Shoulder Season Checklist: 10 Essentials to Prep for the Spring and Summer

Optimize Business Operations and Training

Tip 1: Use Forms to capture information and standardize services

Stone mentions how the Forms feature within ServiceTitan provides limitless utility for service businesses, from standardizing service delivery to creating checklists for technicians in the field. ServiceTitan Forms use conditional logic, meaning business owners can customize Forms for each team or job function.

“We use Forms basically to ensure consistency, because we want to make sure that no matter which technician comes into your home, you have the same Home Climates experience every time,” VanHorn says. “The easiest way to do that is through standardization with a form or a checklist.

“But you have to be really thoughtful about how you put them together, because if you make the form too difficult, what's going to happen is the techs get turned off and they don't want to fill out the forms or they say, ‘We're getting formed to death here,’ and they lose interest,” VanHorn adds.

VanHorn’s techs are required to complete a checklist during every job. They record the condition of existing systems, upload photos to ServiceTitan from a mobile device, and even check a box to ensure they remove all trash before leaving the customer’s home.

“The other thing that's important about a checklist and collecting some of this data is we know what state the system's in when we leave,” VanHorn says. “So, if somebody calls and says the system's not working properly, when the technician goes back, he can see what state we left it in to see if it was installed properly or if a problem occurred since we installed it.”

Tip 2: Train technicians and internal teams

Snow stresses how training should happen all year long, but encourages business owners to take advantage of the lull during shoulder season to provide training for new products and processes. 

VanHorn notes how it’s currently in the low 20s in his home state of Pennsylvania, yet his company is currently fleshing out a training plan for the busy summer season.

“We're going to start training for A/C next week because we start the A/C season in April,” he says.

He stresses the importance of establishing a training plan in advance and setting aside plenty of time for training, as technicians need time to transition between the hot and cold seasons.

“At the beginning of the season, you have opportunities, but if your techs aren’t going to be thorough and run the process, then you're going to blow those opportunities early in the season,” VanHorn says. “So, the bottom line is, make sure you're thoughtful, make sure you're ahead of the curve, and make sure you're actually putting in the work before the season starts.

“If you are planning any less than one month ahead, you're behind the curve. That's all I can say about that,” VanHorn adds.

Snow adds that training should apply to the entire business, not just technicians or call center staff. 

“There are so many other types of training we can be doing, like communication training, resolving conflicts, leadership training, and ServiceTitan training,” Snow says.

She shared an example script her call centers use to engage customers with an expired membership. 

>>Click here for tips on setting up a call center training program from Angie Snow. 

“If we're asking our internal team to do outbound calls to generate work for us, then we need to prepare them,” Snow says. “We need to give them scripts, put these scripts into Forms in ServiceTitan, create that list, and then let them practice.”

Drive Revenue During the Shoulder Season

Tip 3: Log all equipment details for smarter marketing

Next, VanHorn explains how he requires technicians to record equipment details on every job to keep his pipeline full during shoulder season. Initially, he says technicians pushed back.

“We had to explain to them that the part of making sure they're able to get at least a 40-hour-a-week paycheck in the off season is by making sure we have things for you to do in the off season. And we use these things as marketing tools,” Van Horn says.

He explains how knowing even small details about equipment—like the lifespan of a UV light in an air scrubber—provides intel to inform marketing campaigns and customer outreach.

“You can create automated campaigns every month that say, ‘Hey, we know you have a UV light, and did you know the bulb has a limited lifespan? And we see your lifespan is about to expire. If you'd like the protection that UV light provides, we should talk about changing your bulb,’” VanHorn says. “That gets us back in your home.”

Snow says it not only creates more business, but also enhances the customer experience when businesses proactively alert customers of impending service.

“Think about your car when you get the oil changed, usually they put a little sticker in the windshield that says, ‘Next oil change date’ as a reminder for you,” VanHorn adds.

