As it gets colder and colder, HVAC technicians and plumbers prepare for a substantial spike in business with the incoming winter peak season. (The people need heat! The people need their pipes to not freeze!) Peak season can be your trade business’s time to shine… or it can be your time to fall behind the competition. That being said, the role of an answering service during this time cannot be overstated. From handling increases in call volume to maintaining your brand’s reputation, having an answering service on your team can drastically improve your trade business’s peak season. In this blog, we’ll dive further into the role of answering services during trade businesses’ peak seasons, and we’ll highlight some factors to consider for when it comes time to choose an answering service.
Understanding Peak Seasons in the Trade Industry
How Answering Services Support Trade Businesses During Peak Season
A Real-Life Example: TR Miller
Choosing the Right Answering Service
With every trade business comes different peak seasons. Electricians experience a spike in business during storm seasons, whereas HVAC technicians and plumbers experience that spike during both the summertime and the winter. Regardless of the trade, common challenges faced during these periods include managing customer inquiries, dealing with an influx of customer calls, and maintaining high levels of customer service. All of these factors impact your brand’s reputation, which then impacts customer loyalty. As previously mentioned, peak seasons for the trades are truly a time to either “sink or swim,” and when you partner with an answering service, you drastically increase the odds of swimming. (Skeptical about the efficacy of answering services? Check out some myths we busted about answering services with this link!)
There’s a myriad of ways that answering services support trade businesses when it comes to their busiest seasons of the year. An answering service serves as your partner– streamlining your customer service operations so that you can focus on the heavy lifting your job requires.
Peak seasons often mean an overwhelming number of customer inquiries, booking requests, and follow-ups that can be difficult for in-house staff to handle. When your in-house call center is flooded with calls, an answering service can carry the overflow with ease. Answering services ensure no call goes unanswered, capturing every lead and providing a professional first point of contact.
Long hold times and missed calls lead to frustrated callers and lost opportunities. With highly-trained professional agents, answering services provide prompt and polite responses, enhancing the customer experience even during the busiest of times.
When your trade business closes for the day, your answering service won’t! This ensures that you won’t miss opportunities to capture leads or to book appointments. Answering services provide 24/7 availability, ensuring customers can reach your business at all times– even when their heaters stop working at 3am.
With an answering service on your team, your callers won’t immediately go to your competition when you miss their call. Not only will you increase revenue with an answering service by booking jobs you would’ve otherwise missed out on, but you also won’t have to hire (and train) additional customer service staff for evenings or weekends.
When you partner with an answering service, you get to create a customizable script. This means that your answering service will echo your brand’s voice and values every time they answer for your trade business, ensuring a consistent experience for callers across the board.
Are you and your technicians juggling the roles of service experts and customer service reps all at once? When you team up with an answering service, you’ll be able to focus on your job at-hand. Answering services allow your team to focus on delivering quality work without distractions, as calls are handled off-site.
TR Miller is an Illinois-based heating, cooling, and plumbing company. Shortly after partnering with their answering service (Dexcomm), their summer peak season just so happened to boom. It was then that Chicago saw "five straight days of 100-degree weather." TR Miller had 6,500 total incoming calls for the scorching month of May, as opposed to their regular 2,200 a month. Despite being fully staffed with both customer service representatives and technicians, out of those 6,500 calls, their answering service answered 1,800— twenty-eight percent of their total call volume.
TR Miller’s operations manager commented, “Being full-staffed was great, but we wouldn’t have been able to do what we did without Dexcomm being able to carry the overflow.” Out of the 28% of calls that the answering service answered, 22% of those calls resulted in booked jobs.
Every answering service offers something unique, whether it’s advanced technology, industry-specific expertise, or personalized customer service options. Choosing the right one for your trade business means finding a service that aligns not only with your operational needs but also with your brand values and long-term goals. The right fit can mean the difference between simply managing call overflow and creating a seamless, professional experience that fosters customer loyalty and trust. When it comes down to choosing the right one for your trade business, below are some of the most important factors to consider.
Look for a service that has plenty of experience working with trade businesses. This ensures that agents will be able to understand industry-specific terminology and that they’ll be able to understand and respond to your callers’ needs. If you partner with an answering service that doesn’t have much industry expertise, agents could potentially confuse your callers and unintentionally spread misinformation.
This is a no-brainer. It’s an emergency when heaters stop working in the middle of a big freeze, or when your callers can’t flush their toilets because their pipes are frozen. If your answering service offers 24/7 availability, agents are able to offer your callers immediate peace of mind by hearing their problem and booking an appointment with your business.
The service you partner with should offer tailored solutions to fit your specific needs, such as appointment scheduling, dispatching, or customized scripts that align with your brand voice. Make a list of all of the things that you’d want your answering service to cover, and find one that best fits your needs.
A top-notch answering service should integrate seamlessly with your existing scheduling and CRM tools to avoid double bookings or missed appointments. This will inevitably alleviate a lot of pressure on your in-house CSR team, or you (if you are the one booking appointments yourself).
Operators should be professionally trained to handle inquiries, manage customer complaints, and represent your brand accurately and courteously. Degrees of professionalism vary from answering service to answering service, so be sure to find a service that values professionalism and that trains its operators as though they were your in-house customer service representatives.
During peak seasons, your call volume will skyrocket. Choose a service that can scale with your business needs without compromising quality. Your answering service should leverage your peak season, not limit its success.
For trade businesses, emergency calls are critical. Ensure the service has protocols to prioritize and efficiently handle urgent requests. That way, you can more easily respond to those appointments that are urgent.
Research the provider’s reputation through online reviews and testimonials from other trade businesses. A proven track record speaks volumes about their reliability. You could even reach out to those who left reviews and ask them about their experiences with that answering service.
Peak seasons can be a whirlwind for trade businesses, but with the right strategies in place, they can also be your most lucrative time of the year. An answering service isn’t just a tool—it’s a game-changer; these services offer a lifeline for businesses looking to thrive rather than just survive during their busiest periods.
Every missed call is a missed opportunity, and every frustrated customer risks becoming a lost one. An answering service ensures no call slips through the cracks, giving your business the edge it needs to handle high demand with grace and professionalism. Whether it’s providing after-hours coverage, preventing revenue loss, or simply freeing up your team to focus on the hands-on work they do best, an answering service is your partner in delivering exceptional customer experiences.
The real-life success story of TR Miller underscores how transformative an answering service can be. With the right partner, even the most overwhelming spikes in demand can be managed effectively, leading to increased bookings, happier customers, and a thriving business.
As winter looms and peak season approaches, take a moment to evaluate your readiness. Are you equipped to handle the influx of calls and emergencies? If not, it might be time to consider adding an answering service to your team. Don’t let this winter catch you off guard. Partner with an answering service and make peak season the highlight of your year.