How to Retain Customers for Your Field Service Business?

Customer retention is an essential part of every business including field service organizations. It’s about keeping current customers happy and getting rid of those who aren’t satisfied. While it sounds simple, there are many ways field service companies can do this.

Customer retention rate is one of the most important metrics to measure in the field service industry. If you don’t know how many people you’ve lost over time, it is hard to understand whether your marketing efforts are working.

Customer retention in field service industry depends on delivering positive experiences to your customers. If you want to retain customers, make sure your field service brand stands out. Field service companies can use automation and artificial intelligence to help increase customer retention rates. 

Here we have listed down a few tips for customer retention in field service industry that help you get recurring business from your existing customer base.

Why is Customer Retention so Important?

Customers are the lifeblood of every business. If you lose your customers, you lose money. You might even lose your entire business. 

According to research, a massive 65% of sales will come from existing customers, and only 20% of your current customers will be the source of 80% of your company’s profits.

These stats show how easy it is to expand your business with existing customers.

The probability of selling to an existing customer is between 60% and 70%.

The probability of selling to a new customer is only between 5% to 20%.

Though customer retention is such a crucial aspect of any business, organizations fail to capitalize on it.

In fact, according to Forbes Magazine, “customer retention is one of the biggest challenges facing companies today.”

So what does this mean? It means that you must take steps to ensure that your customers remain loyal to your brand. This includes making sure that you provide exceptional customer service, keep your products and services up-to-date, and offer great value.

Investing in customer service can decrease your churn rate. Decreasing the customer churn rate reduces the amount you must spend on acquiring new customers and decreases the overall CAC.

To boost customer retention, devise a robust customer retention strategy.

What is a Customer Retention Strategy?

A customer retention strategy includes all the tactics a business uses to retain customers. This includes everything from marketing campaigns to product improvements. Also, it should include both short-term strategies like discounts and longer-term strategies such as loyalty programs.

An effective customer retention strategy will allow you to increase revenues, reduce costs, and even improve profits. Yet, many companies don’t know how to implement one because they haven’t thought about what it actually entails.

7 Tips for Customer Retention in Field Service Industry

Customer retention is critical for any type of field service business. In fact, it’s one of the most important metrics you can track. If you don’t keep your customer base happy, you won’t make money. And if you lose too many customers, you could find yourself out of business.

Here are seven tips for customer retention in the field service business for keeping your customers coming back for more.

1. Prompt Services with Shorter Response Times

When an emergency occurs, you don’t want to wait around for hours waiting for a repair technician to show up.

According to Hubspot research, an incredible 90% of customers rate an “immediate” response as important or very important when they have a customer service question.

So, how do you shorten response times?

The field service manager must stay informed about the field workers’ schedules at any time. As soon as a customer field service request arrives, the customer service representatives must quickly assign a field service technician whose skills and experience rightly match the job requirements.

Manually assigning relevant techs for the job could be time-consuming. To quickly assign the service technician and inform the customer about the ETA, use a field service scheduling tool. 

The technician scheduling software quickly sorts the incoming service jobs based on priority, urgency and customer location. Further, it quickly matches qualified technicians to the jobs and notifies them via mobile notification. 

The technician scheduling tool also notifies the customer of the details of the assigned technician and the ETA. This keeps the customer informed and satisfied with the service.  

The answer lies in having a strong communication plan. This includes making sure everyone knows the tools required for every job. If you use the right tool for the task, you can cut down on response times. For example, if you have a drill press, you might want to use it to tighten screws rather than using a screwdriver.

Finally, make sure that all employees know where the appropriate tools are. If you find yourself calling a plumber because you forgot where the wrench is, you’re doing it wrong.

2. Minimize Service Failures

Customers are always looking for ways to save money, especially during the holiday season. But you shouldn’t let your customers pay for something twice. If you do, you could lose them forever. 

For example, manually written notes might be illegible and sometimes the field service workers might misunderstand the customer query, providing faulty solutions. This makes things worse and annoys the customers who lose their trust in your business.  

Make sure you use CRM software solutions that eliminate data entry and miscommunication errors to minimize service failures. Along with a CRM use field service software that comes integrated with CRM for easy and quick real-time communication. Real-time communication minimizes the chances of errors and resulting delays. 

3. Empower Field Technicians

The technician is one of the most important people on the customer service team. They make sure that everything works properly, that the equipment is well-maintained, and that it’s ready to go whenever you need it. Here are four things you can do to empower field technicians.

1. Keep Them Informed

Inform every minute detail about a service job to the assigned field service technician for better customer service. Use automation tools like field service software that send job dispatch mobile notifications to technicians. Along with the notification, the field technician mobile app gives them real-time access to customer data, job instructions and service history. 

2. Route Optimization

The field technician mobile app automates route planning that helps field workers to reach customer locations quickly without wasting time searching for the address. It saves time and fuel.

3. Equip Them With the Right Tools

Access to schedules and job and customer data on the go helps field technicians plan their day accordingly in advance. They can make a note of inventories, spare parts or tools required and fetch those beforehand saving time travelling back and forth to the office. 

4. Give Them Training

If you want your technicians to perform well, you must train them. You don’t necessarily need to spend money on expensive courses, but you should provide them with some basic knowledge about your products and processes. 

