Key takeaways
- Fix leaks before adding spend: unanswered peak calls, unbooked calls, stale replacement quotes and lapsed members.
- The five moves, in order: answer every call, fix the Google profile and reviews, chase every replacement quote, grow agreements, then add paid reach.
- Plan the year around the two peaks and two shoulders: capacity in the peaks, replacements and memberships in the shoulders.
- Budget against what you can afford per booked call, set separately for repairs and replacements.
To get more customers, an HVAC company should first stop losing the ones it already pays to attract: calls that ring out on hot afternoons, replacement quotes nobody chases, members who quietly lapse. Then add visibility in the order that pays back fastest. Below are the five moves, in order, each meant to have an owner and a finish date.
Fix leaks before adding spend
Fix leaks first, because more ad money sent to a phone line that misses calls at peak buys more missed calls. You can check each leak in a week with reports you already have.
| Leak | How to check it this week | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Calls that ring out | Your phone system's report for last summer's busiest week: calls rung against calls answered | Emergency jobs booked by the next company on the list |
| Calls answered but not booked | Listen to 20 recorded calls and count how many ended with a time on the schedule | Leads you paid for, lost at the last step |
| Stale replacement quotes | Open estimates older than 30 days in ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber | Your largest tickets, decided without you |
| Lapsed agreements | Members who came due against members who renewed | The recurring work that fills shoulder months |
| An incomplete Google profile | Categories, services, service areas, hours and recent photos | Map Pack calls from people searching in a hurry |
A worked example, with hypothetical numbers: last July your ads produced 120 calls. CSRs booked 60, another 30 were answered but not booked, and 30 rang out. Raising the budget buys more of the same split. Booking even half of the lost 60 adds 30 service calls without spending another cent on media.
Where HVAC companies lose customers
- Found Local SEO, Google profile, AI search Where it leaks: Not showing where they look
- Chosen Reviews, photos and the website Where it leaks: Weak proof or a slow site
- Contacted Calls, forms, booking and ads Where it leaks: Missed calls and long forms
- Answered CRM follow-up and missed-call text-back Where it leaks: Slow or no follow-up
- Booked call Then reminders, reviews and repeat customers
The five-move plan
- Answer every call, day and night. Set up overflow handling and after-hours routing to the on-call tech, with missed-call text-back as the safety net. This comes first because it converts demand you already have. Finish it before the next peak.
- Fix the Google Business Profile and the review routine. Primary category HVAC contractor, with Air conditioning contractor or Furnace repair service added only where they apply. List every service, from AC repair to indoor air quality, set service areas, add job photos and ask every customer for a review when the call closes. Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence (Google), and the profile is where you can move the first and third. The Google Business Profile guide for HVAC companies has the details.
- Follow up on every replacement estimate. A recap, financing options and a personal check-in from the comfort advisor, on a schedule. This is the move with the largest ticket attached, and it costs nothing but discipline.
- Grow the maintenance agreement base. Offer an agreement on every service call and every replacement, and book member tune-ups before each season. Members are the customers who call you first, and their visits keep techs busy when emergency demand drops.
- Then add paid reach, measured in booked calls. Google Ads for repair searches at peak, replacement campaigns in the shoulders, and Meta for tune-up and replacement offers to homeowners in your area. If you buy pay-per-lead calls, plan that budget inside Google Ads too: HVAC is one of the trades whose Local Services Ads are moving there first (Google Ads Help).
Each move gets a named owner and a date. Without both, a plan becomes a list.
Planning around peak summer and winter
Plan the year as two peaks and two shoulders: the peaks are for capacity, the shoulders are for building the next peak. Your climate sets the exact weeks.
| Season | What demand does | Where to put effort |
|---|---|---|
| Spring shoulder | Calls are calm; homeowners think about cooling | Cooling tune-ups for members and past customers, chase open quotes, publish cooling pages, fix the website |
| Summer peak | No-cool calls spike with the heat | Answer and book every call, run repair ads while dispatch can keep up, ask for reviews on every job |
| Fall shoulder | Calm again; heating is on people's minds | Heating tune-ups, agreement renewals, replacement push with financing before the cold |
| Winter peak | No-heat calls at all hours | After-hours coverage, repair ads matched to capacity, pause promotions when booked out |
The common mistake is spending the shoulder months waiting. That is when a replacement crew has room and when the profile, pages and automations for the next peak get built.
Budgeting
Set the budget from what you can afford to pay for a booked call, worked out separately for repairs and replacements. Your field software already holds the inputs: average ticket by job type, how often a booked call becomes a sale, and gross margin. A replacement lead can justify a far higher cost than a repair call, so give them separate budgets and separate reports.
Spend in this order. Fund the leak fixes first, because they are mostly one-time projects. Then fund paid media by season: repairs when you have the capacity to run them, replacements when you have install crews free. Write the numbers into a one-page marketing plan you review each season; the U.S. Small Business Administration's guide to marketing and sales is a reasonable free starting point (SBA).
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
The leak table on this page is the start of what we check in a free consultation, run on your own phone reports, estimates and agreement list. The five moves you take away are ranked for your company, not copied from this page, and they are yours to run whether or not we work together. If we do, each move gets a finish date, the work happens in accounts registered to you, and progress is reported as booked calls and cost per customer. Book a growth consultation while there is still a shoulder season to build in.
Sources
- Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, Google Business Profile Help
- Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals, Google Ads Help
- Marketing and sales, U.S. Small Business Administration