HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed

EP: 219 Michael Israel w/ Zuper - Innovative Customer Service Strategies

• Evan Hoffman

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Check out our latest episode of HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed with Michael Israel from Zuper! We discuss how to improve customer service, get your team on board with new tech, and ensure good communication. It's full of great tips that you shouldn't miss.


Here’s What You’ll Learn:


  • Boosting Your Team: Michael explains why getting key team members to try out new stuff is crucial. He suggests giving them solid training and making sure they're actually into these changes before everyone else jumps in.
  • Being Kind Counts: It's important to understand that no one calls into a home service company excited about getting your service. Developing empathy and having the right people in those calls is what can make the difference between a booked call and a hang up.
  • Tech Tools to the Rescue: Cool tech like AI and automation tools can totally change how you handle field service. But remember, keeping your customers happy should always be your top priority.


Tune in to get some great nuggets on taking your team management and customer service to the next level. Listen to the whole episode for actionable tips that you can start using right away to improve your customer interactions.


Find Michael:

E-Mail: michael@zuper.co
Website: www.Zuper.co
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/michaelisrael1/



Join Our Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed
Presented By On Purpose Media: https://www.onpurposemedia.ca/
For HVAC Internet Marketing reach out to us at info@onpurposemedia.ca or 888-428-0662


Sponsored By:

Chirp: https://chiirp.com/hssr
Elite Call: elitecall.net
On Purpose Media:  https://www.onpurposemedia.ca/

Michael Israel:

But the bottom line is not whether or not the software helps you or not. It's what kind of experience do you provide the customer when you deliver service to them?

Evan Hoffman:

Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan where we have good conversations with good people and any good conversation worth having is worth having drunk except at 10 30 in the morning where we tend to keep it a little bit more tame. We got coffee, we got water, and we're still going to have a great conversation. Today, we've got a great episode lined up for you guys. Michael Israel is our guest. He is with Zuper and they are a field service management software. We're going to be diving into all things customer service today most people talk about offering a great customer experience, but what does that actually look like? What does it look like in the field? What does it look like to manage it? Owning that customer journey is incredibly important and something that you've reiterated numerous times is that it's the new battleground when it comes to over delivering on customer service and the customer experience, but it's truly what separates the good companies from great companies. Being able to over deliver on what that customer journey looks like and making sure that you're owning it every step of the way, all the way through the funnel. So I'm excited for the conversation today because at the end of the day, we are in a service business, both us as a marketing company, but also every company that we serve within the home service space, making sure that we focus on the service first and the customer first.

Thaddeus Tondu:

And the big thing too, about it is utilizing technology now, right? And Michael started with IBM when he was 19 years old and to be able to see changes over the last 40 years of technology, sorry for dating you, Michael but that's real 40 years of technological innovations and be able to see the change, be able to leverage that, to be able to enhance the customer experience, fascinating stuff. So today's show would not be possible though, without our sponsors. We have in no particular order, Chiirp, Elite Call and On Purpose Media. And have you ever thought about outbounding your databases to fill your dispatch boards with lucrative service and sales appointments? Boosting memberships too? Yeah, well enter an Elite Call, a US based call center does just that. For over 20 years, their dedicated teams don't just make calls, they directly integrate into your CRM and fill your dispatch boards. Don't let your competition get ahead, let Elite Call connect with your customers first. Visit elitecall.net to learn more.

Evan Hoffman:

Perfect. And we have Chiirp. Transform your home service business with Chiirp, the ultimate automation toolbox capture more leads, connect instantly and skyrocket your sales. Chiirp integrates seamlessly with platforms like ServiceTitan and Housecall Pro, offering automated text emails, and even ringless voicemails. Boost your Google reviews and customer loyalty with proven rehash programs and schedule your demo today and get an exclusive 25 percent off your first three months, go to chiirp.com/hssr

Thaddeus Tondu:

And of course, if you don't have enough at Batts you probably should call On Purpose Media to enhance your online presence, to get you more of those calls coming in via a great websites let's turn your online presence into a lead generating powerhouse visit onpurposemedia.ca to start your digital transformation today. Welcome Michael to the show.

Michael Israel:

Thank you. It's it's my honor, my pleasure to be here. Thank you very much.

Thaddeus Tondu:

Cool. Looking forward to dive in. Let's start with the journey and leading into it a little bit, 40 years of technological innovations and adaptations that you've seen you've been through quite a bit in terms of the technological side of things. So give us brief, one to three minute history on Michael.

