HVAC dispatch software - tips for finding the right program

One of the big questions we get is – what one thing makes SuccessWare different from other hvac dispatch software programs? The reality is there isn’t just ONE thing...there are hundreds of different features & benefits.

But if you were to ask our clients, they would say it’s the REPORTS that makes SuccessWare stand out in the crowd.

You could even say the reports that SuccessWare provides are legendary...especially all the technician sales and productivity numbers it gives you.

But one of the best things that makes SuccessWare different is the ability to measure 56 different Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) right from the dispatch board.

Here’s why this is so important: by having the numbers right at the fingertips of your dispatcher, he or she can motivate the technicians throughout the entire day. The entire week. The entire month.

Most contractors wait until the end of the month before they look at the technician productivity numbers. That’s a huge mistake. Why? Because once the month is over, you don’t get a "do over". You don’t get a chance to make those numbers better. It’s too late.

It would be like playing a football game and not looking at the scoreboard until after the game was over.

Same thing with your business. Your technicians are members of your team – just like a sports team. If your dispatcher can help your technician understand what their "score" is, then you can achieve much higher results from each member of your team.

Every day that you don’t have SuccessWare means that you don’t have these 56 different KPI’s – and you are burning money!

So what are you waiting for? Call Chris DiRe at (716) 565-3500 to get started now!

Or visit www.successware21.com for more details. Find out why over 800 contractors have chosen SuccessWare as their hvac & plumbing dispatch software!

New Marketing Module So Effective At Boosting Sales...You’ll Almost Feel Bad For Your Competition!

Is Your Phone Not Ringing Like You Want It To? Here’s The Answer To Making Money In A Tough Economy...

As you already know, SuccessWare gives you a ton of sales & marketing tools to make the phone ring.

But here’s the best part...we’ve been busy working on a "double-top-secret" project for the last four months. It’s a brand-new module designed to help you make a lot of money without spending another penny on advertising.

Introducing the brand-new "Opportunity Manager"

This new module is so powerful that we needed a double-sized issue this month to cover it all!
As you know, you have always been able to record opportunities in SuccessWare. What’s an opportunity? It’s anytime you make a recommendation to the homeowner but they decline at that moment. Just because they say "no" today doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t follow-up.

Just think of all the Opportunities you can recommend:

• Customers who suffer in the winter who will benefit from installing a humidifier
  Faucets that are leaking but still working
• Old furnaces that are old, inefficient should be replaced with a new unit that could pay for itself just on energy savings alone
• Homes that don’t have 220v service
• Hot water tanks that are old and could break anytime - that should be replaced
• Customers with bad allergies, in homes that have a lot of dust and need a high-efficiency air cleaner
  

With the brand-new Opportunity Manager, you can schedule follow up activity and manage leads as well. This allows you to follow up on ALL opportunities for ALL customers in one place!

The Opportunity Manager has four views:

• All – lists all opportunities with an opportunity date in the date range specified.
• Create Leads – lists all opportunities marked ‘lead required’.
• Follow Up – lists all opportunities and leads with a follow up date <= today.
• Unscheduled F/U – lists all opportunities and leads with follow up notes, but no follow up date.
• Period – lists all opportunities and leads with an opportunity date between two dates.
• Chain – lists all opportunities related to the currently selected opportunity. This will include the originating opportunity and any leads that have been created or continued in relation to the currently selected opportunity.

This manager actually lists both opportunities and leads. A lead is really a sales job that has been created for a customer and where the opportunity code has been entered on the Quote Summary form for the sales job.

And yes – you can record multiple opportunities for a customer in the Customer Opportunity Profile Form. When you record an opportunity, you need to identify:

1. Opportunity Code – This code identifies the type of opportunity. Opportunity codes are user defined in the reference library.
2. Opportunity Date – The date you became aware of the opportunity.
3. Recommended By – If applicable, the employee that recognized the opportunity.
4. Notified – Indicates if the customer was informed of the possible need.
5. Notes – Any general notes about the opportunity.

NEW! You can now record the following:

• Lead Required – Check this box if you want a sales job created for this opportunity, but don’t want to create the job right now. Be sure you record enough in the notes to create the sales job with all the appropriate information. You will be able to pull up a list of all the opportunities that ‘require a lead’ at a later time and quickly create the sales jobs.
• Follow Up Date – Enter a date you would like the follow up to occur on. When it’s time, you will be able to pull up a list of all opportunities that have been scheduled for follow up on that date.
• Follow Up Notes – Enter notes about the intended follow up activity to help someone else perform the follow up on a later date.

You can enter your follow up intentions and leave the date blank if you are not certain when you will follow up.

NEW! Job Summary has been updated!

To record an opportunity on the Job Summary Form:

• Check the ‘Opportunity Generated’ check box.
• Optionally check ‘Lead Generated’ if this opportunity requires a sales job.
• Record the employee the opportunity was ‘generated by’ or ‘referred by’.
• Select an opportunity code
• Optionally enter a follow up date and notes.

