Building your boiler service-agreement base

Who this is for

Founders heading into their first autumn, buyers who inherited an agreement book they want to keep, and established owners whose revenue still swings hard between January and July. If you have fewer than 50 active plans, or a renewal rate you do not know, this is likely your next step.

What is included

1. Plan design. One to three tiers, what each visit covers, and the order of priority for plan customers in a no-heat call. You decide the price; we model what each option means for your margin.
2. Honest price presentation. The total yearly price shown up front, with any mandatory fees included. Canada's Competition Bureau treats advertising a price that leaves out unavoidable fixed charges as drip pricing, so we write the offer to avoid it.
3. A plan page on your website that explains the visit in plain words and makes it easy to call or text to join.
4. Sign-up scripts for the technician on site and the person answering the phone.
5. A renewal sequence. Reminders by text and email to customers who agreed to hear from you, 45, 21 and 7 days before renewal, then a phone call for anyone who has not replied.
6. A first-winter target with a weekly tracker.

The arithmetic behind a care plan

Suppose a plan costs the customer $249 a year and the visit takes 1.5 hours including drive time. If your loaded technician cost is $65 an hour, the labour is about $98, leaving roughly $151 before parts and overhead. That is a modest margin on the visit itself.

The real value is downstream. If one in eight plan customers needs a repair worth $600 during the year, and one in twenty replaces a boiler with you within three years, the plan is a lead source as much as a product. With 150 customers, that is about 19 repair jobs a year and around 7 or 8 replacement opportunities over three years, all from people already on your list.

Timeline

• Weeks 1–2. Plan design and pricing model.
• Weeks 2–4. Plan page, scripts and renewal messages written and approved.
• Month 2 onward. Offer every service customer the plan, track sign-ups weekly, and run the first renewal cycle as dates come up.

The ideal launch is late summer, so the plan is ready before the first heating calls in your region.

How results are measured

Four numbers, monthly: active plans, new plans signed, renewal rate, and the share of repair and install revenue that came from plan customers. A healthy renewal rate after year one tells you more than any other metric about whether customers value the visit.

A note for buyers

If you bought an agreement book, honour the existing terms until each plan renews, then move customers to your own terms.

Mistakes to avoid

• Selling the plan only in winter. Customers in a no-heat panic say yes, then do not renew. Sell it all year, especially on maintenance visits.
• Too many tiers. Three is the most a customer can compare on a phone.
• Hidden fees. A "from" price that grows at checkout loses trust and can create legal risk.
• No consent record. Under Canada's anti-spam legislation, businesses need consent before sending commercial texts or emails and should be able to prove it, as ISED's CASL consent page explains. Keep a record of who agreed to reminders.
• Letting renewals depend on memory. If the owner has to remember to call, renewals fall.

For the bigger picture, see the business plan service, the first-year marketing plan and what our HVAC work produced.