Profit Fix #6: Want More PMs But Existing Clients Are Canceling Their Contracts?
Whenever I speak with
company executives about Preventative Maintenance (PM) contracts, they
tell me they want more of them! But dealing with emergencies and quick fix
requests leaves no time to schedule preventative maintenance for clients.
Because of that, the few
PM contracts that most companies have don’t get quality service
and they churn almost faster than they come. So district managers don’t
actively go after PM contracts nor make good PM offers because the company
cannot attend to them properly, anyway, leaving the whole business to rely on
quick fixes (and some installations) which leaves no time for PM jobs.
Do we have a chicken and
egg problem here?
All executives understand intellectually
that PM contracts are good for the business because they lead to:
Recurring revenue
Clients “locked-in” with them
FEWER emergencies—because their clients’ units are being
pampered
And fewer “hair-on-fire” situations in the back office
Yet after talking to
dozens of executives, we see that the average contribution of PM contracts to a business is between two and ten percent.
What should be done
first?
a) Go after PM contracts?
or
b) Fix the back office to be able to service PM contracts
in the first place?
Let’s explore both
options based on what we know after processing almost one million work orders
in the last three years and you be the judge.
If a company goes after PM contracts first, this is what would easily happen on any
given month:
- Dispatchers are
normally extremely busy all the time.
- Emergencies
(understandably) take priority.
- “Oh, we have this PM contract for such and such client, we should
schedule something… Ok, ok, but not right now.”
- The "busyness" doesn’t stop.
- End of the month
comes. “Omg! Jack, can you visit such and
such client?... You’re just two blocks away…”
- Jack (a master
technician) rolls his eyes and thinks “man,
that’s a bad use of my 25 years of experience.” but says “Sure, I’ll drop by.”
- Meanwhile, Mike, a new
junior technician, is at the office finishing an installation tutorial.
In other words, going
after PM contracts WITHOUT a back-office team and process leads to:
- The same overload on
dispatchers
- Bad use of master
technicians
- Bad use of junior technicians
That's IF the
maintenance job even got scheduled at all that month. When it isn’t, the risk
is bigger. An unhappy client? A whole account lost?
That’s why “fixing” the
back office first is what sets the ground to fulfill on PM contracts—at a good
quality—in the first place.
That’s what we did with
one of our partners and enabled them to reach out proactively to preventive
maintenance clients and get those jobs scheduled.
And what’s so great
about having this remote team in place first,
is that—if the PM volume is low—it can be repurposed for other cash
flow-generating activities in the business, such as getting estimates out within the hour, getting invoices out within the day, collecting unpaid invoices, and after-hours customer service. If the PM volume is high, then it is easy to have a
dedicated team on it, making sure that those simpler orders are scheduled and
dispatched while the rest of the team can focus on custom, higher-value tasks.
And, in case you’re
thinking that a remote team would dilute the company culture, remove jobs, or
be hard to train and manage, I’d encourage you to talk to one of our
industry-leading partners, like Rodger Smelcer from United Service
Technologies; or Gyner Ozgul from Smart Care Solutions.
If anything, their
remote teams:
- Drive their team
culture up.
- Are easy to train and
manage—because we do most of it.
- Will often enhance your current processes and
documentation.
- And enable your
seasoned team members to shine in high-value tasks.
It’s all part of the new
“gold standard” in remote teams —focused
on business profits—that we’re thrilled to be bringing to the mid-market industry. Several industry pioneers have already discovered the kind of
competitive advantage that we can give them, and we’d love to give it to you as
well.
So, I’d like to invite
you to have a run through our “Profit
Score” Quiz to find out if your preventive maintenance program is leaking
profits—as well as 8 other key business areas.
It’s a simple and
extremely eye-opening questionnaire that we’ve developed after processing more
than a million work orders over the last three years.
For companies processing 10,000+ orders every month, I wouldn’t be
surprised if they uncover six-plus figures a month in profits leaks. But even
if they don’t find any leaks, they can be sure that they’re running a tight
ship that’s ready to scale!
Honestly, for the amount
of strategic clarity it provides, I'd reckon fancy consultants could charge
tens of thousands of dollars for it. But if you’re reading this, you get a free
run through with me, as my holiday treat.
Are you up for it? Send
me a message and let’s
talk shop.