Michael Israel:

Sure. As you mentioned earlier on in the introduction, I started working for IBM, what was then called the field engineering division when I was 19 years old, which was quite a long time ago and back then there was no technology to manage field service operations. I started out as a night dispatcher and a parts room clerk. I was going to school at the University of Colorado and in the parts room, just to give an example of the kind of technology we had in the parts room where I worked when I first started out, we had a tub file and in the tub file was a card, an old data processing card stood on end for every part number that was stored in the parts room and on that card was the part number, the location in the parts room, the, the row, the bin number, the shelf number, the bin number, et cetera, et cetera, and the quantity of parts that were supposed to be in that particular slot and when an engineer came to the window and needed a part, so we'd go to the tub file, pull the card out of the tub file, look at where the part was stored, go get it and if we took one out or two out, then we had to update the card that says, okay there were 10 here, but I took two out, so now there's eight that was a totally manual process, obviously. Believe me, things have come a long way and just to give you a further example, to dispatch a technician the dispatch center was a round table with a round turntable in the middle that had slots in it, and when a service call request would come in from a customer, the dispatch would write out a card with the details, the customer name, the problem with the equipment, et cetera, stick it in a slot, and then the next time a field engineer called in to say I'm finished with my job. The dispatchers would spin the turntable and pull out cards and look at them and say can you take this call? Can you take this call? And then they'd update the card with, assigned to Sam technician, for example, but again, no technology at the time and things have changed dramatically.

Thaddeus Tondu:

Shit and now you look at, there's AI that optimizes availability based off of where the call is going to be in a rough estimate of how long it's going to take and moving things around on a board all automagically. It's just.

Michael Israel:

Yeah, it's amazing. Even in my company, it does that with, we have the ability to automatically assign technicians to jobs and it's powered by AI as well. Just exactly as you said.

Evan Hoffman:

Absolutely and at the end of the day, it's about streamlining the office, which I know as software comes in, new innovations come in, it's easy to get complacent because now we don't have to put in as much effort because software is taking care of it but what it frees up is it allows for more innovation on the people experience and so that's the conversation that I'm really excited to have today.

Michael Israel:

Yeah. Software is definitely a valuable tool and it certainly has made things a lot easier in many instances and in many instances much more efficient and much more productive but the bottom line is not whether or not the software helps you or not it's what kind of experience do you provide the customer when you deliver service to them, whether or not that service is over the phone or if it's in person via field visit or a combination of both is in the end, it's the customer experience, how the customer feels. That's the most important doesn't matter what the software does if the customer is pissed. So that's what we have to focus on, I think.

Thaddeus Tondu:

So in this, I think opens up a good line of commerce of communication is that sometimes software can make people mad can make people angry because well, like really, like you can make the in all ways, right? It could be on the office side of things, making the team angry and if they get a customer coming in and they're angry now it's going to translate to the customer. But if the customer is having a bad experience with the technology, now that they're in the company and looking at, those two different channels and let's go with internal first, right? And in terms of the frustrations and the anger that could happen internally if your software isn't running right, or there's an issue that happens in that day, it could be running amazingly and then all of a sudden it just doesn't turn on or it doesn't work or nothing. I'm like, it's like, and then you call it, he's have you restarted your computer? Yes, seven times but looking at that frustration, how can one adapt how they interact with customers? When their software isn't functioning at the right time on a call with a customer.

Michael Israel:

I think that's a very interesting question. I'm not sure I have a pat answer for.

Thaddeus Tondu:

I stumped you right off the beginning. Goal accomplished first time that's ever happened.

Michael Israel:

Absolutely. I think it's a, it boils down to a mental attitude, right? If you're a dispatcher or a call center agent internally, and you're having a problem with the software, maybe the software doesn't bring up the customer record fast enough when the customer calls, or you look at the customer record and it's incomplete. You don't have complete service history, or you don't have a record in the software of what the customer's equipment is or whatever the issue is as a call center agent. I'm hoping to see something, but it's not there. So I'm frustrated or all of a sudden my internet goes down and I don't know, I can't see anything all of those certainly affect the attitude of the person taking the call from the customer and engaging with the customer. The key is you can't let that attitude be reflected back to the customer. So I think one of the things that I try to do and we try to do is always elevate the perception and the importance of the people that actually deliver service to the customer and that includes both of the call center agents as well as the field service people. So I think it's, it comes down to hiring and training and making sure you have people in place that have the ability to overlook, so to speak, any problems they may be experiencing internally so that they're reflecting their, they're behaving for the customer in a very professional way and a way that has empathy even for the customer. The customer is the person having the problem with your equipment. So the last thing you want to do the customer is probably already a little bit upset, maybe angry about the problem they're having with your equipment, the last thing you want to do is make them angrier by reflecting your anger back at them or your frustration back at them. That doesn't do anybody any good. there are absolutely no winners in that scenario.

Evan Hoffman:

Correct do you ever get a call in a home service business where someone's excited to talk to you.

Thaddeus Tondu:

Oh yeah. Unless they don't have air conditioning and they're getting air conditioning for the very first time, maybe they might be excited because I know I was pretty fucking excited when we got air conditioning in our house for the first time.

Evan Hoffman:

But outside of that when it's a repair, a demand call, no one's excited about it. No one's happy about it. When your furnace is out, when your AC is out, your toilet's overflowing, the power's out, fuses are blowing, popping all the time. You can't control that. You're frustrated. You're irritated. To then get matched with frustration on the other side of it because of something not working. Doesn't matter what that is. It could have been a conversation that the CSR had right before that. It might not even be the software, but you can't convey that frustration back to the customer. You talked about hiring and training. I'm curious, what are some best practices that you've seen with some of the clients and customers that you've worked with when it comes to hiring specifically, trying to find the right people who are just, are going to be able to convey that empathy and have that skill already.

