Field + Office Best Practices

Generating revenue from unsold jobs: A million-dollar addition?

If you could add one position to your home or commercial services business and increase sales by $1 million a year or more, would you do it?

Chris Hunter, ServiceTitan’s director of customer relations, founder of Hunter Super Techs and co-founder of the GoTime Success Group, knows the right answer, which he shared on a ServiceTitan webinar. 

And he knows what position you should add: A followup coordinator. 

He added the position at Hunter Super Techs, which was acquired by Turnpoint Services in 2018, with the intent of adding $1 million in sales by focusing on unsold estimates by leveraging the capabilities of ServiceTitan. 

And what happened? 

“She did it,” Hunter says. “She actually exceeded the $1 million.” 

Other companies have been even more successful, “some with $3 million in sales, all from just being intentional about this position,” he said. 

What’s a follow-up coordinator? 

In essence, a follow-up coordinator is in charge of additional touches with customers who have unsold estimates that are at least 48 hours old. 

“All of these jobs that were unsold, we’d just go to the next one, go to the next one,” Hunter said. “We’d all like to believe that 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.”

Making follow-ups a priority strengthens a company’s commitment to closing on as many leads as possible. 

Why? Because according to Hunter, quoting Jim Hinshaw of Service Roundtable, 48 percent of salespeople never follow up with a prospect, and 25 percent make a second contact, then quit. Only 12 percent make three contacts, and only 10 percent make more than three contacts. 

In contrast, only 2 percent of sales (in general, not in HVAC itself) are made on the first contact, and 80 percent on the fifth to 12th contact. 

“We spend so much money and time and effort to get leads,” Hunter said. “Leads are hard to get. Be very committed to following up, so you get the job.” 

Setting a strong rehash/followup process

Contractors spend a lot of money to generate leads, and most think they need even more. But few have a process for following up on the open leads they already have.  

ServiceTitan makes that easy to do with the follow up tab, and parts of the process can be automated with Marketing Pro.   

The first step in capturing these leads is to have someone in your company responsible for owning the process — the follow-up coordinator. 

The follow-up coordinator fills several roles for a company, including:

• Coordinating all the follow-up on unsold estimates using the followup tab.

• Serving as the single point of contact for customers, sales team and management after an estimate is given.

• Serving as the advocate for the customer.

• Coordinating all sales leads and acting as the dispatcher for the sales team.

How can a company make this position successful? 

As with anything, success for a follow-up coordinator depends on a well-defined process, Among the steps:

• Set goals. Figure out what winning looks like, and keep modifying that model to achieve success.

• Train across functions. Invest in training, including in ServiceTitan on how to use the followup tab, and in specialties such as Marketing Pro. 

• Send the followup coordinator on ride-alongs. Pairings with salespeople, installers and service technicians, etc., helps the coordinator understand the terminology and the process. “If they see it, they can understand it,” Hunter says “Then they can really relate to the customer.”

• Set scripts. Followup call scripts are essential, but don’t make them too rigid.  More like guidelines and goals of the types of calls made.  

• Roleplay. This is critical before turning a followup coordinator loose — and beyond. 

Include them in sales meetings. That’s where everyone learns about promotions, rebates and financing, and gives feedback. And it’s where teamwork is built.