A service-agreement session is about recurring revenue: customers who pay you every year whether or not anything breaks, and who call you first when it does. Ali helps you design a plan you can deliver profitably, set a target based on your techs' real capacity, and build the habits that get it offered on every call.
Who this session is for
It suits owners who have some agreement customers already, often a few dozen to a few hundred, but no clear plan for growing the number. It also suits owners whose revenue swings hard between peak season and the shoulder months, because a well-run agreement program is one of the few tools that fills those gaps with planned work.
If your agreement visits currently lose money, start with the pricing and margin session and come back to this one.
The maths Ali works through
The core of the session is a simple member-value model. Here's the shape of it, using example figures:
- Plan price: $22 a month, or $264 a year
- Cost to deliver two tune-up visits a year, including drive and parts: $150
- Profit on the plan itself: $114 a year per member
- Extra repair and replacement work members tend to send you: estimated with your own history, not assumed
Now apply a renewal rate. If 80% of members renew each year and you sign 20 new ones a month, you grow by 240 a year but lose 20% of the base every year. Starting from 150 members, that's roughly 360 after year one and about 530 after year two. At 70% renewal, the same signing effort gets you to about 480 after two years.
That gap is why Ali spends as much time on keeping members as on signing them. The maintenance agreement maths guide shows the full model so you can run it yourself.
What's included
- a review of your current plan: what it promises, what it costs you, how it's billed
- the member-value model above, with your figures
- a recommended plan structure (usually one or two tiers, not five)
- a short, plain script for techs to offer the plan at the end of a call
- a renewal routine: when the reminder goes out, who follows up, and what happens when a card fails
- a 12-month member target tied to how many visits your techs can actually fit in spring and fall
Timeline and how results are measured
Most owners can launch a revised plan within a few weeks of the session, because the hard part is deciding, not building. Ali suggests tracking four numbers monthly: new members signed, members lost, the share of eligible calls where a tech offered the plan, and revenue from members' repair work. The offer rate is the early signal; if techs aren't offering the plan, nothing else moves.
One more measure is worth adding after six months: the renewal rate for members who joined in the first quarter. It tells you early whether the plan is one customers value enough to keep.
Mistakes Ali sees most often
- Too many tiers. Customers stall when asked to compare gold, platinum and diamond options. One good plan, maybe with one upgrade, is easier to sell.
- Pricing the plan as a loss leader. If each visit costs more than the plan brings in, every new member makes the problem bigger.
- Leaving renewals to chance. Annual plans that don't renew automatically lose members simply because nobody reminded them.
- Paying techs nothing for signing members. A small, clear reward for each signed plan changes behaviour quickly.
- Booking every visit in October. Spread visits across the shoulder months, or your agreements will crowd out paid work at the first cold snap.
Next steps
Agreement revenue makes it easier to justify a first office hire, which is covered in the hiring and owner-time session. To see how sessions are quoted, visit pricing. When you're ready, call, text or email Ali with your current member count and your plan price.
Frequently asked questions
How many agreement customers should a company my size have?
There's no honest universal number. Ali works from your capacity instead: how many maintenance visits your techs can fit into the shoulder seasons without turning away paid work. That gives you a ceiling worth aiming at.
Should the plan include a discount on repairs?
Often a small one helps renewals, but it has to be priced in. Ali will run the numbers with you so the discount doesn't wipe out the profit on the visits.
Monthly or annual billing?
Monthly billing usually renews better because customers don't face a single large charge, but it needs a reliable way to collect payment. The session weighs both for your customer base.
Will this help in my slow months?
That's the main point. Agreement visits can be scheduled into spring and fall, when demand calls drop, so your techs stay busy and paid.