Michael Israel:

Yeah, I think that's a good question and in field service in general, and I imagine this is true in the HVAC industry as well, companies are struggling to find talent there's a very significant talent shortage and there's also this continuing what they call the Silver tsunami, where people of my age with silver hair are exiting, they're retiring, right? And with that retirement, they're taking up an enormous amount of tribal knowledge with them that they've gained over the years. So hiring today and finding skilled people is very difficult. I think across most industries and very important the best advice I've ever heard from a hiring manager, and this is one of the fellows that actually works in one of the large national HVAC chains, and I can't remember his exact words, but there are words to the effect that he will hire based on attitude more importantly than based on skills. He says, I can teach skills. I cannot teach attitude or philosophy or culture maybe he can teach culture, but he can't teach attitude I think the most important thing in hiring to make sure you get the right people with the right attitude and the right approach to customers is to be sure that is high on your priority list, right? You don't want to necessarily look at people and say they've got five years of experience in the HVAC industry but what if they're just their personality is just blah and there's they come across as unfriendly and they don't seem to be, you even want somebody that maybe is a little bit gregarious, right? If possible, that can be, that can banter back and forth with the customer in a very positive way. that can exhibit empathy for the customer. That's the other thing I've heard over and over again from many hiring managers. I want people that have empathy with the customer that can put themselves in the customer's place and understand why the customer is frustrated, right? And bend over backwards not to make them more frustrated.

Thaddeus Tondu:

And that's emotional intelligence, right? EQ like Travis Bradberry has the book Emotional Intelligence 2. 0. Phenomenal book, and I highly encourage everybody to work through that with your frontline staff because anybody actually really in the business, not just frontline staff because it's going to be able to allow, for that empathy side of things. Now here's the other good part too and it was in when you have these great people and you find those right individuals, and let's just go back to the example that we talked about a little bit earlier with the technology not working. How often do you role play that? That's the other part that I think is missed and say, have you ever had a situation where you were and this is just a general, not a question for you. The, like in asking yourself as a business and have you ever had this situation happen? Okay. It probably doesn't happen very often, but you should probably have some preparation for it in role playing these one offs every now and again. It's like the fire department I was driving the other day and the fire department was doing exercises in the river of water rescues and the river's high right now because everything's melting. How often do they have to do one? Not very, but they're going to perform it and they're going to do it. So that way, when they do, when it does happen, now they're going to be there. In terms of bringing this empathy out and role playing in working on this customer experience on the front end I think that's smart. Now let's look at the other side of the thing that I asked in the beginning was, okay, the customer side of things, right? Now we're going to put ourselves in, okay, the technology is not working for the customer, right? And not on our end, but the customer, and this could be a book online thing, right? It's frustrated. It's not working. It's not there. How can a company help that specific customer out when the technology isn't working?

Michael Israel:

I think you have to provide alternatives. So I'm going to give you my favorite example of something that absolutely does not work well and that is IVR all the questions that when you call somebody and you want to get a hold of support, or even you want to get a hold of sales, and you have to go through 25 or 30 or 35 questions before you can actually talk to a human being. I think that's a huge mistake. I have a very recent example, a personal example I recently changed internet service providers and come to find out after I changed the internet service provider that it was, is, not was, is literally impossible to get a hold of a human being they run you through so many questions, it is almost as if they've designed these questions to make sure that you never, ever talk to a human being would encourage to avoid that at all costs you can put in a couple of questions, but always allow your customers the option to connect to a customer service agent or an operator quickly and easily I even went to the store that the retail outlet of this internet service provider store and I told the guy there, the trouble I was going through, he got on the phone, went through the same thing as I did. Wasn't able to get ahold of him. Wasn't able to get ahold of an agent in his own company. So you want to avoid that and provide an alternative, right? So if there's, if there is a problems with the phone, provide an alternative for a website or text or some alternatives so that the customer doesn't have to continue to be frustrated with the one and only available way to get ahold of someone.

Thaddeus Tondu:

Oh, I like that and it's meeting the customer where they're at. When you look at the website of having a book online, having a chat widget, having a phone number, having a form fill, having all these options that are available and so for those that are wanting an IVR, it's a phone tree, right? That's an, and to break it down to layman's terms, when you call us, they press one for this department, press two for this department, press three for this department, right? And so it's the phone train, like we just put one in for our business because it's easy to route, but it's as simple as you call and you press one for this person, two for this person, three for this person. There's no additional things that are on there and reducing that friction on it.

Evan Hoffman:

And also for home service companies, like big fan of them to reduce the spam calls and even something as simple, we've talked about this on the show I think it was last year. So it's been a minute since we referenced it. But having something as simple as, Hey, we hate spam calls and we want to make sure that we're answering your calls. So if you want to talk to a human press one, now it's quick. It's the point it's humorous and it's it creates a bit of a connection with that consumer, that customer, because they hate spam calls too.

Michael Israel:

Boy, do I, that reminds me. I better turn my phone off in case one of those comes through, right?

Thaddeus Tondu:

The caution though on those, by the way, is that it does count as an answered call, even though the phone tree picks up. So it doesn't actually show missed calls that are in there and so it's a double edged sword on that you reduce spam, but then also it doesn't allow you to see your call answer rate effectively because it counts as an answer call when they, when it picks up, cause it's already connected, it doesn't ring and ring. In looking at now I forget where I was going to go with the question about friction. Thanks Evan.