Tip 4: Schedule spring maintenance now

Memberships and recurring maintenance keep technicians busy year-round. Snow says maintenance work can fill downtime during the shoulder season, while freeing up more technicians for on-demand calls during the busy season. 

“What you don't want to have is where the technicians call in to find out, ‘Well, you only have one call today or two calls today,’” VanHorn says. “What I know, and what my guys know, is you're coming in and I'm pretty much going to guarantee you have four calls a day, every day, all year long on your schedule.”

Maintenance work can also open up new opportunities for high-ticket jobs, even outpacing marketing-led demand. Snow says businesses often incorrectly think they simply need to boost marketing to increase demand. 

“This is something you can fix operationally by helping your maintenance technicians understand how to identify opportunities and look for conversion opportunities for installs,” Snow says. “It doesn't all have to come through marketing, nor should it.”

VanHorn says 55% of Home Climates’ new system sales come from maintenance calls.

“That's why it's important to build that membership,” he says. “They represent golden nugget opportunities, much better opportunities than demand sometimes, because sometimes if it's not an existing customer, a demand person is calling around to find the guy who's going to show up first. 

“But if you have maintenance customers and you have a great maintenance plan, and you're honest with customers about the state of their system and the changes that you're seeing over time as it ages, guess what? Now you're a one horse in a one-horse race. You've built trust with them, and when you tell them the system needs to be replaced or needs to be replaced soon, they're not shopping you to four other guys,” he adds.

Tip 5: Promote energy-efficient upgrades and indoor air quality improvements

Snow says regardless of your industry, there are always opportunities for upgrades, as well as new ways to market these services and generate more business.

As an example, VanHorn says his business initially started marketing air scrubbers during the pandemic as a way to improve indoor air quality, but realized there’s demand year-round for customers with allergies and other needs.

But to be successful, customers need to know about the product or service, and technicians need proper coaching.

“If they have some soft skills training where they can talk to a homeowner about some of the problems they have, then you can talk about things like an air scrubber,” VanHorn says. “And I have a guy who will sell four to five air scrubbers a month, all year long.”

VanHorn says he coaches his techs to educate customers, but not push them to make a decision on the spot, noting that 75% of ancillary services at his company sell a day or two after the service appointment. He also deploys marketing campaigns on unsold estimates to keep them top of mind. 

Tip 6: Automate renewals and renewal notifications

VanHorn explains how he realized he could send a text message to all of his members using the basic ServiceTitan software, no Pro products needed. Out of curiosity, he decided to send a marketing email to all of his members reminding them to schedule maintenance. He says the move put him “behind the eight ball for planning the A/C season.” 

“We got these outstanding results, but don't get me wrong, for about a week, everybody upstairs was saying, ‘You're killing me here,’ because what happened is the calls and the emails came in like a flood.

“At the end of the day, we had 1,300 members, and within 24 hours, I had 30 people book online,” VanHorn adds. “Basically, I booked 15% of my tune-ups for a season within 24 hours, which was fantastic.”

Within a week of the automated text message, Home Climates booked an additional 213 jobs, via a mix of online bookings, phone calls, and texts.

“We booked a whole season in a week,” VanHorn says.

Optimizing Marketing to Generate Jobs

Tip 7: Use targeted and automated marketing campaigns 

Snow mentions how service businesses can build marketing campaigns around seasonality or special promotions to fill the schedule during the shoulder season.

With ServiceTitan Marketing Pro, home service businesses can automate and optimize their marketing efforts, including targeted email, text, and direct mail campaigns. Users can also track campaign performance, and engage customers with personalized messaging.

Snow says Marketing Pro gives business owners the option to build out campaigns down to the smallest detail, or sit back and allow the software to do all of the work. 

“If you don't have the time to really build out a lot of campaigns in Marketing Pro, you can just turn on autopilot,” Snow says. "There's so many pre-made templates for you. As long as you've got all of your settings, your company information right, and your audience is prepared, Marketing Pro can help you do a lot of that.”

