Last year's customers, this year's silence
You serviced four hundred boilers last year. This year, some of those customers will ring you. Some will forget until the boiler breaks down in November. Some will book with whoever advertises on the local Facebook group. The ones who ring tend to ring in the same few autumn weeks, when you're already busy with breakdowns.
The dates are all in your job software or a diary. Nobody has turned them into reminders.
Why reminders don't happen
Many heating firms run on a job system that could send reminders but was never set up to, or on a mix of paper and spreadsheets. The date of the last service is recorded, but not always the appliance, the customer's preferred contact method, or whether they've moved.
Reminders also tend to go out at the same time for everyone, which piles bookings into the busiest season.
| Service record | Common gap |
|---|---|
| Last service date | Recorded, not used |
| Appliance details | Make and model sometimes missing |
| Contact details | Out of date, landline only |
| Consent to remind | Never asked |
| Preferred months | Not recorded |
Seasonality makes the gap worse. Many customers only think about their boiler when the heating first comes on in autumn. If that is also when they get their first reminder, everyone books at once, your diary fills with services, and breakdown calls compete for the same slots.
The cost of forgotten services
Annual services are regular, plannable work. Losing them means losing income that should have been easy. Customers who miss services are more likely to have breakdowns in winter, which pile into your busiest weeks. Many manufacturers also tie warranty terms to annual servicing, so a customer who misses one may have a problem later that lands on you as a difficult conversation.
It also costs you information. A service is the visit where an engineer notices the ageing heat exchanger or the corroded flue terminal and can raise it with the customer. Without the service, the first you hear about it is a breakdown call, and often the customer's replacement boiler goes to whoever turns up first.
The service register we build
- Appliance register: each serviced appliance is recorded with address, make, model, last service date and customer, imported from your job software or records.
- Consent: customers are asked whether they want reminders and how. Only those who agree are reminded.
- Timed reminders: reminders go out ahead of the due date in your wording, by text or email, with a link to book.
- Booking link: the link offers real slots from your diary. You can offer quieter months first, so customers who don't mind can move their service out of autumn.
- Follow-up: customers who don't respond get a second reminder, then appear on a list for the office to ring if you want.
- Records: the service record is updated when the job is done, and the next due date is set.
If you use Commusoft or another job system with reminders built in, we check first whether setting that up properly is enough.
Reminder wording can differ for homeowners, landlords and plan members, so each group gets a message that makes sense to them.
Services booked before the rush
Service work arrives steadily instead of in an autumn spike. Customers book online at a time that suits them. The office stops working from a diary and a card index. And customers who stay on annual servicing are less likely to call you in a panic in December.
Landlords with several properties can receive one message covering all of them, and their tenants can be offered slots directly if the landlord agrees, so one reply can book a whole portfolio.
Is your servicing like this?
- Service reminders are sent late, or not at all.
- Customers book services when the boiler breaks down.
- Service bookings pile into the autumn.
- Your records of appliances and dates are incomplete.
- You lose repeat customers to other local engineers.