utilize software to capture leads so you never miss an opportunity
Create a system for following up all leads
Use Marketing Pro to send hyper-targeted emails to relevant customers
As mentioned above, HVAC businesses not running operational software have trouble staying on top of follow-ups and future to-dos like unsold estimates, outstanding invoices, upsell opportunities and more. Getting these follow-ups done, however, can create a gold mine of sales opportunities.
“We’d all like to believe our sales people are great at following up, but let’s be honest, it’s pretty tough. When it gets really busy, the follow-ups tend to tank,” says Chris Hunter, ServiceTitan Director of Customer Relations, and founder of Hunter Super Techs and co-founder of the GoTime Success Group.
Follow-up should start within 48 hours after delivering the estimate, and not end until you get a yes or no, says Hunter, who hosted a webinar on the topic. There should also be a long-term follow-up plan for customers who aren’t ready to immediately commit.
“We spend so much money and time and effort to get leads,” Hunter adds. “Leads are hard to get. Be very committed to following up, so you get the job.”
ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro is designed with powerful follow-up features for sending out emails or texts based on customer data already collected in ServiceTitan. The software lets you set audience lists that focus on specific customers, such as those who have yet to respond to an HVAC estimate or those who are due to renew their HVAC equipment, so you can follow up at whatever interval you choose and don’t miss any sales opportunities.
Sending targeted emails is easy. Choose from our huge range of email templates, adjust the text to fit your campaign, and deliver to your chosen audience.
Read more email marketing tips for HVAC companies.
Tip #7: Prioritize HVAC Sales Training to Empower Technicians
Provide proper tools and training for your employees
Align incentives with your business goals
We discussed how the latest operational software benefits customers and your business in tip #4, but providing the proper tools and training for your employees empowers them to turn leads into HVAC sales, too. Implementing HVAC sales training for your preferred procedures and sales techniques, for example, helps your team be as polished and aligned on your sales strategy and tactics.
ServiceTitan’s Chris Hunter suggests that if you want an employee to push, say, unsold estimates, align incentives with the behavior you want. Make it worthwhile for employees to close HVAC service leads or upsell products and services. This could be done with financial rewards or other incentives like extra time off or more opportunities to do specific types of jobs that they especially like or that grow their job skills.
If a tech answers a call to fix a refrigeration or air conditioning unit, it’s a great time for them to check energy-efficiency status or other potential maintenance issues. Make it protocol for techs to communicate other services, for example, offering maintenance contracts to new customers.
Learn more about HVAC service contracts and read our ultimate guide on maintenance agreements.
Tip #8: Promote Expertise with Smart HVAC Marketing Strategies
Educate customers with tips and advice
Target the right audience for customers’ specific needs
An HVAC company that focuses on the importance of educating customers, rather than simply making sales pitches, tends to experience better success.
Not every customer knows the parts of their air conditioning unit or the potential problems resulting from poor indoor air quality. Help customers remain proactive by educating them with content posted on your HVAC website, or through targeted, seasonal HVAC marketing emails.
Providing information for existing and potential customers instills trust and encourages customers to call your HVAC company for their HVAC problems.
ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro can help by syncing all of your customer data and using automation to optimize and amplify marketing campaigns to increase sales via:
Email Marketing
Leverage powerful customer data to reach existing customers and generate more opportunities. Target customers via location, home value, or home age, and then automate campaigns with relevant, timely content that resonates (see tip #6).
Direct Mail
Quickly build hyper-targeted postcard campaigns like unsold estimates or annual maintenance, then send postcards to existing customers and prospects for one flat rate. Choose from postcard templates, add your business information, and never make another trip to the post office. Marketing Pro data shows exactly how many calls, booked jobs, and revenue each direct mail send generates.
Lead Tracking
Use ServiceTitan’s Dynamic Call Tracking that ties unique phone numbers to each ad source and attributes campaigns to calls, jobs, and revenue. Then you know what’s working, and what’s not and are more likely to optimize HVAC sales.
Online Reviews
Most potential customers conduct Google searches, read online testimonials, seek referrals, and check social media before hiring an HVAC service company. The HVAC industry is highly competitive, so your HVAC company’s online presence is everything.
