LinkedIn groups help you quickly discover what other professionals in your industries are discussing. They also give you an opportunity to listen in to the discussion as well as have an active voice in the conversation. You also get a vote on what is useful to you by ‘liking’ posts and comments.

Below is a collection of some of the largest of these HVAC and service contractor’s groups on LinkedIn.

Air Conditioning Contractors of America Members

Helping HVACR contractors acquire, serve and satisfy their customers.

HVAC Professionals

I created this group for those who are dedicated to the HVAC Industry and would like to expand their network with professionals within the various facets of this business. I encourage everyone to utilize the knowledge base of the other members so that best practices can be shared.

Owner: David Spaeth | 6,812 members

Home Service Professionals

This group is for Marketing, Sales and Business Development discussions in the home service professional industry. Companies such as home improvements, plumbers, electricians, HVAC, landscapers, cleaning services, window replacements, roofers, painters, etc.

Owner: Lance Brown | 1,021 members

Mobile Payments As Marketing Strategy – John Jantsch lays out the argument for using and accepting mobile payments as a marketing strategy, as a way to set your company apart from the competition. He poses this question: “The question marketers of all kinds need to start asking is if their customers are mobile, how mobile does the business need to be?”

Golden Opportunity – Garry Upton and Robert Wilkos write in Contracting Business Magazine about how to get the most out of your existing customers by expanding your service agreement offerings.

Top 10 Tips on How to Sell a HVAC Maintenance Contract – Following on the idea of growing you service business with service contracts, we have a post from The Service Coach about how to sell maintenance contracts more effectively.

Forming a Board of Directors is Crucial for HVACR Businesses – Greg McAfee has a post on his blog about the importance of getting outside advice from trusted advisors, or a board, for long term HVAC success.

HVAC Marketing Terms – Ron Smith published a post on his blog says there are terms HVAC contractors and other service contractors use to describe their business that are less than idea to share with customers. He suggests 14 improvements to your marketing vocabulary.

If you come across a great link you want to share with your service company colleagues, email it to jonathanf [at] desco-soft [dot] com

Below is a collection of quick tips for your service agreement program. These are from the end of a

1. Display a total commitment
2. Offer priority service
3. Honor your word
4. Be flexible
5. Provide reasonably-priced service with good value and benefits. It’s the beginning of a long-term relationship and not just a quick sale
6. Monitor your growth
7. Refine and duplicate procedures
8. Track technician performance

How has your company benefited from your service agreement program? Share your service agreement tips in the comments.

The Service Roundtable obtained a special license from Eshinesoft Corporation to make these ready-to-go, easy-to-modify standard business letters available online for our members and potential members. Cut and paste any letter into your word processor.

Why Free? Why is the Service Roundtable making this letter library available for free when others charge for it? Simple.

The library is accessible here for both SRT members and non-members. There are tons of letters here, but the search field makes it easy to find what you’re looking for. Once you find the right letter, you can paste it into a Word document and fill in the blanks.

You can use these letters in your business correspondence, and if you’re an ESC user, you can save the templates you use regularly right into ESC. If you’re not an ESC customer, you can sign up for the 30-day free trial to see how ESC can make your correspondence with your customers more efficient.

By having a stronger perspective of how this works, owner are able to use computer service software to automate many of their business functions.