Water leaks under your kitchen sink, so you call a plumber. From that first call, you’re judging their response time.
Can they respond, come to you and repair your issue in one visit?
That’s where service response time comes into play. Although responding quickly will leave an impression, the customer’s overall experience with field service will depend on other factors as well.
Here’s how faster responses can earn customer trust.
What you’ll learn:
- The First Reply Sets the Tone
- A Booking Is a Promise
- Why First-Time Fix Rate Matters
- Keep Customers Informed When Plans Change
- Find the Delays That Hurt
- Wrapping It Up
The First Reply Sets the Tone
When customers contact an electrician, plumber or repair company, they want to know their request has reached the right team and what happens next.
Although they most likely aren’t expecting you to arrive at their home within minutes, they would appreciate a response that helps them understand their situation.
39% of homeowners wanted their roofer to respond to them within the same day, according to Roofing Contractor’s homeowner survey report. Of course, this statistic applies to the customers that were surveyed for roofing but it’s something to consider.
You can respond to customers within minutes, but how helpful was your response?
Automatically replying that you’ve received their request could help, but again, they most likely want to know something more related to their specific job.
Make the first response useful: ask a question, offer an available slot or set a callback time. If the customer’s request is an emergency, your company should have steps in place to handle this situation.
By providing your customer with a fast response, they now know what to do.
A Booking Is a Promise
Once you respond to your customer, you want to ensure that they can trust the booking information you provide them with.
Let’s say you schedule someone to come to your home on Thursday, you take that day off from work only to find that there’s no ETA for that day. You’ll be calling your contractor throughout the day to find out when they will be arriving.
Although the appointment was booked, you still don’t know when you should be home.
From the initial inquiry, the job can be passed around to different members of your team. Accrete provides information on how many US construction companies handle requests, booking, dispatching and services performed on-site. If your customers are repeating information because it wasn’t transferred between each person, this can affect your response time as well.
Make sure you have these items listed when sending a visit out:
- Information about the job: Have the details, address, if you need entry and a phone number on file.
- Time they can arrive at: Provide them with a time that your technician can arrive at.
- What they need to prepare for: Let them know if they need to be home for the job.
- Who is handling their appointment: Know who is managing their visit.
Providing them with the quickest time to arrive will not benefit your business. Giving them an accurate appointment time is better for both parties.
Why First-Time Fix Rate Matters
Technicians can show up to your home as soon as you requested, but your problem may not be fixed.
Maybe your part was not in stock, or the office didn’t input what type of product they needed. There are many reasons your technician may not be able to repair the problem on the first visit.
This is another aspect that goes along with your service response time, knowing your first time fix rate. It measures the percentage of service jobs resolved on the first visit, using a clear standard for what counts as resolved.
Just because you closed a work order doesn’t mean the problem was repaired. If you continue to rush through your repair, this could create more problems in the future.
J.D. Power’s US appliance service study measures ease of scheduling, timeliness of completing the work and quality of work. A fast reply matters, but it is only one part of the customer experience.
You want to make sure your technician can successfully complete their first visit. Have customers send photos, allow technicians to see prior jobs. Make sure your technician has all the information they need.
Sometimes it takes more than one visit, but let your customer know what you found, what you need to do and what’s unknown.
Keep Customers Informed When Plans Change
Delays happen when earlier jobs run long or needed parts aren’t available.
Telling your customer you’ll be late is one thing, but not telling them why can make your business seem less professional.
Let’s say you told a customer they can expect their technician to arrive by the afternoon. Your dispatch sees that the technician will not be able to get there, what do you do? If you sit and wait for the customer to reach out to you, you’ve created an unnecessary frustration for them.
Always send them a message that explains why the technician will be late, but make sure you can follow through with that information. If you don’t know when the technician will be arriving, tell the customer when they can expect to hear from you.
Example: “Your previous appointment is running long, at this time we do not have an ETA but you will receive another message by 3pm.”
You haven’t solved the problem, but the customer knows you’re working to help them out.
If a part is on order, tell the customer when to expect an update. This can reduce the chance they’ll think the repair has been forgotten.
Find the Delays That Hurt
Response time can be hard to measure if the office starts the clock when it opens a ticket rather than when the customer first contacts the company.
Try to trace each job from start to finish, and measure each step in that process. Here are a few measurements that could benefit your business:
- How long does it take you to send your first response that is useful?
- How long does it take you to book an appointment?
- Did the technician arrive within that timeframe?
- What was your first time fix rate?
- Do you have to visit that customer again, and if so, why?
Look deeper into these statistics and see where you’re losing time. Perhaps your customers are reaching out to your email, but you haven’t checked in days? Are you scheduling customers without allowing enough time to drive to their location? Are your technicians showing up to a job without proper information?
Once you identify the root cause, you can work on fixing it. If you change the way you call customers back, but the issue was due to parts, that won’t solve your problem. Having more vehicles on the road won’t fix a poor routing system.
Pick one issue to improve, then check whether customers notice a difference.
Wrapping It Up
Customers are more likely to trust a service brand when they can rely on it for clear information and follow-through. Keeping customers informed at each stage supports that trust.
Prompt replies, dependable bookings, on-time arrivals and clear updates give customers reasons to trust your business.
To read more content like this, explore The Brand Hopper
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