Co-author: Sumair Dutta
In our first article, we discussed tactics for getting technicians onboard with the idea of selling. While technician lead generation programs don’t involve a big investment in technology, they do require change management and training. Once technicians are ready to extend their role as trusted advisors into recommending and quoting new products and services, how do you ensure they do a great job and stick with it?
Follow these five tips to accelerate your technician lead generation program.
1. Don’t Make Your Technicians Chase Their Leads
As noted in the first article, the black hole of lead follow-up can be a major failure point in lead generation programs. If a technician submits a lead, they shouldn’t have to chase the responsible parties on follow-up status. This is particularly true if the lead is tied to an actual conversation with or recommendation made to the customer thereby implying that the technician’s reputation is at stake. Technicians don’t need to see every lead be successful, they just need to know that their effort is being followed up on and this can be done effectively via improved communication or opportunity tracking tools.
2. Push for Sales Accountability
The monetary value of a service lead might not compare with that of a regular sales opportunity. This might be enough to detract salespeople from following up on service-generated leads. Therefore, it’s essential that sales leadership is bought into driving accountability for a service lead program. An easy way to do this is to show the impact that top-performing regions or districts are having when it comes to top-line revenue. If sales isn’t motivated by that performance, business leadership will be.
3. Compensation – Make it Timely
Most organizations develop a financial reward system for field service technicians based on leads closed. Some offer incentives for the volume of leads generated. The issue is that most programs stop here. While the field technician cares about the amount of recognition received, they care more about getting recognized quickly and painlessly. They shouldn’t have to fight for the recognition or have to wait for it for a considerable amount of time. Therefore, it’s essential that the reward system developed, monetary or otherwise, is efficient enough to deliver the reward to the field technician in an expedited manner.
4. Keep an Eye on Activity-Based Metrics
Activity drives results and it is essential to track activity-based metrics as leading indicators of program success. These metrics could include participation rates, referrals per technician, and average cycle or follow-up time for leads. Organizations might also want to consider a technician confidence index or survey to measure the health of their lead program. Such a survey would measure how confident the technicians are in their ability to get paid on leads. The higher the confidence, the greater the activity.
5. Leverage Your Top Performers to Drive Increased Interest
Some organizations consider lead scoreboards to gamify lead generation. In most instances, top-performing technicians or branches are identified in terms of activity and business impact. The true impact of these scoreboards is uncertain as this is tied to your organization’s culture and the mindset of the technicians. That said, it is effective to have your top performers share their success stories and best practices with other technicians. Not only is the content useful and valuable for the other technicians but it also comes from a party that they trust.
Our Global Customer Transformation team is happy to learn more about your program and offer insight and knowledge on where it can be strengthened.
This article is published in ServiceMax Field Service Digital on June 10th, 2021