Take full advantage of your leads and service visits
by Wayne Tracy, Operations Manager

Are you taking full advantage of your leads and scheduled service visits?  Advertising and obtaining a customer is very costly and you have to be sure you get the most of every opportunity by offering your prospects and customers additional services and products.

When establishing your duct cleaning prices, be sure the customer is made aware of what is included in your advertised or quoted pricing.  When offering the additional services or products, be sure they are clearly offered as add-on or optional items.  You don’t want your customer to feel mislead or think they must have the optional products or services.  Offer them by explaining the benefits of each product and service.

You never want to be a bait & switch contractor (offering a service then not providing what you initially quoted or changing the level of service or pricing).  There is nothing wrong with a legitimate UPSELL.  You’re constantly being up sold in the marketplace everyday.  Go to a fast food restaurant and they often offer to super size your drink or fries.  Get an oil change and you are offered up sells such as wipers, radiator flush, etc.  Get a haircut and you are asked if you want a shave, shampoo, etc. – the list goes on and on.

One of the keys to being successful in up selling is to know your products and explain the benefits to your customer.  Be sure your staff, as well as you, is fully familiar with the products and services you offer.  Bundling products and offering discounts can also help you be more successful.

With air duct cleaning, you have many optional services to offer your customer.  The following is a list of services you can add to your basic duct cleaning package if not already included:

• Air Handler Cleaning (includes cleaning of evaporator coil & blower area)
• Condenser Coil Cleaning (the outside coil)
• Fogging of Sanitizer, Deodorizer, and/or Soot Set
• Dryer Duct Cleaning
• Bathroom/Laundry Room Exhaust Duct Cleaning
• Video Inspection Services for suspected duct problems (leaks, disconnections, etc.)
• Filter Maintenance Services
• Gas Chimney/Fireplace Cleaning
• Grill & Register Cleaning

In addition to optional services you should also have optional products to offer your customers.  The following is a list of products available to all of our contractors for resale to your customers:

• Electrostatic Air Filters
• ZAP Electrostatic Filter Cleaner
• Carbon Odor Control Products
• Solid Odor Control
• Quiet Breeze Ionic Air Purifier
• Ultra Violet Light Air Purification System
• Clean Breeze Automatic Aeresol Air Purifier with 4 Fragrance Options
• Vent/Register Filters
• Roxy Odor Neutralizer
• Kool Wrap AC Condenser Filters

Our website has lots of information on these products and services.  If you are up selling products, be sure each truck has samples and brochures on board to show to your customers.

How to build a value added add-on into each job
by David Montanaro, Service Manager

For the next few months I am going to share with you some ways to build the value of the services you offer through add-ons. Providing the customer with add-on options that will benefit them accomplishes a number of objectives that will demonstrate the broad scope of professional products and services that are available, the related health benefits, and of course, adds to your bottom line.

As discussed in last month’s article, nothing will be more effective than presenting these options at the time of a face-to-face estimate, but if that does not work all hope is not lost. At the time of service, technicians can reoffer these products and services giving the customer another opportunity to say “Yes” while there is a technician already in their home.

No home should be without an Air-Care electrostatic filter. The health benefits and cost savings of these products are overwhelming. Yes I said cost benefits and I always say this to the customer. If someone in using a quality pleated filter they are easily paying fifteen to twenty dollars a piece for them and some homes require multiple filters. Changing these every three months can get expensive, which is why they sometimes go unchanged and cause a host of negative affects on the air quality and flow through the system.

Over the course of as little as one year this product pays for itself. It’s that simple and you cannot argue with math. Though I always lead with the health benefits of electrostatic filters, reviewing the cost savings is an important second step that should never be overlooked.

The health benefits of electrostatic filters are an enormous selling point. Quality (I use this word loosely) pleated filters only capture about fifteen percent of all particles four microns or larger. Electrostatic filters can capture as much as ninety-four percent of all particles the same size. Again there is no arguing with math. If a customer has allergies, is dust-sensitive, has young children, or just wants to have less dust floating around their home, this product can help.

The most common objection I receive, aside from the initial cost, is that cleaning electrostatic filters is a bother. Remember, for every obstacle there is a way around, over or in this case through it. Whether changing a disposable filter or cleaning an electrostatic filter the customer still needs to remove and reinsert the filter so there is no different in time or effort at this point. Throwing away a disposable filter is easy, but each time a customer does that they are in affect throwing away money.

Cleaning an electrostatic filter requires nothing more than flushing it with water and letting it dry. We have customers that live in condominiums that do this in their bathtubs so how difficult can it really be. If you take into account the time of driving to the store, finding the correct size disposable filter and driving home, electrostatic filters actually take less time.
Did I mention the added time involved when a customer comes to the disappointing realization that the store is out of stock on the filter they want? Take it from someone that used disposable filters for years; this is frustrating and often results in buying a higher priced disposable filter to avoid driving to another store – more money thrown away.

If after presenting all these benefits to the customer they still are uninterested remember to ask most important question of your day, “May I ask what is holding you back from ordering this?” Knowing the challenge allows you to address it directly and possibly swing the sale in your direction by overcoming their objection.

Speaking of sales, an electrostatic filter provides a nice boost to your bottom line and can be either installed at the time of service or shipped directly to the customer. Imagine adding this product to just five services per month. Over the course of a year you will have sold sixty of them. Now add that directly to your bottom line. Don’t you just love math?