Michael Israel:

While you're thinking about that, let me go down a tangential path in a way. Service, whether it's on the phone or whether it's in person or whatever, costs companies business. They lose revenue as a result of poor service and I'm going to give you one another real life example and this is about a year and a half old. We had just moved into a new house we moved from Colorado down to New Mexico where we're in Albuquerque and we had just moved into our house here and it wasn't a brand new house it had a previous owner and I think we'd been in here with maybe two days and all of a sudden the alarm started going off there's a security system and the previous owners had not left us with a the alarm code. We didn't know anything. But it's a major national chain everyone would recognize it. I picked up the phone and called him and the voice response, first voice response was, if your alarm is going off, press one. Great. That's what I need to know my alarm is going off. Let me get to somebody right away cause I don't know how to turn it off. So I press one and a voice message comes on and says, the wait time is between 50 and 105 minutes. I'm sitting here in my house with the alarm blaring and I have a voicemail that says or a message that says I have to wait for maybe an hour, over an hour and a half for somebody to talk to me. So that's just crazy. Interestingly enough, A salesman came to the door at the same time the alarm was going off, wanting me to sign up to continue that service and we told him the alarm was going off, we can't get a hold of anybody to help us turn the alarm off. So he came in and literally ripped it off the wall. He took it off the wall that's the only thing he knew how to do, too. Just disconnect it? And then, about four or five hours later, I got a call from management, somebody in customer service management at this company, wanting to know if my alarm was still going truly it's just, it was unbelievable. So needless to say, I did not sign up for service with this company.

Evan Hoffman:

Why

Michael Israel:

wouldn't the

Evan Hoffman:

cops come? Why wouldn't You know what I mean? If your alarm's going off,

Michael Israel:

I don't think the cops come through an alarm very often, frankly.

Thaddeus Tondu:

I think there's a, there's some checks like it calls and then if it doesn't call and they don't get the answer, then it goes and yada, yada, yada,

Michael Israel:

and calling the previous owners because they didn't have a record of us as being the owners. The irritant, the most irritating part of that was of course, I'm going to wait between 50 and 105 minutes while my alarm is blurring naturally just because of all that fiasco and the fact that their service management didn't know that my alarm had, literally called me five or six hours later, wanting to know if my alarm was still going off, are you kidding me?

Evan Hoffman:

You can't even manage whether it's been disconnected or not.

Michael Israel:

So naturally I didn't sign up for this company. So my point, and that's probably, pardon me? I wouldn't have either. Yeah so I, my point is, and that's an extreme example perhaps, but my point is that poor service cost you revenue you lose customers. You don't gain customers providing poor service is just dumb.

Thaddeus Tondu:

It's random fact in these, anybody buys a house that has a and then we'll get into the random question generator and I remember my question as well, but so we had the we have an alarm in our house and when we bought it, same thing. I set it off, but luckily I was able to turn it off cause I set it off myself but then I called the company and they're like, Oh yeah just unplug the power and he's it's good you're like, you've turned off. I was able to get through quickly, but they just said, yeah, unplug it. So go go find where the master plugin is unplugging from the wall and in 24 to 36 hours, the batteries will die. Your alarm will no longer be valid and working, and then you can take it off the wall. So I'm like, okay, good to know so I just got to go in and unplug it and now, it still lives on the wall because we had our house painted. I didn't feel like patching and repainting that area but so the random question generator so the random question generator, this is one of our favorite parts of the show, Michael. It has nothing to do with what we're talking about. It is literally just a random question. I'm going to list off I'm not even going to list off the questions you're going to choose if you want question one, two, or three I'm going to read the question, but the random questions right here, before I get to that, is brought to you by On Purpose Media, where our marketing strategies are so targeted. Cupid's taking notes. There you go. Cause he likes to shoot his arrows. All right. Do you want question one, two, or three?

Michael Israel:

So it's what's behind the door? What's behind the curtain? Okay. I'm going to take two.

Thaddeus Tondu:

Take two. All right. What is your all time favorite movie and why?

Michael Israel:

That's an easy answer Out of Africa, which is from I thought it was a great, wonderful story. I love name is escaping me. Very famous actress, right? And her name's right on the tip of my tongue till I was ready to say it. I just thought it was a really good story and I it's a true story about a woman named Isaac Dennison who went to Africa and spent years and years in Africa, I think grew coffee. Just a really wonderful story and It's driving me crazy that I can't think of the actress's name.

Thaddeus Tondu:

Meryl Streep.

Michael Israel:

Thank you, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. I thought it was beautiful scenery. The music is phenomenal. It's John Williams music. It was a, it was just a really cool love story and story about her and the things that she did.

Thaddeus Tondu:

How, when's the last time you watched it?

Michael Israel:

Probably about three or four years ago, I think. I listen to the music often. I have the music on my iPad. It's just really soothing, soft music and the scenery in the movie is amazing with Robert Redford flying his plane and this old antique plane, because it takes place back in the early, I think 1920s, maybe the teens, but yeah, that's my favorite movie. Yeah. That's great. You would. Everybody would and thank you for reminding me who Meryl Streep is. I feel really stupid.

