Reclaim Revenue: Fix Up Your Member Follow Up in ServiceTitan!
Follow Up? More like “fall off the face of the Earth.”
Your Follow Up tab in ServiceTitan shouldn’t be a point of no return. Not to be cliche, but when Jim Rohn (American entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker) said “the fortune is in the follow up,” he may not have known what ServiceTitan was, but his words ring true for those of us in the home services industry.
Step One: Use It (Follow Ups) or Lose It (Customers)
The number one problem PCG’s team of expert consultants sees when it comes to the Follow Up tab is that companies just aren’t using it. The team believes this is due to a lack of awareness of the features available in the tab.
Your first step in remedying this issue should be to designate who’s in charge of follow ups. You might say, “But Powerhouse, all of my CSRs are supposed to be working on follow ups!” If it’s everyone’s job, it’s nobody’s job. Designate a point person for the sake of accountability. If your follow up list gets too long, while those tasks may not physically be gone, chances are, that customer is.
If you’ve been neglecting your Follow Up for far too long, and the clean-up seems overwhelming, let’s take a breath. Pause. Choose a cutoff point, maybe anything more than one year past due, and dismiss everything before that point. Let’s create a fresh start, and make a plan going forward to avoid getting into this situation again.
Set the Follow Up Flow
Now that you have your starting point, it’s time to get to work. We’ve all been there – your tech or CSR sells a membership to a seemingly enthusiastic customer. The first service is provided, some time passes, and it’s time for the next service.
Ring ring. Ring ring. Voicemail. More time passes. Ring ring. Ring ring. Voicemail. Maybe you send a text, asking the customer if they’d like to get some time on the calendar for the service they’ve paid (or are paying) for. More time passes. Sound familiar?
Short of showing up at their door unannounced, if a customer opts to ignore your attempts to schedule, you have to choose when to dismiss the recurring service event so your team can move on, and deferred revenue can be recognized in a timely fashion. Just be sure you have a plan in place that sets how and when you’ll reach out. By using the Follow Up tab as you make attempts to contact the customer, you can adjust the follow up date, so the service doesn’t show as past due. Then, when the time comes, dismiss! Don’t worry- you can always reinstate the visit later. For deferred revenue users, ensure revenue is recognized when dismissing – set it to “Always.”
💡 Pro Tip: We recommend three attempts before dismissal.
From the Follow Up > Recurring Service Events screen, you can book or dismiss an event, based on the circumstances.
💡 Pro Tip: If you want to prioritize different information than what’s defaulted, you can move/sort the columns – just click and drag!
Be sure to utilize screen filters within the Follow Up tab in ServiceTitan, too. You can focus on your service membership renewals during the shoulder season, ensuring your call center will be free for demand calls when the busy season arrives. Navigate to your Follow Up tab, select “Expiring Memberships,” and the list will default to any memberships expiring in the next two weeks. Other filter options include business unit, membership type, start and end dates, opportunity status, and membership tags.
If you reach the customer, convert or dismiss the opportunity, based on the outcome of your conversation. Or, if you get that pesky voicemail box, log a follow-up to create that audit trail of attempted contact with the customer. This also helps your teammates know someone already reached out, and the results of that attempt. (No one wants to call a customer, only to be told “I just talked to someone about this.” It can be embarrassing, and make it seem like your team is unorganized, breaking trust.)
You can use a Log Template to automatically fill in some notes, or type your own message as a follow-up. By checking “Copy to Customer Notes,” your note will also appear on the Customer page.
It’s also important to include fine print in your memberships to protect your company when services aren’t provided. ServiceTitan tracks your emails, texts, and calls to the customer, so you’ll have proof that you attempted to contact them.
💡 Pro tip: Have your company’s legal representation review any verbiage!
Explore Follow Up Functionality
If you store credit card information in ServiceTitan, one of the pieces we see contractors often miss is the Expiring Credit Card Follow Up. (Note: This is an account configuration. Talk to your CSM to enable the feature.)
Once this config is activated, the “Expiring Credit Cards” option will appear in your Follow Ups sub-items. You can utilize this section to identify any members whose credit card will be expiring within a set date range, causing a disruption in their membership payments. Your team can then contact these members for updated credit card information.
As an added bonus: you can utilize the Membership Renewal Protection for this follow up! Once enabled, this process is totally automatic. ServiceTitan is able to submit information to card brands in order to check for updates. If any changes, such as expiration dates, are detected, the banks send updated card information back to ServiceTitan, and the information is updated for you. (Note: This feature does not work with American Express.)
💡 It’s important to note, however, that the Membership Renewal Protection feature in ServiceTitan does have a monthly program cost, and a charge per card updated. PCG recommends consideration of Membership Renewal Protection if your company has over 1,000 active memberships.
Commercial Service Agreements Need Follow Up, Too
If you’re a commercial business utilizing Service Agreements, we haven’t forgotten about you! You should also be using the Follow Up tab to keep up on your agreements. The agreements tab under follow ups will show you a list of all of your created service agreements.
From there, you can filter your agreements multiple ways, view an agreement, or view a customer or location record. Any agreements that have issues with activation will show on the follow up screen, where you can view the alert and fix the errors preventing activation.
You can also follow up on service agreement visits. The tab will provide you with a list of upcoming visits that you can view and filter. The visit will be highlighted in red if the visit window has passed, letting you know the visit requires attention.
Understand Membership Statuses
Not all goodbyes are the same. Does your team know the difference between expired, canceled, suspended, and deleted memberships? Depending on the membership status, your desired follow up (or lack thereof) could be different.
Active: An active membership is exactly what it sounds like- a current agreement with a customer who is receiving membership benefits. The membership is visible, and the member can be billed accordingly. You want to follow up with these members as recurring services or expiration dates dictate.
Suspended: This member hasn’t completely left, but perhaps needed to put their membership on hold for one reason or another. Another reason for suspension would be that their payment failed. They are not being billed, or receiving benefits, but recurring services are still active. You may want to follow up on a less-regular basis, if the customer didn’t set a re-activation date at the time of suspension. An expiring credit card may not be as urgent to update, at least until the membership is reactivated, or canceled. However, if this was a failed payment, your team will want to follow up on a regular basis to collect any missed payments, as well as ensure no further service is performed before payment is updated. We recommend if the issue is not resolved within 90 days, to cancel the membership, and recognize any deferred revenue.
Expired: This membership had a set duration, and has now passed that date. The customer is no longer receiving membership benefits, and is not being billed. Recurring services are deactivated, as well. Hopefully, your team followed up prior to the expiration date to attempt to sell a new membership!
Canceled: Whether during a follow-up, or at any point during their membership, the customer indicated they did not wish to continue their membership benefits. The membership is then marked canceled. History is still visible in ServiceTitan, but the benefits are no longer active, and recurring services are deactivated. Note: Do you have a policy in place for cancelations?
Deleted: This membership is no longer active, and not visible in ServiceTitan. This may be used if a membership was created by mistake. Otherwise, we recommend canceling a membership.
Fix Up Your Follow Up
Don’t let follow ups, or any part of ServiceTitan overwhelm you. Powerhouse Consulting Group can get the daunting tasks under control, and empower your team to take the reins going forward. We are the elite technology consulting firm for the trades. More membership questions? As a ServiceTitan Titanium Partner and Nexstar Strategic Partner, our team of individually certified consultants is ready to help you master your software. Book a Discovery Call today to see how PCG can ensure you’re getting the most out of ServiceTitan.