Customers want to feel valued and appreciated. If they don’t receive great customer service, they won’t return. Make sure employees know how to handle customer complaints and respond quickly. They should always remember that a good attitude goes a long way.

Empowered technicians perform the service job quickly and deliver good customer service that increases customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers stay with your business boosting your customer retention rate. 

4. Increase the First-Time Fix Rate

Miscommunication, lack of remote data access and route optimization make service jobs more complicated. The field technicians cannot complete the job soon as they keep travelling back and forth to the office to fetch job data, spare parts, invoices, etc. 

These frequent visits frustrate the customers who want solutions on the first visit. This not only blemishes your customer service but also lowers customer satisfaction levels. 

According to SemRush, 89% of companies say that excellent customer service plays a huge role in customer retention.

Field service organisations that achieve a first-time fix rate of over 70% boast an impressive 86% customer retention rate.

With remote data access, route planning, on-site support and on-field invoice generation, the technicians can complete the service jobs within the first visit without any delay. This increases the first-time fix rate for your field service business which also boosts customer retention in field service industry. 

5. Use Customer Feedback to Provide Quality Service

Customers want brands that offer an excellent customer experience, which will ultimately lead to increased sales. To achieve this, it’s important to know exactly what your customers want, why they’re buying from you, and what makes them happy. A good customer experience starts with knowing your customers inside out.

To understand your customers better, collect customer feedback. But how often do you manage it? And what are you doing with it?

If you don’t know where to start, here are three ways to gather feedback and use it to improve your product, service, and marketing campaigns continuously.

1. Ask clients directly

Ask your clients for feedback via surveys, phone calls, emails, or even face-to-face meetings. This method helps you understand the problems they’re having and gives you insight into their preferences.

2. Collect anonymous feedback

If you don’t want to ask your clients directly about their experiences, you can still learn a lot by collecting anonymous feedback. You’ll see patterns emerge in the data that give you clues about what people like and dislike.

3. Listen to customer reviews

Encourage your customers to leave reviews about your field service company online such as on your Google My Business profile. These reviews not only stand as your social proof for visitors to convert into customers but also give you insights into how to improve your services to increase customer satisfaction levels and make crucial business decisions. 

6. Engage With Customers

Automated emails are useful for reminding inactive users that you still exist. They are also a great way to keep customers engaged and happy. 

Set preventative maintenance alerts for every customer’s service so that you do not miss out on any business opportunity. Use a service reminder software that automatically fetches the upcoming service due dates for customers and sends service reminder messages.

Timely service reminder messages keep your customers in touch without letting them sway to a competitor. Unoservice FSM tool comes with a free service reminder software that not only lets you send reminders but also personalizes the messages with customized discounts and offers for customers’ birthdays, anniversaries, etc. 

This makes your customers realize how much you value them and you evoke an emotional response from their side. These little gestures keep your business on top of customers’ minds and you evolve a brand out of your field service business. 

7. Identify Customers that are Likely to Churn

Churning is when a consumer stops using a product or service after having been a faithful customer for a long period. 

There are three major categories of churners: Those dissatisfied, those not satisfied but still using the product and the ones unsatisfied and aren’t interested in continuing to use the product.

Give personalized offers, discounts and other loyalty programmes that entice the customers to stay with your business and reduce the churn rate for your field service company. 

8. Invest in Customer Loyalty Programmes

Customer loyalty programmes are one of the most powerful tools in marketing today. They help you build relationships with your customers, reward them for being loyal and incentivise them to buy more. 

The benefits of a customer loyalty programme go far beyond just rewarding your best customers. In fact, there are four main reasons why companies should consider creating a customer loyalty programme:

1. Loyalty programs increase sales

Research suggests that up to 50% of consumers will switch brands if they feel they are receiving poor value for money. If you want to keep your existing customers happy, offering a rewards scheme is a fantastic way to encourage repeat purchases.

2. Loyalty programs improve customer retention

Studies show that around half of businesses lose customers within three months of purchase. Offering a rewards programme encourages customers to stick around, giving you the chance to retain a greater proportion of your current customer base.

3. Loyalty programs strengthen customer relationships

When people receive something nice for free, they tend to become attached to the brand. This is because they associate the gift with the person who gave it to them, making them feel valued and appreciated. By providing regular incentives to your customers, you can foster stronger bonds and keep them coming back for more.

4. Loyalty programs boost profits

There are many ways in which a loyalty programme can benefit your bottom line. For example, it could mean increased revenue due to repeat service orders. Or perhaps it will lead to lower costs since you won’t have to spend as much on advertising.

Conclusion

Automation is the key to freeing up your time and resources and focusing better on enhancing customer experience that in turn drives increased customer retention in field service industry.

Unoservice field service management software helps field service organizations run more efficiently and profitably by providing real-time visibility across every aspect of their operations. From scheduling to dispatch to billing, everything happens automatically.

Unoservice FSM tool is an easy way for field service companies to manage all aspects of their business. You can set up alerts, track performance metrics, and even automate recurring tasks. Try Unoservice for free to see how it works for your field service business.

Frequently Asked Questions on Customer Retention in Field Service Industry