Calls come in, someone answers, and the job still doesn't get booked.

Your HVAC booking rate is how many answered calls turn into jobs on the schedule. When it's low, the phone looks busy and the marketing looks fine, but the work doesn't show up.

Book a call

A pink While You Were Out phone message slip and a pen, a call taken as a message instead of a booked job — Photo by Jason Deines on Pexels

Sound familiar?

The marketing report says the phone is ringing. The schedule doesn't look like it.
A caller asks what it'll cost, gets a vague answer, and says they'll call back. They don't.
Whoever picks up takes a message instead of offering a time, and the customer keeps shopping.
You have no clear way to tell which calls turned into jobs and which ones didn't.

What it costs you

You paid for every one of those calls. When an answered call doesn't book, that money goes to work for whoever the customer called next.

You also lose the signal. If you can't tie calls to booked jobs, you can't tell whether the problem is your marketing or your phones.

And it hides in plain sight. A busy phone feels like a healthy business, even when the jobs aren't following.

Why it keeps happening

Calls are easy to count, and so are finished jobs. Tying one to the other takes time nobody has.

The person on the phone has a lot else going on. Booking the visit competes with billing, parts and walk-ins.

New office staff learn the phones by doing them. Nobody has the time to show them how to ask for the booking.

And nobody hears how the calls actually go, so the same missed chances repeat week after week.

Who you'll talk to

Kevin Kirchner smiling, in black glasses, a black cap and a green plaid shirt — Kevin Kirchner

This call is with me, Kevin Kirchner. I'll ask what happens on an ordinary call at your shop, from hello to a time on the schedule, and where callers drop off.

The sorting and chasing around a busy phone line is the kind of busywork that can now be taken off your office's plate. The shape of it depends on your shop.

Questions

What is a good booking rate for an HVAC company?

There's no honest number that fits every shop. It depends on your calls, your market and your service area. The useful number is your own, counted the same way every week.

Is a low booking rate a training problem?

Sometimes. It's also a time problem. The person on the phone is often doing several jobs at once.

What exactly do you build?

It depends on how you work today; we figure that out on the call.

Find out where answered calls slip away

Tell me how calls get handled at your shop and what you know about which ones book. Then I'll tell you whether it's something I can help with, or not.