Thaddeus Tondu:

There

Michael Israel:

you

Thaddeus Tondu:

go. We can thank Stacey for that. She's the one who probably googled Out of Africa and found the actress and actor's names on there. Thank you Stacey for that. In terms of we've talked a little bit about friction and identifying friction points and friction pain points with inside of a business, I think is from the consumer's point of view, I think is an important thing and I think somebody can do that via secret shopping. So in terms of secret shopping your own business in looking at to say, okay where can I identify friction points? How would you go about Telling somebody to secret shop in their own business.

Michael Israel:

Well, That's a good question. I've never been asked that question before. So I don't, I'm not sure that I'm going to have a really strong answer for you because I don't have a lot of experience in it, but I would just twist it a little bit. Okay and I would say rather than hiring a secret shopper to shop your own business, do it yourself. If now for some companies that are very small, that's not a, not possible'cause certainly if you're trying to call the call center to just get a sense of how the call center acts and you're the CEO or you're the ma call center manager where they're gonna recognize your voice. So that's not gonna work but if you have a larger operation where you can have somebody in the company whose voice might not be recognized, do that call on your behalf. I think you'll get more valuable information and the people in if people inside the company are doing that secret shopping, or trying to get that secret shopping experience, they'll have, I think, more of a sense of what's important to the company than maybe an outside person would. So if I work for a company and I'm going to check on the, how well the call center handles incoming requests for service from customers and I listened to it. I'm going to have the perspective that I work for this company. Is this what I want is this how I want to hear my company represented? And that could be positive or negative versus an outside person doesn't have that connection, that sense of connection. So if you can use people inside the company to do that kind of sort of secret shopping. I think that would be more effective. If you can't use them because it's just too small, people will be recognized. Then by all means, use an outside source or blending the two, right? Have a, so find a friend and go over to their house and put it on speakerphone and have them call and now you can actually listen to them, right?

Evan Hoffman:

You can do the whole customer journey. You don't just do the. Just the call, right? Book the call. What does that look like? Are you getting the text messages when the technician's coming out? Great, the technician comes out. Did they put down a mat when they showed up? Did they put booties on when they came in the door? All your checklist items to make sure that the customer feels comfortable. Welcome and all of that and if you really wanted to go all out, set up secret cameras to watch them while they're doing their work, but really it's just what, how does the customer feel and then interviewing them afterwards and say when this happened, how did you feel when this happened? How did you feel? And understanding what it was that was going through their mind and I think the more disconnected they are from the company, the better and even from the trades, because now you're going to get that real experience and real feedback back from them, which then creates training opportunities within the company.

Michael Israel:

Yeah are you talking about follow up phone calls after a service event, for example?

Evan Hoffman:

Everything, right? And this is if you have someone in your circle, a family member, a friend that can secret shop your business and you can give them a refund on the side if you really wanted to or have them pay with your own money from the company. So they can get a service call done for free essentially on their equipment. But now you're getting that feedback back for your company. I think it's essential to run through that with your team And be able to evaluate what kind of experience it is that you're providing.

Michael Israel:

Yeah, no, I agree. I also think it's, to come back to the point I was making, I think it's really important for people inside the company though, to have contact with the customers, and management should do that. I did a podcast with a fellow named Dennis Sedlowski. I can remember that, but I can't remember Meryl Streep and he used be, he used to be the CEO of a large Siemens Industrial Automation and his whole philosophy with his management team was get out there and spend time with the customer and he called it outside in management. So I think if anytime companies can make sure that their management staff especially is getting out and spending time with customers, I think that's really important.

Thaddeus Tondu:

I would also agree with that too and having that touch point keeping in line with the friction aspect of things and looking at, okay, technology and in field service management softwares. Where have you seen friction points inside of a business as relates to integrating or rolling out. Let's just play pretend. Let's just say somebody's on some other field service management software. We won't name names and they want to come over to to Zuper in terms of some friction points of navigating and switching softwares, right? Because we see this all the time with people. I'm going from house call pro to service time. I'm going further than Sera. I'm going from Sera to job. I'm going driver to Zuper, right? And they switch all the time. What are some of the friction points that you've seen businesses have in switching from one? A technological company to another, and how can they reduce those friction points?

Michael Israel:

I think one of the things that people are mindful of and need to be mindful of is what do you want to do with the data that you've accrued and gathered from the system that you are currently using and thinking of moving away from? So is that historical data all very important to you? And I imagine it is in most instances. How is the new system going to be able to migrate that data from your old system to the new system? So I think that's a key consideration and could cause friction if there is not a clear data migration path defined and understood and most importantly, tested, right? So I think that's one, one great friction point, but one potential friction point that people should be aware of so that they take the steps to avoid that and make sure they get the data that they need. I think another potential friction point is. It's always difficult for people to change you get used to doing things a certain way. You get used to using the software that you've had for two or three or five years and you're very comfortable with it and even though you may be going to a software that does the same kind of work, It's going to look different. It may look similar in some ways, but there are going to be different keystroke options. There's going to be the fields are going to be in different places on the screen. There's going to be different screen layouts. People are generally resistant to change. So that's a potential friction point as well. You may have a very valid reason for business reason for making a change, but make sure that the people understand that. That it is in fact a change and it's not going to be exactly the same as what you were using before. So you need to be aware of that and be able to make sure that people can adapt to that change and are willing to try to make the effort to adapt to that change.

