Did you know that success and failure are both habits that can be learned and cultivated? This is why it is vital to the growth and long term success of a company that you continuously work to develop a habit and expectation of success. If you accept failure once, it just gets easier and easier each time, and this can be absolutely devastating to a technician’s career and the success of a company.
Zero tickets are a major problem for a lot of companies. I travel all over the country training technicians to maximize their opportunities on maintenance calls, and when I first get to many of these companies it amazes me how many zero tickets I see. Even in some of the largest, most successful companies in the industry! The first time a tech gets a zero ticket it hurts (or at least it should). The second time, it gets a little easier to accept. The third time even easier. Then things start to snowball, and eventually they become desensitized to the disappointment and stop caring. Even worse, they often start blaming the customer and saying things like, “It was a bad lead,” “They just wanted something cheap/for free,” or “There wasn’t anything I could do.” Once they’ve stopped accepting responsibility then it’s a real problem.
What Can You Do About it?
The best way to end zero tickets is hold yourself accountable. If you are a contractor or a manager make sure you are holding your techs accountable. At my company, I require my technicians to call me before they leave any call where they are about to get a zero ticket. If they want to get paid on that call, they are required to call me. I will have them walk me through the call, read me their prioritized list of findings, and then I will give them questions to ask the customer to try and better establish a need for the
items on the list. More often than not my suggestions work. Even if they don’t, it provides a great coaching opportunity for my techs, and it shows I want to help them succeed. Once the confidence and pride are established they will bring their “A” game to every call.
I once had an installer that was selling IAQ on almost every installation I had him on. After a while, I knew I had to put him in a truck because it was costing me money not to! He would call me up after selling a Remme and want to know how he could add UV lights to the sale. I new right away this guy was going to be a stud. This exercise will not only help your techs, but it will help you identify your leaders, and also help you identify the people that just aren’t a good fit. My guys hate having to call me because
they have a lot of pride, so they practice in their spare time, give every call their full attention, and focus on serving every customer, so they can close these calls on their own without having to make the call to me. This accountability piece helped me see an immediate increase in my team’s numbers, my customers were happier because my guys were giving full attention to every call, and after a short period of time the number
of calls I was getting from my techs was down to a few per week. If you aren’t doing this already, get started now!