Tip 8: Continue investing in marketing and diversify channels

An effective marketing campaign utilizes multiple channels, and Snow encourages business owners to diversify their options in ServiceTitan, including direct mail. 

“Direct mail isn't dead. Direct mail still works,” Snow says. “One of my very best campaigns that I've ever run direct-mail-wise is actually a Valentine's campaign. I send out a gift certificate to all of my customers and tell them how much I love them, and here's a gift card for $50 to use anytime this year. And that direct mail campaign has been huge for us.”

VanHorn uses Marketing Pro to optimize his marketing efforts and likes the ability to hyper-target different customer groups. 

“The nice thing about Marketing Pro is the cost of a postcard is the same whether you send 10 or 10,000,” Van Horn says. “You can target your audience relatively small and still get the economies of scale that you get from a larger mailing. Direct mail is very useful, it just has to be very specific.”

Prepare for a Strong Peak Season

Tip 9:  Review performance, profits, and expenses to identify cost-saving opportunities

Snow says service businesses should regularly evaluate performance, including during the shoulder season.

“Review your performance, your profits, and your expenses,” she says. “Look for cost-saving opportunities. Dive into your pricebook. Are your prices still where they need to be? Do we need to increase pricing based upon our supplier pricing?

“Also, think about what you can automate in ServiceTitan,” Snow adds. “Jump into TitanAdvisor and look at, ‘What are some things I can automate or streamline that I haven't been doing.’ It seems like we tend to get comfortable when things are busy, but we really do need to take time to go back and review and analyze some of these things.”

Tip 10: Make it easy to capture customers

Customer preferences around booking services are changing, with online reservations becoming the preferred method for younger generations. Snow notes how VanHorn used ServiceTitan Scheduling Pro to book 90 online appointments during the text messaging campaign he mentioned previously. 

ServiceTitan Scheduling Pro automates appointment booking and streamlines scheduling for home service businesses. Customers can schedule appointments online 24/7, reducing the number of missed calls or back-and-forth emails. It also helps dispatchers stay organized, prevent scheduling conflicts, and keep teams running efficiently.

“How many of you want to make a dinner reservation and you book it online? You don't call the restaurant anymore,” VanHorn says. “You just book it on an app on your phone. We noticed our demographic shifting towards younger folks, and they prefer to be self-service and faceless. So, you have to lean into those strategies.”

Despite the pivot toward online bookings, both Snow and VanHorn recommend giving customers multiple ways to schedule service. 

“We’re trying to make it extremely easy for you to get in touch with us, no matter your preferred method of contact. You can call us, you can text us, you can book online, you can fill out a form, whatever makes you happy,” VanHorn says. “So, what we do is make all of those available to people so that whatever's convenient for them is convenient for us.” 

Bonus tip: Dispatch smarter

For a bonus tip, Snow explains how ServiceTitan Dispatch Pro helps service businesses execute on all the leads they capture by simplifying and automating the dispatching process.

Snow says ServiceTitan recently made upgrades to the product based on user feedback, specifically to give users more control over the AI-driven functionality.

“Dispatch Pro can recommend job assignments, take the heavy lifting out of analyzing all those skill sets, all the data, the reporting, everything, and it can really help the dispatcher stay in control,” Snow says. “This is where you can decide how much control you want to give it. Do you want it to just let you know what it recommends? Or, are you going to put it in auto mode and say, ‘Just go for it. I need you to run it all today.’” 

VanHorn says Dispatch Pro literally saved the day when his dispatcher came down with the flu. In fact, he asked his employees to stay home and let Dispatch Pro handle 100% of job bookings.  

“Dispatch Pro took it all. For three days, Dispatch Pro did it by itself,” VanHorn says. 

To learn more, check out the full webinar: Shoulder Season Checklist: 10 Essentials to Prepare for Spring and Summer