In the first part of this blog (“Can Your Employees Be Stealing Your Calls?”) that ran on Feb. 20, I gave you the dire scenario of your own employees siphoning off your calls for themselves.

Did I hit a nerve? I hope so!

It’s tough enough in this “somewhat better” business environment to get the phones ringing but only if you compare it to a couple of years ago when many phones went dead. Let’s agree that for most contractors, the phones are not ringing off the hook just yet, so every call is precious.

So, what else can you do about it?

Here are five more helpful suggestions:

1. Become an active sales coach by watching what the tech is producing with each opportunity. If you have scorecards, it’s easier to spot trends where techs are consistently bringing back minimal sales because they’re cutting special deals with the customers to come back during their off hours.

2. Watch the conversion ratio for your techs. This means measuring how many calls they run where they get nothing more than the minimum service fee.

3. Watch the conversion ratio for CSRs. How many calls come in that your CSRs turn into calls? How are they dispersing those calls? If you have more than one tech, you want to see if the potential big-ticket calls are magically going to one or two techs yet these calls don’t seem to materialize into sales made. That’s a red flag!

4. Have GPS tracking for trucks. Then be disciplined enough to be spot checking where your trucks are - when techs are supposed to be on duty and when the truck is supposed to be sitting at a tech’s home. You’d think they’d be smarter but they’re counting on your being too busy, too gutless or too lazy to check

5. Engage the power of the manuals that contain your policies and procedures. You must always be recruiting, hiring, orienting and training so there is always competition to own a place at your company. Techs can’t feel they’re indispensible and you can’t be held hostage when it comes to firing those who are serving their self-interests at your expense.

It’s hard when you’ve been burned to trust again. But, you must. Just commit to trusting and verifying.

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