How do I track technician performance without a CRM?

Track six numbers per technician per day: calls ran, calls sold, revenue, maintenance plan chances, plans sold, and callbacks. You or your service manager enter them. Set a goal for each by trade and read the red ones first. That is employee performance tracking for a shop. It needs no CRM, no integration, and no paid software. SOS from Team SPG does it free.

Employee performance tracking for technicians, without a CRM

A tech's performance is not hard to see. It shows up on every call, every day. Did he sell the job? How big was the ticket? Did he offer the maintenance plan? Did the customer call back for defective work? Those answers are already on your invoices. The tracking problem is not finding the data. It is writing it down in the same place every day so you can read it.

The guides written for the trades assume your field service software feeds the numbers. Most do, but field service software can be overly complex or doesn't give owners the ability to track KPIs the way you want to. This article is for them.

Step 1: Pick the six numbers

You enter six things per tech per day:

1. Calls ran
2. Calls sold
3. Revenue
4. Maintenance plan chances
5. Maintenance plans sold
6. Callbacks

From those six, SOS works out the three that matter most. Close rate is calls sold divided by calls ran. Average ticket is revenue divided by calls sold. Maintenance plan close rate is plans sold divided by plan chances. Callback rate rounds it out.

Inside SOS these are called KTIs, for Key Training Indicators. They are KPIs, named for what you do with them. Each one points at a part of the service call you can train. That is the test for whether a number belongs on the list. If a low number does not tell you what to teach, leave it off.

Step 2: Set a goal per trade

A number without a goal is trivia. In SOS you set a close rate, revenue, average ticket, maintenance plan close rate, and callback target for each trade. HVAC and plumbing get different goals because they are different jobs.

Do not copy a goal from a blog table. Those numbers rarely have a real sample behind them, and your techs will know. Start from your own last few months. Once the team hits the goal, raise it. Goals have an effective date, so raising it in March does not turn January red.

Step 3: Decide who enters, and agree on the counting rules

The owner or the service manager enters the numbers. Not the tech. Entry belongs to one person in the office, done at the same time every day, from the closed tickets.

Daily is best, because a tech can fix this week while the week is still happening. Weekly works. SOS gives you three ways in. Open Add KTI and type in a tech's day. Fill in the CSV template once a week and upload it. Or export the same columns from your field service software and upload that file.

Before the first entry, write down how you count. Most bad scorecards come from counting, not from techs.

• A job counts as sold on the day it is finished, not the day the deposit is taken. Deposits never go on the board, or average ticket is wrong.
• A multi-day job is one call ran and one call sold, on the day it finishes. The same goes for a job that starts in one month and finishes in the next.
• A job sold on a follow-up visit counts twice. One call ran with no sale on the first day, then one call ran and one sale on the day it closes.
• When two selling techs are on one job, each gets a call ran. The lead tech gets the sale and all of the revenue. Do not split it.
• Helpers, apprentices, and install crews are not on the technician board.
• A tech who works in two departments gets a profile in each, with that department's goals.

Step 4: Read red first

Open the report and sort by close rate. The red cells show the KPIs that are not meeting the set goals. Then look at close rate and average ticket together, because each number points at a different part of the service call.

Close rate is low. The tech is losing the customer before the work talk starts. The usual reasons are no relationship built, not enough questions asked, and no explanation of what he is about to do. He shows a price before he shows value. Trust is not there yet when the options come out. Train the front of the call: the introduction, the relationship questions, the job explanation, and handling objections.

Average ticket is low. The tech is closing, but fixing only the one thing he was called for. The usual reasons are that he skipped the full assessment, presented one option instead of three, or does not believe in the price. Train a full performance and safety assessment on every call, and present three options every time: upgrade, prevent, and replace.

Maintenance plan close rate is low. The plan is not being offered, or the tech cannot explain why it matters. Usually, he does not see the value himself. Train the value three ways: what the plan does for the customer, what it does for the tech, and what it does for the company. A tech who believes the first one sells it.

Callbacks are up. A quality number. Look for a pattern in the type of repair before you decide it is the tech, and talk about it in private.

Before you pick the training, ask one more question. Is this a skill problem, a mindset problem, or missed opportunities? A tech who does not know how to present three options needs practice. A tech who knows how and skips it because he is afraid of objections needs a different conversation. A tech whose numbers only dip on certain kinds of calls needs you to look at those calls.

Step 5: Five minutes a day, one tech a week

The rhythm that makes this work is short.

Daily. Spend five minutes on the table. You are looking for red, for a number that moved a lot since yesterday, and for a tech whose numbers are inconsistent. You are not coaching yet.

Weekly. Pick one technician for a one-on-one. Not the whole team, and not always the worst one. Choose someone who is inconsistent, or trending down, or who you think would respond to attention. Look at his last four weeks in SOS. Look for trends and have a discussion with the technician.

The one-on-one has four parts. Start by recognizing something he did well, even if the month is off. Then review last week's goal, and let him talk first about how it went. Then set one goal for one week, written as a behavior, not a number. "Ask five relationship questions on every call" is a goal. "Raise your close rate" is not. Say why it matters. Then put the follow-up date on the calendar and tell him he can come to you before then.

Match the goal to the problem. An inconsistent tech gets "follow the full call process on every call this week." A tech who rushes relationship building gets a question count. A tech who avoids objections gets "present all three options even when the customer seems hesitant." A tech who has checked out gets something that builds ownership, like leading one morning huddle.

Celebrate the improvement in front of the team. Have the hard conversation in private.

Step 6: When the table says ride along

When close rate and average ticket are both low, take the technician on a ride-along. There are three kinds of ride-alongs.

1. An observation ride is for finding out what is really happening. You watch and take notes, and you do not step in, even when he skips a step.
2. A coaching ride is for a tech working on one specific behavior. You pause between calls, not during, and keep it to one or two things.
3. A ride that pairs a developing tech with your best one, with no manager in the truck. It is the least used of the three and often the most useful.

Schedule it a day ahead, tell him which kind it is, and tell him why. Afterward, let him say how it went before you do. Give him one thing he did well and one thing to change. Set the next step. The ride along is not finished until the debrief process is over.

What makes it stick

Tracking fails for three reasons. The expectation was never written down, so the tech can say he did not know. Nobody followed up, so he assumed it did not matter. Or the standard is treated as a suggestion by the team, so it slips on busy days. Write the standard down, check in on the date you said, and praise the techs who hold it. The table in SOS gives you the facts for all three.

Every tech gets his own login and sees his own numbers against his goals. Managers see the team. Owners see everyone. Start on the KPIs page, add your techs, and enter this week.