Marketing Pro makes it easy to generate more 5-star reviews by automatically sending a review prompt once the tech closes out the HVAC job. Managing your reviews with ServiceTitan is super-efficient, too. You can monitor and respond to reviews across more than 60 review sites and search engines, including Yelp and Google, all from one ServiceTitan dashboard. This automation saves a huge amount of time that would otherwise be spent requesting and managing reviews for individual customers.
Google Local Services Ads
Connect your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts to ServiceTitan to allow homeowners to directly schedule appointments with your HVAC company via your online ads.
Normally, customers only have the call option if they want to book an appointment via a Google Local Services Ad. So, when a prospect calls in, your staff has to create a record for a new job, enter the customer’s address and other details, go back and forth with multiple calendars to determine an appointment time that works for your techs and the customer’s schedule.
This process is often perceived as a poor experience for customers, who increasingly want the convenience of booking appointments easily online, without ever needing to call in and speak to someone. So, HVAC businesses that offer an instant booking service via Google Local Services Ads win more jobs.
Our website widget syncs with your job availability and your capacity planning parameters, so there’s no chance of booking jobs that you don’t have capacity to deal with, or assigning technicians without the right skills for the job.
After they schedule their visit, your new customer will receive an automated confirmation email from Google. No additional actions are needed, but if you prefer, you can set ServiceTitan to send an automated email from your CSR team, or to prompt a CSR to follow up with the customer by phone to confirm.
Behind the scenes, a record is automatically created in ServiceTitan with the customer’s details and the appointment is entered into your scheduling system.
Making it so easy and convenient for customers to book with you will help bring in more HVAC sales.
Learn more about Google Ads for HVAC and additional tips from our HVAC marketing guide.
Tip #9: Track Sales Performance to Fine-Tune Sales Techniques
Track metrics to monitor HVAC sales
Analyze results to improve sales performance
To monitor HVAC sales, marketing activities, and individual performance of your CSRs, sales team and HVAC techs, it’s critical to track KPIs carefully. This allows you to make necessary adjustments and improvements.
With ServiceTitan’s reporting software, you can view specific KPIs via the dynamic dashboard for every HVAC job, technician, CSR, and marketing campaign.
With our technician scorecard, you can stay up-to-date on every HVAC tech’s stats (such as number of calls per day, revenue generated, memberships sold, response times, and more). This helps monitor which techs are outperforming expectations and which may need additional training.
Spark some healthy competition by displaying ServiceTitan's Technician Leaderboard metrics in the office to reward top performers and boost sales even further.
Likewise, our CSR scorecard lets you monitor metrics for your customer service team, such as number of calls handled, conversions, etc.
When you increase accountability and visibility for every HVAC technician and CSR, and also promote some fun competition among your team, it incentivizes employees to go the extra mile, which can enhance the customer experience. Plus, you can use the performance data to inform your bonus structures or decide when to promote an employee.
You can also create a marketing scorecard of all your current campaigns, and tie all new customers to the specific marketing campaign that brought them to you. Then, you can boost spending on campaigns with higher returns, and reduce it on channels with poorer performance.
ServiceTitan lets you view your metrics at a granular level as well as the big picture of your business so you can see exactly what’s driving HVAC sales and where there’s room for improvement.
Ready to Try ServiceTitan to Help Boost HVAC Sales?
Increasing HVAC sales doesn’t need to be rocket science.
"Customers aren't looking for a cheesy sales pitch," says Joe Cunningham, an HVAC contractor and founder of the Technical Arts Center in Houston.
They simply want professional-grade help from a trustworthy HVAC service provider, top-notch customer service from a confident and knowledgeable HVAC technician, and multiple options to solve their HVAC problem.
Using a software tool like ServiceTitan, and implementing key improvements to your sales strategy — delegating the right tasks to the right techs, instituting a well-defined framework for sales calls, following up on unsold estimates, and tracking results and leads — you can significantly increase sales and profit.
Ready to train your HVAC technicians to become expert salespeople and learn more about how ServiceTitan can help boost your HVAC sales process and generate more revenue? Contact our team to schedule a demo today.
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.
