How to Build Customer Loyalty and Retention

Why creating customer loyalty is critical for HVACR business success

Even in the best of times, it’s more difficult and expensive to win new customers than it is to retain the customers you already have. In an uncertain economy, it’s even more important to do everything you can to build customer loyalty.

HVAC and Refrigeration service may be a necessity for many customers, but remember that there are many service providers competing for their business. You need to actively work to keep them coming back to you.

Here’s how to do it.

5 customer retention ideas for HVACR service companies

1. Understand their top concerns

When it comes to your work for them, what do your customers care about most? Is it response time? The skill of your technicians? The way they are treated when they call you? The value they get for the price? It may be any of these or something different. Depending on the type of customer you’re serving, the answer may change.

If you don’t know for sure, ask. And if you don’t ask about customer satisfaction on a regular basis, there’s a good chance you’ll miss something important. Customer experience research should be an ongoing commitment, not a one-and-done exercise.

There are a number of ways you can go about gathering information about your customers’ needs, concerns, and preferences:

• Email surveys can help you understand customer preferences and get responses from a large number of people.
• Phone interviews with individual customers can help you explore customer experience issues at a deeper level.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys measure customer experience and satisfaction. This structured program can identify customers who need intervention after a bad experience, and also identify customers who are big fans and likely to refer you to others.
• Monitoring social media and review websites makes you aware of problems and concerns that may not be reported to you, and gives you the chance to respond and make things right.

2. Deliver on your promises

Reliability goes a long way toward building trust, customer loyalty and retention.

At a minimum, HVAC and Refrigeration customers expect you to show up when you say you will, and to solve their equipment problems on the first visit. So start by making sure you are meeting these basic requirements.

Then refer to what you learned in the first step, and make sure you are delivering on the other things your customers want and need most.

Here’s another important tip. In situations when you fail to meet customer expectations (it happens to everyone), don’t be evasive or sugar-coat things. When you are honest about what happened and how you’re going to fix it, customers will be more likely to understand and give you another chance.

3. Make things easy

Make it easy and stress-free to do business with your company:

• Allow customers to request service online.
• Make it easy for them to speak with a live person (when they want to) and address their questions and concerns quickly.
• Send reminders about appointments (and let customers decide how and when they want to receive reminders).
• Establish relationships between customers and a group of employees who service their account.
• Encourage technicians to explain things in terms customers can understand, and write contracts in plain language.
• Make every effort to schedule appointments at times that doesn’t interfere with the customer’s business.
• Make it easy to pay and offer flexible payment options whenever possible.

Doing so can keep customers loyal even when your service costs more than that of your competitors. Research shows that 55% of consumers are willing to pay more for a guaranteed good experience.

4. Stay in touch

Establish regular communication with your customers that’s valuable for them. The last part of that statement is key; don’t bombard them with sales messages because that will only erode their confidence in you.

Here are some tips and ideas:

• Build a database of customer information, including email addresses and phone numbers for key customer contacts. Keep your list up to date, since key contacts can change frequently. (Here’s an easy way to do that: have technicians check contact info at every service call.)
• Send a follow up message after every service visit (using the method that customers prefer) to verify that the problem was solved to their satisfaction, and that they are otherwise happy with the service they received.
• Between service calls, send regular newsletters containing helpful and timely information. For example, send a video that shows them how to change their filters. Or, share ways they can reduce their energy bills.
• Use social media to build relationships and customer loyalty. Follow the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of your posts should be helpful content, and no more than 20 percent should be promotional messages. In addition to helpful tips, you might also share your company values and community service activities.

With regular customer communication, you stay top of mind and also reinforce their good opinion of you.

5. Reward customer loyalty

Offer repeat customers incentives for sticking with your company:

• Offer discounts for customers that renew contracts. Even small discounts show your appreciation for their business.
• Give priority scheduling for emergency repairs during peak heating and cooling seasons. Customers appreciate knowing you’ll be there for them in an urgent situation.
• Even small tokens can help to cement the relationship. Consider sending a small gift that customers love (food gifts are always popular) every year, either during the holiday season or at the anniversary of their relationship with you.

If you found this article interesting and helpful, you can find more resources for HVAC and Refrigeration service businesses here.