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Norris Ayvazian ran operations at Best Home Services in Naples, FL before they sold to Apex Service Partners. Thirty techs. Four customer advisors. The kind of operation where dispatch discipline gets tested every August.
He has one rule he won’t break.
If a no-cool call comes in on a hot day and the team can’t get there within 2 hours, he calls the customer back, gives them an honest ETA, and locks in the appointment. He doesn’t let it sit.
His exact line: “If you can’t see them within the first two hours, they’re going down the list on Google. Kiss it goodbye.”
Two hours is the whole window
Same-day dispatch isn’t the standard anymore. 120 minutes is.
After that the customer isn’t yours. They’re already calling the next company. They’ve Googled “AC repair near me” again. They’ve opened Yelp. They’ve texted a neighbor. By the time they pick up the phone again, it’s a different number they’re dialing.
This isn’t a “missed call at 11 PM” problem. It’s a missed window. And the window is shorter than most owners think.
Where most shops leak the job
Norris also says 20-30% of daily revenue is left on the table after the tech shows up.
Wrong batting order. No second-opinion offer. No follow-up call within 90 minutes of completing the job.
So the math compounds.
You miss the window at the front door. You miss the conversion in the middle. You miss the retention at the end.
The shop that nails all three isn’t outspending you on Google. They’re just inside the 2-hour window when you’re not.
What creates the gap
Most HVAC shops lose the 2-hour window the same way: the call comes in, the CSR takes the info, puts it in the queue, and moves to the next call. Nobody’s watching the clock on that specific job. Nobody flags it when the 2-hour mark passes.
By the time someone calls back, it’s been 3 hours. Or 5. The customer already booked with the company that called back at 45 minutes.
That 45-minute callback wasn’t magic. It was a dispatcher who saw the missed call immediately instead of an hour later.
The automation piece
The 2-hour window problem has two layers.
Layer 1 is dispatch and scheduling. That’s a human process problem, and Norris addresses it by building the 2-hour rule into his dispatch protocol. If the schedule is full, they call the customer and tell them: “We’re booked up today but we can be there by [X]. If that doesn’t work for you, we completely understand.” Most customers respect honesty more than silence.
Layer 2 is the first 60 seconds after a missed call. This is the automation piece.
When a call goes unanswered, a text fires automatically: “Hey, we got your call. What do you need help with?” It doesn’t dispatch anyone. It doesn’t promise a time. It holds the customer in conversation until a human can follow up.
Without that, the customer hits voicemail and starts scrolling. With it, they’re in an active thread waiting for your response.
The text doesn’t close the 2-hour window problem. It buys you time inside it.
The question worth asking
What’s your honest median time from inbound call to tech-on-property?
Not the best case. The median. The average Tuesday in August when your schedule is full and three calls came in at once.
That number tells you more about your real competitive position than your Google reviews or your ad spend.
If the answer is more than 2 hours, you’re losing jobs before you ever quote them.
(Source: Norris Ayvazian, Service Crucible, ex-RVP at Best Home Services / Apex Service Partners, on Hook Agency’s podcast “Inefficiencies That Are Killing Your HVAC Profit.”)