How to hire and train HVAC office staff without prior experience
It can take a lot to hire and onboard new office staff—especially when they don’t have prior experience in your industry.
Amanda Arbogast from Beltway Air Conditioning has been in HVAC management for nine years. She created an efficient onboarding process for new hires that saves time and money.
Amanda’s system turns any new hire into a valuable asset—even when they have no industry experience. Here’s how she does it.
1. Start with Management
Amanda’s fast, efficient system for onboarding office staff starts with putting in work at the management level to create simple new hire processes. “This means having systems and processes for everything, and I mean everything,” Amanda explained. She provides resources to give new hires guidance on every situation they’ll encounter in their new role.
Amanda prepares her new hires by using the same onboarding process every time. The easiest and quickest way to train is by having standing processes in place. This includes creating training sessions for:
- Scheduling and dispatching
- How to utilize Housecall Pro
- Spending limited time on the phone with customers
- Asking the right questions to qualify a lead
- Having a list of all the manufacturers in the service area
“It took a lot of time to create all of these processes, but it’s made things run ten times smoother,” Amanda said. Putting in the work at the management level will save your company time and energy in the long run.
2. Create a Quick & Easy Onboarding Process
Amanda has built her onboarding processes to ensure that office staff maximize their value to the company. It’s important that new hires acquire knowledge about the industry in an efficient way. At Beltway Air Conditioning and Heating, they call this HVAC 101.
HVAC 101:
Week 1: Gradually getting new hires comfortable in their roles
Week 2: Systems training with Amanda
Week 3: Info sessions on refrigeration cycles and motors with Ryan, the owner.
“We have people trained in two months,” Amanda explained, “and all of our CSRs can sell a system over the phone.” Amanda’s onboarding process ensures administrative staff can handle more than just paperwork; they provide true value and save the company time and money.
3. Utilize your Office Staff and Provide Resources
Amanda makes sure her office team has all the opportunities and guidance they need to jump in and provide value. Her office staff has a process for talking with customers and leads to qualifying each job and saving the company time and money. “We’re spending less time and less money to send out someone for an estimate because it can be done over the phone by CSR,” Amanda said.
Amanda provides her staff with resources to make the most of each call. The script she provides includes qualifying questions that address:
- Service area
- If the client is the homeowner
- If they have a home warranty
- Information about the unit and issue at hand
“On average, our customer phone calls are two minutes, which is crucial because the quicker the CSR gets off the phone, the faster they can get on the next call,” Amanda explained. “This goes back to having systems and processes.” Each of Amanda’s office staff members has the same exact process for talking to customers—so everyone is on the same page.
“We can’t teach it all, it’s impossible in such a short period of time,” Amanda said. “But we have trained people in two months to complete tasks which would usually take people years to learn.” Amanda’s systems for onboarding have saved her company time and money and empowered new hires with no industry experience to learn and add value.
