It's not always possible to be "at the kitchen table" with your customers to discuss an HVAC quote. But with a little bit of creativity -- and some technology -- it's still possible to effectively quote and close the sale remotely!

In this article, we'll explore some tips and tools, including OnCall Air, that can help you through this process. 

This article is divided into four sections:

Section 1: Getting more information about the property online
​Section 2: Working with the customer to prepare for the quote
​Section 3: Using OnCall Air for remote quoting situations
​Section 4: Walking through the quote with your customer remotely

Keep in mind that these are just suggestions. Every business is different, and you'll need to evaluate what works (and what doesn't) for your own situation.
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Let's get started!

Getting accurate property information to build an accurate quote can be quite challenging when you are not able to survey the home in person.

Luckily there are a number of ways to obtain the property details using freely available online tools and communication services. 

Let's review some examples below:

Using Google Maps, you probably know that you can quickly get a more detailed understanding of the home, including street view to see the actual property, and satellite mode to get a birds eye view of the entire job site. 

But many don't know that you can actually measure a property using Google Maps. 

It's easy to get the dimensions: just open Google Maps in a browser, right click (or click with two fingers on a touchpad) inside the map, and select the last option to "Measure Distance". 

This feature will even calculate the area of your selection, and works with standard maps or with satellite view! Check out this youtube guide to the feature if you want more examples.
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You can also use the free Google Earth or Bing's (www.bing.com) "Bird's Eye View" feature to get a detailed perspective on the home's current installation.

These tools can help you also familiarize yourself with the neighborhood, the parking situation, and identify any special considerations (like obstructions) that may require adjustments to your quote.

Specialized load calculation tools, like CoolCalc, can also help you remotely survey a home and even create an ACCA certified load calculation. Learn more about CoolCalc here, and watch a contractor explaining how he uses it in this video.

The last set of useful online tools are the sites that you are probably familiar with, like Zillow, Realtor, and Trulia. Realtor.com, for example, has a brief but practical section that lets you quickly review the key characteristics of a property:

Most municipalities now offer free online permit searches which often include important details about the home helping you gather important information about past HVAC or other construction work that could impact your quote. 

And more advanced services like BuildZoom (paid service) allow you to retrieve the full permitting history in a standard way across different cities and counties.

Of course, there's nothing like a real-time walk through of the home. For this task, you can get the property owner to assist you!

In fact, you customer may feel relieved that they can do this "virtually", and not have to schedule in-person time.

The simplest way to start is to ask your customer to text or email you pictures of their current property and HVAC installation. 

The key here is to keep it simple and make it easy for your customer to send you the right pictures.

We've prepared a simple starter checklist that you can customize and email to your customer. Just copy and paste it into your email message and then ask your customer to send you the images for each of the areas that you require. 

We think the customer will appreciate your thoroughness, and you'll set a great tone for how serious you are about delivering a great job...even when you're not in person.

Keeping the photos and images your customer sends in an organized digital format is critical.

One way to do this is to use tools like OnCall Air to upload the images in the Survey section.

Another way is to use tools like Google Drive or Office 365. Create a simple document for the property, and copy and paste the images for that property into the document. This way you can reference this article when you're discussing the job with the homeowner, or you can add additional notes below each image.

Another technique is to use the live streaming capabilities of systems to ask the customer to walk through the property.

This way you can guide the customer to show you parts of their installation or property that are critical to your quote.

Tools like Apple's FaceTime, Skype or WhatsApp allow your customer to broadcast a video tour of their property. So here's how we suggest doing this: 

If you use OnCall Air, it's likely that you're already accustomed to building proposals for your customers from anywhere. In fact, that's one of the strengths of the platform. 

But when you're quoting a job and you haven't had the chance to visit the property or be face-to-face with the customer, there are specific ways you can use OnCall Air to help you be more effective.

Be sure to use the Proposal Notes feature on the proposal. This can help your customer understand that specific option, so that they are more informed and can understand the differences with other options.

Use Installation Items to highlight how your team will conduct themselves during the job.

These types of information items can go a long way to make your customer feel comfortable about your company's approach, especially when you're not in front of them to explain it. 

Here's an example of an Installation Item that describes a thorough and thoughtful approach to the installation job.

Another great way to personalize the quote is to include your photo or your team's photo in a custom accessory. 

To do this follow these steps:

It's a great way to share a bit of personality when you can't be in front of the customer to establish that crucial rapport.

To build something similar to the above example, use the Custom Accessory feature described in this help article.

Once you've built the quote, you can send it over to your customer via OnCall Air's built in email capability.

Remember, you can use the Live Tracking feature to see the timeline of a quote, and make sure that your customer received it. 

If they didn't open it, it's a good idea to follow up and either re-send it, or send it via text message by copying the unique link inside OnCall Air.

Remember, with OnCall Air you can copy a link to the proposal and text it to the customer in addition to using the email feature (this video explains how to do that).

It's a great idea to schedule time with your customer to review the proposal together. Of course, this can be as simple as asking the customer for a time that works for them and then calling them on time.

But if you want to make it even easier, you can use remote scheduling tools like Calendly to let the customer pick a convenient time from your schedule. This puts them in control, and makes things more convenient. No more having to go back and forth to find a time that works.

Learn more about calendly at their site. They offer free plans that can link automatically to your Google or Outlook calendar so that your availability is easy to keep in sync. 

When you get on the call, we recommend walking the customer through the quote by sharing your screen. This ensures that you are both seeing the same information, at the same time.

This way you can ensure that your customer learns about your unique service approach, you can explain clearly the differences in the options you present, and the product or service recommendations that you make.

At OnCall Air, we're big fans of Zoom (www.zoom.us) as a tool that lets us share our screen, or see the screen of our teammates or customers. But other tools can accomplish similar functionality (e.g., join.me, skype).

Here's an example of how you could use Zoom to walk a client through your proposal:

Want to go that extra mile? You can even use Zoom to record your presentation, and then send that recording to the customer. They can view it on a schedule that works for them.

Finally, getting paid is critical, and services like Credit For Comfort (www.creditforcomfort.com) -- our sister company -- have unique capabilities that make it easy for the customer to qualify for the loan that you offer them quickly and remotely from the security and comfort of their own phone. Check out their demo!

Most of your customers will tend to assume that a lot of the quoting needs to be done in person, unless you let them know up front about your capability. So make sure you're telling your customers when they call in to inquire about your remote quoting capabilities, and even advertise it on your website!

That wraps up our set of recommendations about remote quoting of an HVAC job. We hope you found this useful! 

And remember, adapting to new processes takes practice. So if you want to try new sales tactics, we recommend practicing with your team, with family members, and it's ok to let your customers know that you are trying something new. They'll likely understand and appreciate the effort and innovation!

If you have questions or want to set up more time to speak to us about some of the techniques or tips mentioned in this article, please don't hesitate to reach out.

If you're not currently using OnCall Air, you can easily schedule a demo with our team at www.oncallair.com/demo.