If your HVAC maintenance agreement list grows every spring and quietly shrinks by the next one, the program likely needs a structure built for renewing. A maintenance agreement that renews has four parts: a visit that clearly delivers real work, two visits a year timed to the cooling and heating seasons, a few member benefits customers actually use and one person who owns renewals so nothing lapses without a call. Get those right, and the agreement list becomes steady work in the slow months and a dependable base of customers who call you first.
It's a familiar pattern. Techs sell agreements during the busy season, the visits get squeezed between emergency calls, and a year later some members never hear from you before their agreement runs out. Nobody decided to let them go, but nobody owned keeping them either, and this post walks through how to set the program up so that doesn't keep happening.
Why do maintenance agreements matter so much to an HVAC company?
Maintenance agreements matter because they turn one-time customers into a list you can schedule, and that list brings follow-up work. In a ServiceTitan-commissioned survey of 1,014 commercial service owners and executives, reported by ACHR News, 75% said they get more than 20% in additional revenue from pull-through work on customers with agreements. That survey covered commercial contractors and was paid for by a software vendor, so treat it as a signal rather than a promise, but the logic carries over to residential work too.
They also give you something to do when the phones slow down. Spring and fall visits fill the shoulder seasons, which matters here in the Pacific Northwest, where the mild stretches between heating and cooling can leave a crew short on work.
What should every maintenance visit include?
Every visit should cover a clear, written list of tasks based on an industry standard, so customers can see what they're paying for and techs do the same work every time. ACCA's standard for residential maintenance, ANSI/ACCA 4 QM, is described by ACCA as "a nationally recognized, manufacturer-endorsed set of minimum tasks," and it was reaffirmed in August 2024. ACCA's own blog notes that typical tasks include "cleaning, adjusting, tightening, calibration, measurement, and lubrication."
For timing, ENERGY STAR's maintenance checklist says "it's best to check the cooling system in the spring and the heating system in the fall." Its contractor checklist includes checking thermostat settings, tightening electrical connections and measuring voltage and current, lubricating moving parts, checking the condensate drain, testing controls, cleaning coils, checking refrigerant and, for heating, inspecting gas or oil connections, burner combustion and the heat exchanger.
Turn that into a one-page checklist your techs fill out and the customer gets a copy of. Our HVAC page covers the other back-office pieces that tend to need work as an HVAC shop grows.
What benefits do members actually value?
Members value benefits they can feel, like getting scheduled first when it's 100 degrees or freezing, a discount on repairs and a reminder before each visit so they don't have to remember. ACHR News talked with contractors about their programs, and their benefits included priority service, discounts on parts and labor, tune-up reminders and a monthly payment option. One owner, Alana Ward of Baggett Heating & Cooling, put the bigger value simply: "Maintenance agreements allow us to create relationships with our customers."
The same article warns against racing to the bottom on price. Low-priced tune-ups are common, and one contractor in the piece moved from a basic visit to a higher-value agreement and reported that most customers chose the upgrade when the two were shown side by side. Two tiers, a basic plan and a fuller one, give customers a real choice without making the offer complicated, and our estimate and pricebook page covers how to build options like that into your pricing.
How do I keep agreements from quietly lapsing?
You keep agreements from lapsing by tracking every one by its renewal date and assigning a person to work that list every month. A lot of lapses happen simply because nobody called, and a steady routine fixes that.
Here's a routine that works by hand or in your field service software:
Keep a list of every agreement with the start date, renewal date, last visit and next visit.
Book the next visit before the tech leaves the current one, so it's already on the calendar.
Sixty days before renewal, send a reminder, and thirty days before, call anyone who hasn't renewed.
Offer monthly billing, which the contractors in the ACHR News piece used as an option, so the agreement doesn't depend on one large payment each year.
Review the renewal rate every month and look at why people left.
For a sense of what's possible, the same ACHR News article reported that DiFilippo Service Co. had about 1,600 agreements with an 83% annual renewal rate. Track your own rate first, and then work to raise it a few points at a time.
Who in the company owns the program?
One person in the office should own the agreement program, from the renewal list to the visit schedule, with techs responsible for selling and delivering the visits. When it's everyone's job, it ends up being nobody's, and the list drifts.
Techs are often the best salespeople, because they're standing in front of the equipment with the customer. Contractors in the ACHR News article paid spiffs and ran contests to encourage techs to sell agreements, and Scott Getzschman of Getzschman Heating said, "Our techs know that maintenance agreements keep them employed." If you pay spiffs, write them down, and remember that the Department of Labor's fact sheet on bonuses counts promised bonuses in the regular rate used to figure overtime for hourly techs. Our CRM implementation page covers setting up the customer tracking that makes renewals easier to manage.
Questions owners ask
How much should an HVAC maintenance agreement cost?
Price it from what the visits actually cost you in labor, travel and materials, plus the value of the benefits, and then check what other shops near you charge. The contractors in ACHR News's piece warned that very cheap tune-ups tend to deliver what customers pay for, so build a price that covers a real visit.
Should commercial and residential agreements be different?
Yes, because the equipment, the visit frequency and the customer's expectations are different. Commercial agreements can need more frequent visits, documented task lists for each unit and terms that match the customer's own maintenance requirements.
What renewal rate is good?
The best number to beat is your own, so measure it first. For a sense of what a strong program can reach, ACHR News reported one contractor at an 83% annual renewal rate on about 1,600 agreements.
Can techs sell agreements on service calls?
Yes, and they're often the most natural people to do it. Give them a short, honest way to explain the benefits, a simple sign-up process and a written spiff, and make sure the office follows up on every sale.
So think back to that list that shrinks a little more each year. Once every agreement has a renewal date, a scheduled next visit and someone in the office who calls before it lapses, the list starts growing on its own, and the slow months get a lot less slow.
If you'd like to see where the agreement program and everything else in the company still runs through you, the free Foundation Inspection follows a job from the moment a lead comes in to the moment the money's in your bank and asks who owns each step along the way. It takes about an hour with no paperwork in front of you, and it shows you which handoffs would free up the most of your week.
I'm Tim Volner, and I run Sentric Group in Salem, Oregon, where I work with contractors who've built a solid company but have reached the point where it can't seem to run for a single day without them.