6 Tips to Prepare Yourself For HVAC Slow Season

Are you an HVAC business owner wondering what service your HVAC company can sell during the slow season? Then this article is tailor-made for you. 

Usually, you will be a busy beaver during the summers and winters, when the heating and cooling demands peak. However, on the other way around, during spring and fall, the slow season will make you witness a low business rate. 

The slow season will become slower if you aren’t prepared for it. It doesn’t only affect the business owner but also takes a toll on the employees who depend on you. You don’t have to cut wages or even lay off your trusted employees. There is another way of handling this situation.

So what can be done? Well. You will find some interesting tips to help you prepare to thrive for HVAC Slow Season. Also, these tips can increase your sales during these times without costing your hand and leg.

What is an HVAC Slow Season?

The HVAC slow season is the time of the year when the HVAC contractors are the least busy. Summer and fall seasons are generally considered the slow seasons for the HVAC industry. This is because the heating and cooling requirements are thin, and thus, the demand is reduced. But the slow seasons can be turned into normal ones by adopting some strategies. Continue reading to learn about them.

Prepare Yourself For HVAC Slow Season With These 6 Exclusive Tips 

1. Reach out to customers

Here’s a quick, inexpensive way to get business during the down season – reaching out to your existing clients. This strategy is not only cheap but also consumes less time and energy.

To execute this, you or your office staff must collect the old customer’s details from your records. While digging into this info, you will surely come across clients who want to sign additional projects in the future. Or you might get a list of maintenance contracts where the HVAC system maintenance service date is nearing.

So instead of focusing on acquiring new clients or trying different things, why not just open your old customers’ files and treasure hunt the potential ones? So once you get the list ready, contact them and make them onboard your services.

If, in case, you don’t have any data about your clients as you are starting new or for some other reason, why not develop a system that does? 

2. Focus on preventative maintenance

Before jumping into the concept of preventative maintenance, answer this question as an HVAC business owner.

When do HVAC customers call you? Most HVAC customers only call when they encounter urgent problems that demand immediate fixes, isn’t it?

We can’t ignore the fact that customers seek help only during emergencies. However, it isn’t a good sign for small or medium-sized HVAC companies year-round, especially during the off-season. Because there must be a steady income throughout the year, otherwise, you will find it hard to pay your employees, or you must lay off people from jobs. 

It’s understandable. What else can you expect from a business owner during the dry season? 

Well, what if we tell you that you can handle this situation smoothly? Yes, this is where you can focus on preventative maintenance. 

You can upsell preventative maintenance during the spring and fall months and help the company survive the off-season. 

Marketing preventative maintenance services and pushing them can give you a few benefits. Let’s find out about them.

Build relationships with customers: Yes, you read it right. When you visit HVAC customers on-site in non-emergency situations, you gain their trust by providing more value. Also, you can take advantage of fall and spring and provide services to attend emergency service calls during peak season or book additional projects. 

Integrate connected field service: By 2025, it is estimated that IoT will power more than 80 billion devices. With this technology, you send HVAC performance information to an HVAC company. So you can monitor the HVAC units, learn when a machine is ready to break down, and bring this to customers’ notice.

Customers won’t always remember the maintenance due date and ping you only when the HVAC units stop working. You can learn the issue using connected field service and grab the opportunity for work.  

3. Market your business

During HVAC peak seasons, you will be busy as a bee handling multiple customers. You will get new customers and get leads through word-of-mouth. So your HVAC business doesn’t call for marketing during this time. 

On the other hand, think of the off-season; the situation turns upside down. So in the middle of the HVAC slow season, you can focus on HVAC marketing. 

Start it by following the below-given ideas:

• Promote your business via emails. Send both direct mailers and mass emails.
• Attend trade shows.
• Make your HVAC technicians perform preventative maintenance. 
• Offer a brochure or a one-page flyer about your HVAC services during these preventative service meetings.
• Check if new businesses are relocating to your business service area or opening new companies. If so, you can ping companies to ensure their buildings are heating and air-conditioned properly.

Level up your brand awareness via social media channels 

Bring brand awareness by working on your social media presence. Though it takes time, your marketing efforts will get an immense impact in the future. If the social media marketing is done right, you will reap benefits such as 

• Higher brand visibility
• Improved customer loyalty
• Gain more traffic to your website via social media
• Get a better understanding of your customer’s problems

So, during HVAC slow seasons, spend time curating social media strategies and planning to blog. 90% of customers use the internet to find local businesses. If your website ranks on the first page, you will get more visitors and more conversions. So publish more blogs and work on SEO.  

You can schedule blog posts for the future during the off-season and use a social media management program to schedule the social media posts for months. These things done can give a kickstart to your business when the season gets back to its peak.

4. Plan special deals

Who doesn’t love discounts? The best time to give discounts and dolucrative business is during off-seasons. Even if you have no idea how to offer special deals, just look into other local businesses in your area that are seasonal. Analyze what they do. You will definitely get an idea. 

Create special deals on system checkups, equipment upgrades or preventative maintenance, or other things that lure customers’ attention.

When you have a solid offer, start pinging businesses and customers and market your special offers. 

5. Offer system upgrades

As a business owner, you know that you make huge profits by installing new HVAC equipment in residential and commercial systems. Here is a pro tip to level-up your business during off-seasons. 

The HVAC equipment manufacturers slash down the equipment prices to clear their inventory for winter. But customers aren’t aware of these price cut-offs.

What you can do is ping new or existing customers. Inform them about the offers and encourage them to get their systems upgraded during the spring or fall season. So, it becomes a win-win for both. 

You will generate revenue and help your customers save money on equipment prices. Also, to juice up things, offer them a discount for your installation services and make it an irresistible offer. 

Additionally, you can also market them about preventative maintenance, and if it’s a yes from the client, your HVAC companies will generate income all year long.  

6. Form strategic partnerships

This is quite different from the tips mentioned above. Imagine this scenario where you can tie up with other businesses to serve others. Interesting? 

Well, it isn’t solely about offering your services but just partnering up with other businesses to help them out. If possible, you combine your service with other businesses and work together. Or, think outside the home services box during the off-season alone. 

Many evergreen businesses need new employees to meet their requirements. So, approach them and tie up and work for that business. Our only advice is that don’t be afraid to try something new other than the HVAC business. This way, you can beat up the off-season. 

Bonus tip:

7. Plan ahead in hiring seasonal help

Some slow times can be ideal for planning ahead for the peak seasons. While the HVAC companies face a slow time during spring and fall, you must shift your focus to what you must be fixed before things begin to pick up again. 

So during peak seasons, i.e., summer and winter, you might require extra employees to help you out. If you don’t plan these things, your HVAC company will be a mess at that time. So plan and schedule things and avoid your employees from being overworked. 

To figure out things, you can 

• Analyze and break down past seasonal data
• Check if you have the necessary tools to handle and monitor new crew members.
• Set goals for the peak season, derive the plan and explain them to the team. 

Conclusion

HVAC is a seasonal business, and the slow seasons will become hard for you to run your business if you don’t plan it well. Even the most successful HVAC contractors know they should maintain momentum going and profit year-round.

You don’t have to lay off employees, reduce their wages, or stay idle during slow times. Rather you can follow the above-given strategies and generate high income during the spring and fall seasons.

Also, it is the perfect time to revamp your business strategies and analyze what worked and didn’t last season. In addition, you can think about your business operation process, check inventory service contract terms, get things organized, and start your new season without any hassle. 

With so many things to plan and work out during slow seasons, you don’t have to worry about these seasonal ups and downs. Rather, level up your business with proper planning.