How to increase HVAC and plumbing supply sales with BI

For HVAC and plumbing companies, parts and supplies are as numerous as they are varied. Through the use of business intelligence software, people can quickly visualize their operations and make incremental changes to enhance their business. Managers can use this precious insight to develop strategies that will enhance business performance to drive revenue. In this blog, we’ll discuss a few ways data can help HVAC and plumbing suppliers increase sales.

Use your Business Intelligence software to improve your customer service.

Business intelligence will help your sales team better understand your customers by giving you real-time insight into customer buying patterns and spending habits; allowing you to be more aware of their preferences and needs.

By arranging your inventory and distribution processes around these needs, you can ensure you never have to worry about not having enough furnaces, air handlers, heating coils or condensers in stock. Utilizing business intelligence gives you visibility into your business and enables you to better serve customers. It not only enables you to identify sales trends, but also empowers you to be proactive and identify new sales opportunities such as seasonal buying trends on ductless systems, for example.

Guide your sales team to relevant information.

A sales manager’s job is to guide their team to success. Oftentimes, there is too much information for a team to digest. By directing your team to the relevant product, pricing, and customer intelligence data, your team will increase their productivity and enjoy a less stressful workload. You can begin by personalizing your dashboard to reveal your most important metrics. This will empower your team members to drill down to actionable insights. The clarity will guide your team on where to best focus their time and efforts. As an example, you may have a customer purchasing outside air dampers, but not air handlers. This provides an excellent sales opportunity. Ensure your reports are easy to access and share with each other. Once everyone is on the same page, team members can collaborate and offer constructive feedback.

Identify and remedy any gaps in knowledge of your team members.

Once you have shared the essential data with your employees, you will be able to identify gaps in their knowledge that may be preventing them from closing a sale. When you empower your team with data, you are enabling them to develop winning sales procedures and marketing strategies.

Business intelligence can reveal opportunities to improve the knowledge of your team. For example, one team member may be struggling to sell roof top units but all of his colleagues may have lifted their sales of these products. Perhaps the staff member who is challenged needs some training in relation to the benefits of the product?

Having data is one thing but using it is another. Once you’ve given your team access to data, encourage them to access it from their tablets or smartphones. This will empower your team members to make more strategic sales decisions while they're out of the office.

To encourage your team to embrace your data driven initiatives, encourage collaboration so team members can learn from each other, detect new opportunities and increase productivity. Having a well-informed and unified team is the surest way to increase HVAC and plumbing sales revenue.

Identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities.

Upselling and cross-selling techniques motivate your customers to increase the amount or value of what they purchase. To use the cross selling technique, determine which of your products complement each other. Next, identify your customer’s needs to pinpoint which products are uniquely valuable to them. For instance, you may have an HVAC contractor who makes a steady purchase of air conditioning systems, and would benefit from including air diffusers with their A/C package.

When using the upselling sales technique, offer upgrades and products that are of a higher value to the product the customer is already buying. For example, suggest upgrading a standard thermostat to the more sophisticated thermidistat.

Another way to increase revenue is to offer bulk discounts. For instance, you may have a customer who purchases 10 furnaces a week. To reduce your weekly shipping expense, you might offer a 5% bulk discount for a monthly purchase order of 40 units. HVAC and plumbing businesses are using Phocas to find insights like these to lift their sales.

Stock green products

Keeping green products in stock will ensure your company is ready to meet the new demand from customers who care about climate change. “Air conditioning accounts for nearly 50% of the energy use in the United States during peak summer months, and air conditioning is responsible for nearly 100 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year.” - Rocky Mountain Institute. As consumers grow more concerned about the environment, HVAC companies have plenty of options regarding green heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. In addition to protecting mother earth, some countries are offering financial incentives to consumers in the form of tax credits for updating or installing qualified HVAC products.

For instance, many consumers are upgrading traditional furnaces to heat pumps because they are considered one of the most environmentally friendly heating options. Because heat pumps transfer energy instead of generating it through electricity, they save more energy, and money, than a traditional furnace or A/C unit. During the cooler months, heat pumps collect heat from the outside and transfer it into a home. To cool a home in the Summer, the heat pumps move heat from inside the home to the outdoors.

Hybrid heating systems are another environmentally friendly option to cool and heat the home. Like the hybrid automobile, hybrid heating systems are able to shift between gas or electric energy sources based on the weather conditions outside the home. Programmable thermostats adjust the level of energy the home is consuming by arranging the HVAC unit's on and off cycles with a schedule, which allows for more control over the temperature within the home. HVAC ducts are made from recycled materials to create a healthier living environment, increase energy efficiency, and decrease installation time. Be an industry leader and educate your clients on how to be more green.

Use BI to optimize eCommerce for plumbing and HVAC

As consumers rely more on the convenience of eCommerce to make purchases, it is critical that businesses keep up with the ever-improving eCommerce technology. To increase both traffic and sales through eCommerce sites, many businesses are turning to BI solutions to gather intelligence, optimize the online shopping experience and direct buyers to the right products based on previous online behavior.

Another important function of BI is the ability to track e-commerce performance and analyze e-commerce sales. BI can reveal who is buying which products? What patterns can be identified to help you better understand your customers and their online behavior? How fast are goods being shipped? How is inventory holding up? Understanding and tracking the e-commerce component of your business is key to its ongoing success. Industry specific BI like Phocas is one of the best ways to make sure your e-commerce business continues to grow. Phocas has worked with HVAC and plumbing supply companies for more than 15-years and is easily accessible to all members of your team.

Phocas works with HVAC and plumbing supply companies consistently such as Eastern Industrial and Gustave A. Larson Co. Phocas is easily accessible to all members of your team. Customer intelligence is available almost instantly so you and your team can identify buying habits, promotional opportunities, and resolve challenges.