Evan Hoffman:

And we've seen clients get talked out of changing a field management software from their team. Because they were too afraid of change.

Michael Israel:

That's a good point. I've seen that happen too. Yeah. It's a really good point because if you're going to make that switch from one software to another, or even if you don't have software and you just buy a new software, make sure that you involve the people that are going to be using the software in the evaluation and in the decision. You can't successfully demand from a management level that all of the people, all the people that actually do the work, you can't actually, you can't successfully demand that they change. They have to buy in. In order for them to buy in, you have to give them a chance to understand why. To understand what's being looked at, to understand how, what's being looked at works and how it will impact them in their day to day. Day-to-day jobs and if you don't get that buy-in from the people that work for you. Your transition will be an utter failure guaranteed. They'll use it maybe, but they'll use it reluctantly. They'll use it half heartedly. They'll use it incompletely and you won't get the benefits that you were hoping to get.

Evan Hoffman:

So here's a really interesting conversation because there's times as a leader where you need that collaboration and you want to come to a collective decision as to how can we move forward and you want input from others, and we're going to make a collaborative decision on this. There's other times where you may want input, but you're, you are the final decision and then there's other times where you need to make the decision yourself, and you're just going to communicate what that change is going to be. We had a conversation within our company around the three C's with this. What are the three C's again? Collaborate, communicate. Yeah, it's collaborate, consult and communicate. Consult. So how do you use that level of discernment as to when you should be using more of a collaborative approach versus when you're going to communicate, this is the change that we're going to make and here's why we're making it.

Michael Israel:

You may be in a position where you have to make the decision and then make sure that people follow, but the fundamental essential requirements remain the same and that is communicate, communicate, communicate. If you have to make a decision and for whatever reason, you have not had the opportunity to involve your team in that evaluation and in that decision process, make sure that you communicate thoroughly to them, number one, why you're making the change. Number two, what is it going to do for them? Why does it help them? They, when you're making a change like that, they don't care as much about what it's going to do for the company as much as they care about what it's going to do for them. So put them first in the communication effort to make sure that they understand why, but also most importantly to them, what does it do for them? How does it help them do their job? How does it help them be happier in their work? How does it help them be more successful in their work? And if you can successfully communicate that to them, then you will have buy in from the team the other thing that I've preached a lot and I, by the way, I got it. I'm a certified change management professional as well. I've certified about four or five years ago and one of the things that we always teach in change management is, If you have the opportunity, get an initial core team to test it, to run the pilot, to do the testing, because, and make sure that core team are the people that you know that will be positive don't put any naysayers on the core team, because you want people, the people that are first testing it and experiencing it, you want their advice, but you also want their positive input, and you want them to convey that positiveness. To the rest of the team. So those are a couple of things that I would recommend.

Thaddeus Tondu:

I like that core testing philosophy and the idea. We're seeing this in our business with entrepreneur's operating system. We rolled this out with myself, Evan, and our director of operations, and now we're rolling it out to our team lead level and just the other day, someone's man, he's I was questionable, questioning and skeptical of EOS. I love it now and now it's going to go trickle down to the rest of the team, right? Because you're doing it in stages but here's one other part that I think a lot of people miss an opportunity on when they do this and so if you've communicated the why, you've got the buy in of your core group, you're testing it. You also have to train these people, right? You can't just go new software, have fun, right? And this obviously comes in with the core group to make sure they're trained and adequate and everything. So that way they can help each other, right? And making sure there's adequate training in place and so moving into this training stage of the, of our conversation and looking at the this change management side of things, what sort of steps are, or should somebody be putting into the business to make sure that people are adequately trained enough before it gets rolled out to the next layer?

Michael Israel:

When you have the opportunity, and if you can, you should always make this opportunity in my mind to have a pilot. So a conference room pilot or some kind of a pilot where you're using a select number, a small number of people to actually begin the initial rollout of the software. And in that pilot phase, that's where training should take place. So you're training the trainers, right? I would engage, definitely engage the the vendor from whom you are purchasing the software to make sure that they have an adequate training program in place. I would develop a training checklist. Most software applications have something that they refer to as modules or individual capabilities for things like work orders and service contracts and inventory management and things like that. Make sure that you have a complete checklist of everything that's going to be trained in each one of those sections of the software. I would have some tests developed not a test, so to speak, but. quality check where you go through the training, the initial training, and then have the end users actually go through steps and do things themselves. So don't just say, here's the training. Good luck. But here's the training now that I've given you the training, let's have some practice sessions. Let's put up, set up some real scenarios or scenarios that mimic real life. Like how do you open a work order? How do you dispatch a technician? How do you record parts? How do you order parts? Things like that and have them just walk, have them get the basic training, but have them walk through the process themselves and make sure that everybody in that core team then can do all of those functions. that are appropriate for them and can do them well and understand the flow. So I'm oversimplifying it, I'm sure, but I think those are the key steps that I would take. Make sure you're getting the proper training, the initial training from the vendor. Set up practice sessions, make sure that practice sessions are successful. If people have questions, make sure you have answers for their questions and then repeat that for each section in the software that is needed by the, don't train them on things they don't need necessarily and then make sure that they are capable of training people down the line as well.

