Tom Merriott

In the world of HVAC residential service, everybody’s doing outbound calling, but not many are doing it well.

What do I mean by not everyone is outbound calling well? It’s simple; your people hate making the outbound calls, and your customers can hear it in their voices. Listen for yourself. I’m willing to bet the calls are terrible.

Part of this comes from the fact you put almost no effort into your outbound calling program. Telling your team “to call all plan members to book the maintenance calls they already paid for” does not count as effort.

Seriously, when was the last time you sat down and really planned your outbound call strategy?

So maybe it’s time to mix things up:

• Call for different service lines at different times.

• Figure out what everyone else in your market is doing and do something different.

The point is, help your outbound call team be more successful by adding some variety. Call customers on anything that’s not the same thing over and over again. Ask yourself, could you make the same exact calls every day, day after day, as long as you work for your company? That is exactly what you are asking your team to accomplish.

My first piece of outbound calling advice is stop torturing your team with an unending repetitive task. Figure out how to give your program some variety and maybe sprinkle a little fun in there somewhere. Your team and your customers will appreciate the change.