5 Tips to Improve Electrician Customer Service

What Customer Service Challenges Do Electrician Businesses Face?

Here are some customer service challenges electrical companies face.

Understanding customer expectations (and exceeding them)

Customers want two things from you:

• Electrical repairs done right

• A fair price

In an ideal world, meeting these expectations would be enough. 

But since it’s the bare minimum customers have come to expect, fulfilling those expectations may get you a ‘thank you’ at best. A successful electrical business finds a way to exceed those basic expectations so customers return, send referrals, and leave good reviews.

ServiceTitan's Customer Experience feature allows you to exceed customer expectations and still provide quality service.

Consider this scenario: when scheduling an electrician, wouldn't you appreciate knowing the precise arrival time or if there are any delays? While it may seem like a small detail, this thoughtful touch can save your customers the inconvenience of leaving work unnecessarily early. 

With ServiceTitan, you can remind customers of upcoming appointments to reduce the chances of a tech showing up at the site without the owner present.

To ensure techs arrive when expected at the job site, you also can relay their real-time location to customers using GPS tracking.

This does two things:

• Assures customers that an electrician is coming to fix their electrical issue. 

• Stops techs from taking any detour once en route to the customer’s location, ensuring they arrive on time. 

You can also send customers a brief description of the technician coming to fix their electrical problem.

Learning about the technicians before they arrive reduces customers' uncertainty when letting a stranger into their home.

Efficiently handling real-time requests

Particularly during the summer, the phone numbers of electrical companies ring incessantly with calls from frantic customers.

Regardless of the volume of calls, customers expect CSRs to answer promptly and send over any available technician.

Some competitors can even use your slow response times to steal your customers. Take the experience of Travis Ringe, co-owner of ProSkill Services, for example.

“One of my competitors turned the tables on me and said to the customer, ‘Well, if they're out two or three weeks, do they really know how to run a business? Is that the business you want in your home? Did they not know the summer would be hot and there would be high demand? Why didn't they plan for that?’ 

[I learned that] you’re providing bad service if you can’t get to a customer quickly enough.”

Delivering quick and effective customer service is indeed a big challenge. Luckily, ServiceTitan has two features that can help you overcome this challenge: Pro Phones and Service Scheduling.

Pro Phones reduce the time CSRs spend reclassifying abandoned calls and concluding job bookings, freeing up time to attend to customers.

Service Scheduling helps dispatchers plan entire schedules months in advance and see precisely where each tech is in the job cycle. 

This way, they can assign new jobs to techs finishing their current jobs and optimize schedules.

Training CSRs

CSRs are the frontline employees of your electrical company. How they respond to customers determines the perception of your company.

Let’s be clear: training CSRs can be difficult without a system for reviewing service calls and evaluating their performance.

That’s where ServiceTitan comes in handy. Its Call Booking software lets you record calls between your CSRs and customers.

Managers can listen to recorded calls and give effective feedback to CSRs on what they can do to improve.

Also, new CSRs can listen to recorded calls to acquaint themselves with the electrician services you offer, such as panel upgrades, light fixture installations, water heater repairs, and electrical wiring. They can then draw up plans to respond better when another customer calls in with the same issue.

ServiceTitan’s Call Booking software also calculates the number of leads a CSR has interacted with, compares it with the percentage that turned into customers, and produces a scorecard like this:

This way, you can track the performance of CSRs and easily spot those struggling so you can coach them to improve.

Now that you’re aware of the different customer service challenges let’s explore expert tips for resolving them.

Tip #1: Improve Your Phone Game

A phone call is likely to be the first interaction a customer will have with your business.

A recent survey shows that 54 percent of US customers prefer calling to book appointments and resolve service issues. 

As first impressions matter, you must do all you can to delight the customer from the first call.

CSRs should pick up the phone within the first three to five rings. They should also pay attention to the electrical installation issues customers are complaining about, understand the context, and offer a solution quickly.

Also, instead of redirecting customers to voicemail, set up a system that ensures a human always picks up the call.

Pro tip!

You can always improve your phone game with a tool like ServiceTitan’s Call Booking software.

Hear from Travis Ringe, cofounder of Proskill Services, who uses the software.

“We have a great booking rate off of that and we don’t lose many jobs, whereas before we had a lot more dropped calls when we sent customers to call trees or put them on hold,” he says.

With ServiceTitan’s Call Booking software, the details of a customer populate as soon as a customer calls.

