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Mobility: The Next Generation of HVAC Services

John Edmisten, Edmisten Heating and Cooling
A low-cost, high-ROI technology that can be deployed within weeks, works for HVAC businesses of any size in any location, and streamlines daily work for both service technicians and office staff seems too good to be true.  Yet it’s not only true, it’s largely untapped by today’s HVAC businesses.

Edmisten Heating and Cooling, my 10-year-old service company for residential and commercial structures, has saved hundreds of staff hours with mobile technology from myServiceForce.com; its handheld device and software manage technicians on the road and share information between trucks and office staff in real time.  The result is more customer visits with less overhead, better service and more accuracy.

Edmisten Heating and Cooling had seen consistent growth over the last decade from many of the same internal and external factors affecting the industry overall: local population growth (full-year residents and part-year vacation home owners), expanded support to new equipment lines such as American Standard and Lennox, and tried-and-true word-of-mouth referrals.  We now employ nearly 20 full-time employees, including four service technicians, six installation crews and only three office staffers.

But to grow the business to the next level, we required a more efficient infrastructure.

Mobility Need & Benefits

The business serves three counties in western North Carolina, covering nearly 1,000 square miles; for reference, that’s slightly larger than Orange County, California.  We install HVAC systems in new homes and commercial buildings, retrofit systems for existing structures and service equipment of all brand names.  We also provide emergency 24-hour service.

Our operation requires that installation teams and service technicians minimize travel, accurately stock new systems and parts and still maintain the flexibility to add a call in the middle of the day or after normal business hours.  Meanwhile, office staff has to ensure accurate and on-time bookkeeping, and have easy access to customer records.

myServiceForce.com allows us to accomplish these goals, as well as save in other areas; typical savings for our company – and for other HVAC businesses – include:

• Fuel.  Covering such a large area, we can easily waste hundreds of dollars of gasoline per week on return trips to the office.  With the mobile technology, technicians know their work schedules for the entire day when they leave for the first call, allowing them to eliminate return trips for customer information or to stock inventory for subsequent jobs.
• More service calls.  Fewer trips to the office create more time for service calls.  Even a few additional calls per weeks add thousands of dollars in profit to the bottom line.  More revenue with the same staff working the same amount of hours is every business’ goal.
• Accounting.  When technicians complete jobs, invoices are printed immediately on site, and data is automatically and remotely synched with the company’s back-end QuickBooks® software via a wireless connection.  Administrators do not have to re-enter any data, and technicians have access to customer invoice histories on their devices.  If a device is out of range, it will synch data when a signal becomes available.
• Billing.  We’ve reduced our billing time by weeks compared to the pre-mobile days.  By handing invoices to customers, they can question any service or part cost immediately, ensuring they have an accurate bill immediately following the service – leading to quicker payment and fewer follow-up calls.
• Paperwork and IT.  myServiceForce.com stores information on the Internet, removing the company’s burden to manage the data on our network or in countless paper files.  We put office space to better use for more staff, and leave myServiceForce.com to manage the technology maintenance and upgrades.
• Flexibility.  Mobile technology cannot be too rigid, or it becomes a hindrance instead of an enabler.  myServiceForce.com gives our team the ability to add new emergency calls right away, pulling up new customer data, prioritizing urgent needs and re-routing trucks to save fuel and time for customers and the company.

Ease of Deployment

Like most HVAC service companies, Edmisten Heating and Cooling had primarily spent technology dollars on typical small business expenses (e.g. computers and related software) and equipment to improve system installation and repairs. 

We knew that a new type of investment was necessary, and that we would need to be cautious about the best way to manage remote workers.  The company considered a variety of cell phone and handheld computer dispatching programs, reviewing the device and software features that would give us the most bang for our bucks.  We needed a system that all workers would embrace, could be deployed in weeks and would give a quick payback.

Keys to a successful deployment included simple online ordering and phone support for our questions.  Our technicians and office staff were trained within a two weeks, giving us rapid savings that grew with each customer service visit.  Devices cost around $400 each, far less than their price points even from two years ago.

Mobility technology seems like a “neat-to-have” solution for HVAC service businesses, with added gadgets and technical wizardry that makes competitors jealous.  In fact, after using it for the last 2 years, myServiceForce.com is a “need-to-have” partner that allows us to easily grow the business, cut costs and better serve our customers.

John Edmisten is the owner of Boone, N.C.-based Edmisten Heating and Cooling, a 10-year old HVAC service and installation company.  He can be reached at (828) 264-0130.