If this is actually a ‘lead generated’ that must result in the creation of a sales job, check the ‘lead generated’ box. Opportunities recorded in the Job Summary will show up in the Customer Opportunity Profile and in the Opportunity Follow Up Manager.

If you check ‘Lead Generated’, the opportunity will be marked as ‘Lead Required’. Here’s why this is SO IMPORTANT…

You can use this in the Opportunity Follow Up Manager to list and then create the related sales jobs. This process helps to ensure you don’t forget to create the sales jobs for any ‘leads generated’!

Is that incredible or what???

NEW! Quote Summary has been updated! You can schedule follow up activity for sales calls on the Quote Summary Form. So now all sales calls show up in the Opportunity Manager. Just select an opportunity code in the Quote Summary. Then:

• Select the ‘Follow Up’ Tab in the center of the form above ‘work suggested’. The tab book switches between Lead Notes, Follow Up and Follow Up History.
• Opportunity Code – Make sure you’ve identified an opportunity code for this lead. You can choose between current opportunities recorded for this customer that are not done and where the sales job has not been created. This will both set the opportunity code on the sales job and link the sale job with the originating opportunity. Or, you can select from the standard opportunity codes to create a new lead that has no originating opportunity.
• Follow Up Date – Enter a date you would like the follow up to occur on. When it’s time, you will be able to pull up a list of all opportunities that have been scheduled for follow up on that date.
• Follow Up Notes – Enter notes about the intended follow up activity to help someone else perform the follow up on a later date.

BUT – WAIT THERE’S MORE… This is just a brief recap of this exciting new module!

Not using SuccessWare? What are you waiting for? You’re missing out on the best thing you can do for your business. Get registered for an upcoming training class before it’s too late! If you want to get started, just call me, Chris DiRe, at (716) 565-3500 and I’ll get you all the information you need!

Better yet - visit www.successware21.com to get all the details on the best service dispatch software on the market today. Over 800 contractors trust SuccessWare to run their plumbing, HVAC and electrical businesses! Find out why!

Managing Service & Maintenance Agreements Is So Easy – Even The Geico Caveman Could Do It!

If you were to ask most contractors "What’s the most valuable asset in their business?"...you’d get a wide range of answers.

Some might say it’s the office building they own. Or the money they’ve got tied up in trucks and inventory.

Some really smart contractors might say it’s their customer list. But they’re not exactly correct.

The real truth is Service & Maintenance Agreement Customers are the most valuable asset that your business has.

Having a "formalized" relationship with your customers is the best way to create residual income in your business. It’s also one of the least expensive but most effective ways to generate repeat business.

But most importantly, it’s the best way to create true wealth for you.

Why? Because each customer that you have under agreement has value. Most people think that businesses get bought and sold using a multiple of sales or earnings. And that’s true. But it’s not the only way to value what a business is worth. Various types of businesses are valued based upon the number of customers they’ve got "locked up". Cable companies are a good example. So are wireless phone companies. And your plumbing, HVAC or electrical business is another!

But unfortunately most contractors don’t invest the resources into converting more of their customer base into actual Agreement clients.

Why?

Most complain that’s it too difficult to do. But the truth is that they don’t have the proper tools to manage their Agreements. And that’s where SuccessWare comes in. We could spend hours talking about everything that SuccessWare can do – but let’s just cover two things.

First, SuccessWare makes it so easy to get the list of your customers who don’t have Agreements. Just open the Report Gallery and select the "Service Locations" report. You can get the list of customers who’ve never had an agreement...or perhaps you might want the list of customers with expired agreements with the hopes of winning them back.

But the really incredible thing is you can further drill-down this type of marketing. You might want to target only the new customers from the last 3 months who don’t have an agreement. Or maybe you want to focus in on the customers in a specific zip code. Perhaps you want to use the last "service" date range of when the customer used your company.

There are so many ways to target specific segments of your customer list that it makes every other software program look painfully outdated.

Second, one of the best things that makes SuccessWare different than other software programs is we give you the ability to schedule Agreement Visits right from the dispatch board.

By opening the "Visits Due" panel in the Call Center (our dispatch board), you’ll get a list of appointments for any date range you want. Just select a call and then you can just drag and drop it on to the dispatch board. It’s that simple.

In fact, you can pick any day in the future and start scheduling your Agreement visits. So whether you want to book them a week or month ahead of time, you’ve got the tools to make it happen – and do it so easily!

Can you imagine what you might be missing out by not having these tools in your business?

Every day that you don’t have SuccessWare means that you aren’t maximizing the opportunities you have for building your base of Agreement Customers – and that’s costing you money!

So what are you waiting for? Call Chris DiRe at (716) 565-3500 to get started now! Or visit us at http://www.successware21.com/