You know the old adage, “If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it”
Well, that age-old saying applies more now than ever before in the HVAC business. Especially when it comes to…
Technician PM Audits.
I was recently having a conversation with the owner of a very successful Service Contracting company. During our talk, he reminded me of the downright disastrous chain of events that often occurs when Technician PM Audits are neglected.
We’ve all been there… As peak season comes on and weather events increase, a cascading array of issues pull your Supervisor away from performing Audits.
Technicians (who are already spread way too thin) start to cut some corners on PMs just to meet their daily commitments. It’s not intentional, it’s survival.
At the times we need them most, there is often too little manpower to deliver audits. And in the end, preventable failures happen way too often.
Customers suffer.
Your contract GP suffers.
And your team bears the burden.
I’m not blaming techs here (blame the skilled labor shortage for that). But when customer satisfaction falls and unplanned truck rolls increase, contract margins shrink like a raisin in the sun.
Speaking to dozens of Service Operations leaders across the country, similar stories and experiences are invariably shared. Everyone knows PM Audits are essential but so many operations are handcuffed by staff shortages and increasing demand placed on teams by weather events. There’s just never enough time in the day for Supervisors to complete their operational duties AND audits.
Once again, the ugly beast known as the Skilled Labor Shortage rears its head and bites us where the sun don’t shine... A feeling many of us are all too familiar with at this point.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Here’s a ray of light for you:
The nClarity Platform can help.
In the future, nClarity Virtual Services will allow Tech PM audits to be performed efficiently with a streamlined and automated workflow.
nClarity’s Virtual Services give you the ability, nay, superpower, to automate the audit process. By pulling the actual machine state just before and just after the PM, your supervisor gets an accurate picture of the real, measurable, impact of the service. All without EVER having to go on-site.
Crazy, right?
And this isn’t just theoretical, hypothetical nonsense. We have conducted over 150,000 pre/post PM audits with our earlier stage platform, the iManifold™, and have deep knowledge of technician PM auditing.
Virtual Service Spotlight With David Vogel, nClarity Field Engineer
PM Audits can be done remotely in minutes within the nClarity Dashboard by using the data fed from the Pulse unit hooked up to the RTU.
Check out his 3-minute video walkthrough below:
David Vogel nClarity Dashboard Walkthrough
We’re now using that DNA to build a Virtual Audit Program with nClarity Pulse. It will eliminate the friction that has undermined PM audits by streamlining and automating the Audit workflow.
This is real.
This is coming.
And it will be a game changer.
Here’s a Sample Audit Report (Click To View PDF)
In the future, the nClarity System will automatically generate these reports using data fed from the nClarity Pulse pre and post PM, and will flag reports for review based on metrics that do not meet standards.
We envision a world of fully automated Technician PM Audits. A world where Supervisors ONLY have to spend time on audits that fail quality standards. Dedicating all their time and attention to the services that need it, and none to services that don’t.
Supervisors will be able to pull cold, hard data on a technician's PMs for any given period of time. By focusing on the good and the not-so-good, Supervisors can rapidly up-skill the junior techs. A junior tech with coaching on their PM performance can reach the next level of technicianship 3x faster than those who don’t.
That is the kind of optimization that ACTUALLY moves the needle when it comes to GP and efficient expansion of labor capacity.
The benefits of a Virtual Audit Program extend beyond your own workforce to subcontractors too.
Many of our clients use subcontractors to expand their service footprint, but worry about putting their hard earned reputation in the hands of subs.
Using the Virtual Audit, you can now establish and track contractual PM standards via a Service Level Agreement (SLA). By automatically tracking each site’s actual pre/post PM performance, nClarity’s Virtual Services makes it easy to hold subcontractors accountable, and protect your reputation.
Using nClarity’s Virtual Services to bring your company’s audit process into the 21st century is just one of many examples of how we can help you prepare and prosper in the HVAC world of tomorrow.
As costs continue to rise and the competition gets stiffer year over year, these kinds of sweeping optimizations will no longer be optional, they will be essential.
Those who prepare now will fly high in the challenging market of the future, while those who don’t will inevitably struggle to stay afloat.
Interested in learning more about what how nClarity can help your business? Fill out the form below and one of our product experts will reach out to you.