4 Incentive Programs to Motivate and Retain Field Service Technicians
In the this last installment of my How to Attract, Grow and Retain Field Service Technician Talent series we'll examine retention programs you can implement to maintain your field service technician workforce.
Field Service Technician Incentive Programs
I’ve always been a big fan of eating what you kill. A pay for performance program is critical to motivate field service sales reps and its one of the easiest comp plans to setup and manage, but how do you go about establishing a pay-for-
performance program or incentive program for your field service technicians so they keep customers happy and remain loyal to the organization over the long haul? Let me first start out by stating that this is not a replacement to an hourly rate or base salary. If you want to acquire a talented field service technician or field service engineer than you definitely need to establish a baseline. A pay for performance program is a great tool for retention and establishes competitiveness among teams. Incentive programs can be implmented monthly, quarterly or annually.
To implement a performance based program you will first need to determine the metrics by which you will manage the program by. Think of your field techs as if it were a baseball team for a moment – what are the obvious and easiest KPI’s to manage? Here are a few ideas and examples – some will work for you and others may prompt a few concerns (especially if you’re the CFO or controller):
Field Tech Production Performance
Windshield Time: Production Time – With GPS on each of your vehicles you’ll be able to calculate drive time hours vs. production hours. Take the number of windshield hours and divide by production hours. If a tech drives 1 hour per day in a 8 hour shift than his production performance average is 60/480 = 0.125
Job Cost Average – Take the monthly job costing reports and group them by technician. Pick a KPI off of your job cost average. For example It could be the net revenue percentage of the job. Average this line item across all jobs and group them by tech. Stack rank each tech and pay out a fixed bonus rate to the top performers.
Customer Satisfaction
Number of Callbacks – Figure out a reasonable call back ratio – calls:callbacks. Let’s say it is 3%. Determine the number of callbacks each technician received in a given month. Pay out a bonus to those who remain below the percentage.
You could also come up with a “customer satisfaction index” number by combining callbacks with contract renewals and use this metric as a motivator for a field service technician to earn a guaranteed raise each year. This works out well if techs are assigned to accounts and you keep track of opportunities and renewals. Compensating technicians on happy customers who renew with you ties them back to the core of your business – service.
Average Service Call Dollars
If your field service business gives your technicians the ability to upsell in the field than put together a bonus structure weighted on average dollars of total amount of monthly tickets or work orders. Paying out commissions on a work order by work order basis will minimize profitability and is a back end office nightmare. Very simply take all of the service call revenue average them out and group them by individual technicians in a given month. Identify and draw a line in the sand with your average field tech. Compensate those above the line. Go to staples and have the report printed on a wide format printer. Each month post the report in your breakroom or warehouse stack ranking each field technician and their average monthly ticket and commission. Watch those average servcie call dollars climb!
New Service Opportunities and Referral Leads
Your field technicians are your front lines and they uncover hidden opportunities every day. Make it easy for them to communicate new opportunities to sales. Develop landing pages on your company website for each of your technicians where they can submit referral leads and opportunities back to the sales system. Tie them into the opportunity and pay them when the opportunity becomes a deal.
About The Author: Steve Teneriello is the Founder of The Service Coach and is a seasoned senior marketing strategist and business development professional experienced in both residential and commercial sales and digital marketing. Throughout his career Steve has worked with over 300 small to medium-sized service business owners helping them develop and implement systematic and formula driven marketing, sales and operations strategies that fuel growth and profitability. Learn More About Steve
Here