This means CSRs can instantly connect with the customer by greeting them by name

Also, the booking interface has several drop-down menus with different options CSRs can use to collect customer data.

This ensures that CSRs collect all the required data and listen attentively to the customer instead of dividing their attention between the screen and the keyboard.

CSRs can also see the property details of each customer in order to highlight upsell opportunities.

Let’s say a Los Angeles-based homeowner calls to say their light switches suddenly stopped working.

From the property data, the CSR may discover it’s an old house.

So, they can advise the client to change their inefficient, old-school 100-amp fuse box system to an electrical panel with circuit breakers.

This results in increased revenue for your business and effectively addresses another issue for the client, establishing a mutually beneficial outcome for all parties involved.

Tip #2: Understand That Every Customer is Different

Essentially, every customer seeks assistance in resolving issues with their electrical outlets, a task well within the capabilities of any seasoned professional electrician. However, it's essential to recognize that customers may occasionally present unique needs beyond standard installation or repair services.

One customer may need installment payments. Another might want you to run routine checks so that electrical issues don't worsen.

To be a successful electrical business owner, you must know and try to fulfill these unique needs.

For example, you can set up service agreements to run routine checks on customers’ electrical systems. Or you could include financing options to support customers who can't afford to pay up-front for high-ticket items.

To be frank, accommodating those unique customer needs may be challenging. 

But it doesn’t have to be with ServiceTitan’s Service Agreement and Customer Financing platforms.

ServiceTitan's Service Agreement platform helps you create memberships customized to the needs of each client.

As you add extra charges, discounts, and maintenance task add-ons, the system automatically tracks and factors your labor and material costs into the new price. This ensures you're still profitable.

When renewals come around, showing customers the performance of the last contract can help convince them to sign. 

To that end, ServiceTitan provides a report on the performance of their expired contract. You can see the revenue generated, the costs, and the number of times electricians showed up at the customer's location.

Finally, ServiceTitan's Financing platform gives your customers easy access to financing options.

On-site techs can create different financing options on ServiceTitan Mobile, gain instant approval, and wait for the system to automatically calculate the amount the customer is to pay.

Meeting your customer's needs with these options will increase retention rates and revenue.

Tip #3: Improve Your Estimates

Customers trust you. So, they expect every estimate you give them to be accurate, with details justifying how you arrived at your price point. 

But, it’s easy to make estimate mistakes such as underestimating material costs, miscalculating the scope of work, neglecting labor costs, overlooking permit and inspection fees, failing to account for overhead expenses, or incorrectly assessing transportation costs––especially when doing it manually. 

To avoid these types of errors, automate parts of your estimate process using ServiceTitan's Electrical Estimating software.

Industry-specific software like ServiceTitan helps you create accurate estimates within minutes with easy-to-use templates. To ensure your prices are competitive, consider using ServiceTitan's Pricebook Pro feature, which aggregates regional pricing averages for each product.

Further reading: Get a free electrical template and learn how to enhance your electrical estimate process.

Tip #4: Don’t Forget to Follow Up

Electricians arrive at the customer's location, complete the job, and return to the office.

Job done? Not quite.

You still need to follow up with the customer to determine if they were satisfied with the result or need further assistance with the job.

Following up on unsold estimates is also an excellent strategy for re-engaging with potential customers, which helps grow your business.

In the words of Chris Hunter, ServiceTitan’s new director of customer relations: “We spend so much money and time and effort to get leads. Leads are hard to get. Be very committed to following up so you get the job.”

Tip #5: Be Transparent

Being completely honest and open about your entire job process increases customer satisfaction and peace of mind.

Customers trust businesses that communicate with them every step of the way, are open about timelines, and acknowledge when they make a mistake.

To that end, have an open channel of communication with customers.

Let them know when a technician will arrive at their homes—especially important if the customer is at work. And keep them updated about the progress of the job.

Finally, be transparent about your pricing. Invoices for home services should reflect all costs up-front so customers don't encounter any hidden fees at the payment stage.

Now Over to You

The electrical industry is very competitive. To upstage competitors, you need to deliver superior customer service to turn one-time service calls into loyal customers.

Know your customer's needs and expectations. Employ certified electricians. Practice an open line of communication. And automate key processes with electrical software like ServiceTitan.

ServiceTitan is a cloud-based comprehensive software for companies in the trades. It enables electrical companies to streamline operations and provide on-demand customer experiences.