Mechanical, heating and ventilation
Heating and plumbing contractors, HVAC and ventilation firms and gas service businesses, where a book of recurring visits is the asset and it erodes quietly.
Where it breaks
A small sample of the problems we hear most often in mechanical, heating and ventilation. Not a complete list, and not all of them will be yours.
- 01
The service book erodes a few properties at a time
Nobody cancels a heating service contract. They just do not answer the year you call late, and by the time anyone notices the pattern the book is smaller than it was. The loss shows up as a slow number rather than an event, so it never gets escalated.
- 02
The gas safety record is a deadline you are running for someone else
A landlord has to have each appliance and flue checked every twelve months and the record given to the tenant within twenty-eight days. You hold the date, they carry the liability, and the two are connected by an engineer remembering to send a PDF.
- 03
The engineer's day is planned the night before
Jobs get allocated by whoever is nearest on a map in somebody's head, with parts availability, skill and the appointment window reconciled by phone. A no-access at ten in the morning breaks the rest of the day.
- 04
Second visits are the margin going out of the door
The part was not on the van, so the job takes two visits instead of one. The second visit is unpaid, unplanned and it displaced something chargeable. Nobody counts the rate at which it happens, so nobody stocks against it.
- 05
F-Gas checks run on a rule nobody has in front of them
Leak check frequency depends on the CO2 equivalent charge of each system, and it changes again if automatic leak detection is fitted. That is a per-unit calculation sitting in a spreadsheet, and the intervals it produces are a compliance obligation for your client and a booked visit for you.
- 06
The quote for the boiler you condemned goes out on Friday
An engineer standing in a plant room looking at a dead appliance is the best sales position the business will get that week. The replacement quote gets written days later against a photograph, by which point the customer has phoned two other firms.
What we'd build
A small sample of the kind of thing we build. What we'd actually scope depends on which of the problems above is costing you most.
The service book books itself
Every appliance in every property carries its own interval, counted from the date it was last attended rather than a contract anniversary, with the visit raised and the customer contacted ahead of it. Anything that has slipped past its date is a list you can work rather than a gap you find later.
A book that renews on its own, and slippage that arrives as a list to work rather than a gap found later.
Certificates issued from the visit, and the clock watched
What the engineer records becomes the gas safety record without a second pass in the office, sent to the landlord and the tenant, with the twenty-eight day window tracked until it has actually landed rather than assumed.
Gas safety records with the tenant inside twenty-eight days, evidenced rather than assumed.
The day rebuilt when it breaks
Allocation that accounts for skill, parts on the van, the appointment window and where the engineer already is, and reworks the rest of the day when a no-access or an emergency arrives instead of leaving it to a phone call.
More jobs completed per engineer per day, and a no-access that no longer costs the afternoon.
Quotes written while you are still standing there
A condemned appliance or a recommended replacement dictated on site becomes a priced quote issued the same day, against your own rates, and chased on a schedule if it is not accepted.
Replacement quotes out the same day, and fewer of them lost to the two firms they rang next.
Leak check intervals calculated per system
Charge, refrigerant type and detection status held per unit, the resulting check frequency worked out rather than remembered, and the next check raised as a job before the client has to ask for it.
F-Gas intervals worked out rather than remembered, and the visits they create booked as jobs.
Job costing that includes the second visit
Labour, parts and return trips attributed to the job as they happen, so first-time fix rate and the contracts that lose money are visible while you can still reprice them.
First-time fix rate visible, and the contracts that lose money repriced.
Recognise any of these?
Thirty minutes with a founder. Walk us through the problems your team lives with and we'll talk about whether any of it has to stay that way.