Thaddeus Tondu:

And you also mentioned somebody in between the lines of role playing, right? And going through those scenarios, which ties back to the very first part of the conversation and role playing certain situations.

Evan Hoffman:

How often do you recommend going back and retraining? Because like when I think of professional athletes as an example, especially football, you've got a three hour game on Sundays where you might be on the field for about 24 minutes of actual playing time. If you're a starter compared to the three practices you had that week, the weight training sessions, the sessions in the massage and physio room the film training as well and making sure you're watching video on last week's game and moving forward to the next week's game. You're talking about three, four, five X. The amount of time that's spent in practice versus the actual game itself. So when it comes to dealing with customer experiences, when it comes to dealing with softwares how much do you recommend practice coming into play before we actually get to the real experience?

Michael Israel:

I think the practice has to prove that people can do it thoroughly and do it quickly and understand every understand the steps that they are required to take and understand the implications of every step that they were required to take. So that's part of the initial training and then, as far as retraining is concerned, generally, software companies will come out with new features periodically. So whenever there's new features, or an upgrade of the system in some way. There's, there should be some additional training required to make sure people understand the new features, functions, the new upgraded capabilities that have come out with the software. I think people that are very adept at the software and know it well, unless there is new, there are new features that have come out, I don't see the need necessarily to retrain them on things they already know very well but you should be able to monitor and track people that are struggling because the data that they're recording is going to be incomplete they're going to have some inaccurate information. They may have some comments from customers that, gee, the guy really stumbled using his tablet and inputting data. So if you can identify people that are struggling with understanding the software, then that's a time for retraining. Now I've heard from many people, and you guys may be able to verify this, that a lot of times people my age, Young guys like me seem to have trouble adapting to the technology. So if that seems to be the case in your organization, and it may very well be that I would pay special attention to those people and make sure that they get the right amount of training and don't make them feel guilty just because somebody 23 years old picked it up faster than I did when I'm 56.

Thaddeus Tondu:

And that that age graphic bracket, by the way, it doesn't, isn't the only one that has trouble with technology. Just ask my wife. She is technologically inept taught new tech support that's her no, she doesn't listen to it. I would actually say to her and she's yeah, she's right. She came in, she didn't even know how to do a backup of an app or make sure her app was up to date in on her phone. It's is this app even up to date? I'm like do you have auto backups turned on? He's I don't even know what that is. I'm like, okay. So she texts messages, she calls and looks at Facebook and Instagram. That's her technological thing. So not just those that age bracket.

Michael Israel:

Just as a comparison even though I work in the software business and I use computers and iPhones all the time. My wife still helps me fix my iPhone when it doesn't work right.

Thaddeus Tondu:

That's because it's an iPhone belongs in the trash can. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Only a little bit. But you are right? Like it's, again, people have different strengths and in understanding that with inside the business is huge and not making, not belittling somebody just because they can't understand technology in 2024. The reality is it. I didn't grow up, I didn't even get a cell phone until I was 19 and other people didn't even have computers. And so like understanding there's been a difference especially in the last 10, 15 years and just not everybody's there. So don't belittle and understand and help them out.

Michael Israel:

That's the worst thing you can do is belittle somebody for that. It not only makes them feel small, it makes them feel inadequate. It embarrasses them if you're doing it in public and certainly doesn't want them to feel loyal to you.

Thaddeus Tondu:

This goes back to the very first thing. Empathy not only empathy from the CSRs to your team, but now you have to have empathy when you're training people, because people are going to get frustrated and people aren't going to be able to pick it up and if you can be able to, and if they're having troubles, then look at a different way to rephrase it. For them to be able to understand it in a different way and don't keep saying the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, because that's insanity. Try to say it in a different way so that they can pick it up. Try something different, right? And when you try something different from what you've always done guess what? Those people sometimes just miraculously oh shit, that makes so much more sense because you explained it in a different way.

Michael Israel:

Let me give you another example to have, we've talked about the downside of really bad service. Let me talk about the upside of really good service as well. Again, I'm going to go back to the example of my internet service provider where it's, getting a hold of someone is terrible. I only kept that service for two weeks and the final, the straw that broke the camel's back was the internet went out one day, it was spotty in the morning, and then it just stopped working and I got him on the phone, finally, after about a 30 minute try, I think anyway they tried to diagnose it and repair it, but remotely couldn't do it, and they told me it'd be three days before I could get a technician out here. I work on my computer all day long. I can't sit here three days waiting for a technician. So I canceled that service. I called up my old service provider and I basically said, I'm in a pickle. can't wait three days for this other company to come and fix my internet can you reconnect me today, please? And they said we probably can't, I said, I'm really in a bad situation. I gotta be able to work. So they were very empathetic. They called me back and said, we'll have somebody there this evening between four and six. That's really good service and I'll stay with them for not only that, they reconnected when I asked them to quickly within one day. They gave me a lower rate for higher speed.

