HVAC Slow Season: 7 Best Practices To Handle The Downtime

One of the biggest downfalls of the field service and HVAC industry are the slow seasons. You might be booked up solidly through the busy season but when the slow seasons come, most of your staff are sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

To balance your off season work, there are a few tips and tricks you can implement to balance your workflow. With the right HVAC service software you will find that you can create a steady flow of work throughout the peak seasons and into the slow seasons.

7 Tips You Should Know To Scale Your HVAC business

Struggling with slow times in your business? Frustrated with a lack of order in the busy seasons and zero work during spring and fall/autumn? If you are looking to optimize your field service business, here are the top tips you should know to get you some seasonal help:

1. Schedule Preventive Maintenance

During summer and winter, you will typically be run off your feet with emergency breakdowns and new installations for your customers, which leaves little time for preventive maintenance.

Preventive maintenance has several benefits for HVAC companies from improved CRM (Customer Relationship Management), balanced schedule, improved revenue, and extended lifespan for assets. When you take the opportunity in your slow seasons to schedule preventive maintenance, you create a better balance in your HVAC business. Take the chance in your off seasons to service your customer’s HVAC equipment and help establish their loyalty to your business.

2. Create Seasonal Deals & Join Forces

Create special deals to help incentivize your customers throughout your slow season. You may find that you can offer a discounted maintenance deal or even consider reaching out to other local businesses with strategic partnerships.

Other local businesses who are seasonal such as; landscaping, golf courses, hotels or tourist attractions could be potential allies for you. Taking some time to reach out with service calls or emails to these businesses can help you establish special deals. Building relationships with other businesses can hugely benefit your business and provide more work during your off season.

3. Boost Your Marketing

You can create public awareness by implementing a marketing strategy through avenues such as social media or ads to help boost your lead generation. Your marketing efforts might not be seen overnight, but using tools like SEO and keyword optimization, you can make your business more visible to potential customers year round.

By examining your past seasonal data, you can pull results of what your ideal customer most looks like, where they are and what they expect from your HVAC business. Use this to help target your future customers.

4. Push Upgrades with your HVAC Business

Not all your customers will be interested in equipment maintenance, some of them may benefit more from a new installation or upgrade. While most customers will consider upgrades in the colder winter months or hotter summer months, you can try to push more system upgrades during your HVAC slow seasons.

Showcasing your services for potential customers can help relieve some of the pressure during the peak season when it feels like you are running off your feet and introduce more balance to your slow times. Get your HVAC contractors to mention the benefits of a system upgrade to your customers when they are in the field.

5. Connect with Existing Customers

Your current customers can create a steady flow for your HVAC business. By reaching out to your more quiet customers, you can remind them of the importance of routine maintenance work and boost your customer service.

You can reach out to customers who have potential new projects in the works or who you know might be interested in more preventative maintenance service agreements. Customers are always the backbone of a HVAC company and are a useful pool of potential work if you set your goals correctly.

6. Upscale your team

Additional projects can help fill in time during your slower seasons. By introducing more training or setting new technician goals based on your past seasonal data, you can help leverage more growth and balance in your business.

You may find that you need to hire more HVAC techs for your seasonal work ahead, or even brush some of your current HVAC contractors up on service plans. Take the time during spring and fall/autumn to ensure your HVAC company team is up to speed.

 7. Use a HVAC software

A new HVAC system software can help you reclaim your wasted time with automation. From gaining visibility over your current projects and budgeting, to monitoring HVAC techs in the field, a HVAC system software can help you generate more balance year round. By using job management software, you can better manage your business and gain more clarity in real time.

How Software Solution Can Help You

With a software solution, you can maximise your workflow with job management tools to create more visibility and clarity. To help reduce frustration around a lack of organization in your business, a software can easily schedule and track your projects with just a few clicks. The benefits of field management software can help keep your business balanced year round.

Key takeaways for HVAC Companies

To help combat your slow season, here are 7 tips you should consider for your HVAC service:

1. Schedule preventive maintenance
2. Create seasonal deals and join forces
3. Boost your marketing
4. Push upgrades with your HVAC business
5. Connect with existing clients
6. Upscale your team
7. Use a HVAC software

To help balance your off seasons, a field service software like FieldInsight can get your HVAC company back on track. To find out more, book a demo today and talk to one of our product specialists. Don’t wait until your twiddling your thumbs this off season, boost your focus and get on top of your seasonal work this year.