# How to Manage Repeat Service Calls?



## superroofer (Feb 13, 2011)

I'm trying to find a way to grade/compare my leak repair techinicians to each other, valuing things like profitablity, repeat service trips, and customer satisfaction. 

The challenge is that none of these are very tangible. 

Does anyone currently do this and have a good system for this? I would love your thougts.

thanks,
-Superroofer
The Commercial Roofing Contracor


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## Grumpy (Oct 29, 2008)

I think customer satisfaction and profit are very tangible and easy to grade. 

At the end of each service call, have your office send a satisfaction survey and run a P&L report on the job. I run P&L reports on nearly every job and send satisfaction surveys for most jobs too. 

Look at each invoice and compare to the time sheet and materials list. I assume you are charging T&M for service, the only way we can lose money is if the person compiling the invoice makes a mistake. 

Are repeat service trips a good thing or bad thing? If it's the same problem, it may be a bad thing. But it's also a good thing since it gives you a chance to propose a more involved repair the 2nd visit. More involved repairs should = more profit. It could be bad for customer satisfaction if you are selling caulk repairs and it doesn't work the first time so you caulk it again. It probably won't work the 2nd time either.


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## superroofer (Feb 13, 2011)

*Thanks for your thoughts*

Good thoughts. Thanks.

We do keep track of P&L on each job. We don't have a good way of aggregating them and tracking them by techinican. We can do it in a excel spreedsheet, but i was hoping there was a more efficient way. 

We also call every customer after every job. The problem with that is that it is rare for someone to actually voice a complaint, even if they have one. 

I mean Repeat trips as going back for the same roof leak twice - so a bad thing. We do our best to go there once and solve the issues. Even if we charge them for the second time, people don't like paying for the same leak twice. 

-Superroofer
Commercial Roofing Contractor


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## Grumpy (Oct 29, 2008)

Setup the technician as the sales rep in quickbooks? Or is there a seperate sales person for these jobs? But if you set them up in quickbooks as a sales rep, you could pretty easily generate monthly reports. 

I couldn't do the report but I know my book keeper could and would be happy to give you his number. His rates are pretty reasonable and he could do the report on his computer and send it to you and you could import it into your system as a memorized report.

I use CertainTeed roofer track record. It's nice because it's a 3rd party. We send the survey with invoice as standard operating procedure. Most people do fill it out and mail it back. It's a 3rd party which adds credibility to the customer I think, and best of all it's free for us to use as certified company. There are other similiar services as well, but may cost monthly fees. 


You're right people don't like paying for the same leak twice. I make it a point to explain to my customers that we don't guarantee repairs and make it a point to explain why. "Although we usually get it right the first time, diagnosing a repair is trial and error. We are often making educated guesses based on our experience, but there are so many variables out of our control." I might not always say it word for word, but there it is. 

What you could do for tracking purposes of service calls is ask the customer on the phone "is this for a new leak or a leak that we've serviced before?" If it's something you'e services before then just make a not to look up who serviced it and add it to their company file or a spreadsheet or something and after a quarter or two you can see who has the most return service calls.

I don't know how many service guys you have out there. For me it was pretty ez to know just by being around what's going on. Now that we've shrunk I pretty much know everythign that goes on, though I do intend to grow once more as my personal life allows again. Hopefully I have this problem again one day.


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