Thaddeus Tondu:

No, welcome back. I routinely call my telephone, my, my cell phone and my internet provider to haggle on better rates with them. But I also found a hack is that when you get the automated system or whatever, you just say cancel and if it, especially if it's the voice ones you just say cancel over and over again and eventually they kick it up because you just say you want to cancel. So I don't know if that would have worked in that case, but being respectful of your time, I know you got about 10 minutes left here to find you guys zuper.co I think it's a Zuper or Zuper?

Michael Israel:

Zuper just like super, super duper Zuper. So that's the foundation that the founder always says he named it Zuper because it's extremely super stuff. So it's a Zuper.

Thaddeus Tondu:

There you go so zuper.co and michael@zuper.co as well. we do have one last question, but I do want, we haven't really talked anything about what Zuper does, which thank you, by the way. Give a quick elevator pitch on what what Zuper does and how it could help out a home service company. Thank you.

Michael Israel:

Sure, sure. Zuper is a complete field service management application that keeps track of all of the activities that technicians are engaged in when they're servicing equipment in the field. So we keep track of the customers, the equipment that's at the customers, whether or not it's covered by maintenance agreement, et cetera, who the technicians are, what their skills and certifications are, where do they live. When they get dispatched, we dispatch them to a service call, or they can be dispatched automatically. If we, if the customer uses the artificial intelligence scheduling and routing optimization capabilities, we keep track of everything to do the time that they're traveling, the time they're on site, the parts that they use materials that they use, whether it's billable on a time and material basis, whether it's covered by a service contract, literally everything they do, including invoicing the customer if appropriate, collecting payments directly from the customer, creating quotes for the customer, creating estimates, turning the estimates or quotes into work orders and I'm just naming, some of the high level things, but it's a fully featured, complete field service management application. We have integrations with over 60 other applications, including all of the major CRM systems and for example, and QuickBooks, for example, for finance and taxing applications, et cetera, et cetera. As I said, over 60 other applications are integrated. Sounds like a very, and I like AI based scheduling which is huge, to be able to use that. So yeah it's available. There are other ways to schedule as well, but AI based scheduling is available as one of the options, right?

Thaddeus Tondu:

Perfect. Love that. So again, zuper.co, to be able to get that information there. So last question, what is one question that you wished people would ask you more, but don't?

Michael Israel:

Boy, that's a great, that's a stump, yeah. Okay. I wish people would ask me, I like to read and I used to travel an enormous amount and I did a lot of reading on the plane. I don't get the chance to read as much because I don't travel as much anymore. I wish people would ask me what my favorite books are.

Thaddeus Tondu:

What are your favorite books?

Michael Israel:

My favorite book of all time. See, I set you up perfectly.

Thaddeus Tondu:

Exactly. It's almost like it was planned.

Michael Israel:

My favorite book of all time is Les Miserables.

Evan Hoffman:

Why?

Michael Israel:

It's, in my opinion, it's huge. It's 1, 300 pages, so it's an undertaking. But if you know the play, you know the basic story. it's absolutely the best love story that's ever written, been written in my mind. Not only a man for a woman, but a man for family and a man for humanity. So it's just a wonderful book. There were times when I was reading it, it's so well written that there were times I was reading, I had to put the book down to catch my breath. That's the kind of book you wanna read cause you, for you remember it forever.

Thaddeus Tondu:

And you get engrossed in it, right? Once you're engrossed, it's, yeah.

Michael Israel:

Oh my God. Yeah. It, as I said, it's a chore because it's big. I was gonna say it doubles as a door stop. Oh, yeah my other one just quickly that I really is from a, is called Love in the Time of Cholera, which is written by a Spanish fellow, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who died just a few years ago, unfortunately, but wonderful book. Not 1, 300 pages.

Thaddeus Tondu:

What about business books? I'm assuming you, since you're an avid reader, you've probably dabbled in some of the business and or the, I guess it's self help books, I don't really want to call them that, but business books, right?

Michael Israel:

I'm much more partial to novels, to fiction, but I think my favorite business book actually goes back again many years. It's called In Search of Excellence. There is a newer version I think came out a few years ago, but originally it was published in the early, I think early 90s and it's a really good book in search of excellence.

Thaddeus Tondu:

I will search that one out. I just did a bulk order of Audible. I forgot about my credits. And so I bought I think five or six Audible books to go through. So I'll add that to my list. Michael, thank you for taking the time to meet with us in chat. Thank you for dropping a lot of wisdom and information on the customer experience and the customer journey and how one can be able to do better and integrating things in with technology as well and moving through that. I think it was a fantastic conversation. So thank you so much.

Michael Israel:

Thank you. It's really been my pleasure to be part of this and I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity. Thank you.

Thaddeus Tondu:

Perfect. Thank you and until next time.

Evan Hoffman:

Cheers!

Thaddeus Tondu:

Well, That's a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before you go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed. The other thing, if you took one tiny bit of information out of this show, no matter how big, no matter how small, all we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all. One person. So they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Until next time. Cheers.

Cheers.