A maintenance agreement is a promise of future visits. The CRM should keep that promise for you: book tune-ups before the season starts, remind customers who haven't booked, and ask for renewal before the plan lapses. We build those rules from your agreement data and your local season.
What the service includes
We set up the full reminder cycle for each agreement type you sell.
- Agreement records. Start date, term, renewal method, visits included, equipment covered and price, stored as fields rather than notes.
- Tune-up scheduling rules. Heating visits ahead of the cold season, cooling visits ahead of the warm season, with the lead time set for your region.
- Customer reminders. Text and email templates for "time to book", "we have openings next week" and "you haven't booked yet".
- Renewal sequence. Notices before expiry, a short follow-up after lapse, and a task for a person to call the customers who matter most.
- Office views. A list of every agreement due for a visit this month, every unbooked one, and every renewal at risk.
Who it's for
This suits HVAC companies that sell maintenance plans and have enough of them that tracking by hand breaks down, usually a few hundred agreements or more. Warning signs:
- visits pile up into one frantic month because nobody booked ahead;
- agreement customers are found by searching notes;
- renewals depend on the customer remembering;
- you can't say what share of last year's plans renewed.
Worked example
Suppose you hold 400 agreements at $240 a year and 70% renew. Lifting renewals to 82% with steady reminders keeps 48 more agreements, which is $11,520 a year in plan revenue before counting the repairs and replacements those visits uncover. These are illustrative numbers; plug in your own.
Consent and privacy built in
Reminder messages have rules attached in Canada. According to ISED's guidance on Canada's anti-spam legislation, implied consent from an existing business relationship is generally time-limited: up to two years after a purchase, or six months after an inquiry or application. Express consent has no time limit unless withdrawn. Messages must identify the sender and include an unsubscribe mechanism, and unsubscribe requests must be actioned within 10 business days.
What that means for setup:
- a consent field on every contact, with the type (express or implied), date and source;
- the last purchase date tracked so implied consent windows can be checked;
- unsubscribe requests written back to the record automatically, or by a daily task;
- sender details in every template.
We configure these fields; we don't give legal advice. Confirm your own obligations with a qualified advisor. Provincial privacy rules are covered on the areas pages.
Timeline and how results are measured
The work follows the data import, because reminders need clean agreement dates. Setup, testing on a small batch and full launch are each listed with dates in your proposal.
We track:
- percentage of agreement visits booked before the season starts;
- renewal rate, monthly and by agreement type;
- reminder response rate by channel (text versus email);
- opt-out rate, which should stay low if messages are useful.
Regional timing
Reminder timing should follow your climate, not a national template. A coastal BC company may book heating tune-ups across a long, mild shoulder season, while a Winnipeg or Regina shop has a short window before the first hard cold. Cooling reminders matter far more in southern Ontario and the BC Interior than in coastal Newfoundland. We set the lead times per service area, and the region pages under areas explain what changes where.
Mistakes to avoid
- One reminder for everyone. A boiler customer on the coast and a furnace customer on the Prairies don't need the same timing.
- Ignoring the office's capacity. Sending 600 reminders on one Monday floods the phones; send in batches your team can answer.
- No human step. Large or commercial agreements deserve a call, not just an automated message.
- Forgetting the unsubscribe path. An opt-out that never reaches the CRM is a compliance problem waiting to happen.
The adoption guide covers getting the office to work the reminder lists daily. Text conversation design is a specialty of our sister site HVAC.chat. See pricing for scope.
Frequently asked questions
Should reminders go by text or email?
Ask each customer and record the answer. Many homeowners respond faster to a text, while property managers often prefer email. The CRM should store the preference and use it, rather than sending both every time.
When should a renewal reminder go out?
A common pattern is a first notice about 30 days before the agreement ends, a second about a week before, and a final one shortly after it lapses. The right timing depends on your billing method and whether plans auto-renew.
Do we need consent to send maintenance reminders?
Messages that promote a paid service can count as commercial electronic messages under Canada's anti-spam law, which has consent, identification and unsubscribe rules. We set up consent fields and unsubscribe handling, but you should confirm your obligations with your own advisor.
What if our agreements are on paper?
We digitise the key facts first: customer, site, equipment covered, start date, term, price and visits included. Without those, no reminder system can work.