How to Keep Your Best Techs

There are two types of service businesses right now:

Type 1: Constantly losing techs to competitors offering $1-2 more per hour, scrambling to hire replacements, watching profit margins shrink, and turning away customers during peak season.

Type 2: Keeping their best people year after year, growing steadily, maintaining healthy margins, and capitalizing when competitors can't handle demand.

The difference isn't company size or market, it's how they structure their pay… 

I was talking to an HVAC company a few weeks ago about this exact issue.

Here's what I told them: "Your techs think of themselves as their hourly rate employees. And in every town, techs talk. They know exactly which companies pay what.

'Oh, if I'm a tech over here, I'll make $25 an hour. John down the street at that other company makes $30 and they have a signing bonus.'

This creates a dangerous situation where your techs are one higher hourly offer away from walking out the door.

But performance pay changes everything.

"Instead of just paying them more to win people over, you can say, 'You get $25, but then you also get this chunk of performance pay. Your effective hourly rate is now $35.'"

This approach also de-risks your business. Instead of permanently raising your fixed costs with higher hourly rates, you're only paying more when techs deliver results that grow your business.

By showing techs their effective rate or what sales teams call On-Target Earnings (OTE), it anchors a higher number in their heads.

This mental shift is powerful. When techs see they're making $35/hour effective rate, not just $25 base, it prevents them from jumping to the next company offering $27/hour. It's about being transparent and showing them what they actually make.

I've seen so many companies overcomplicate their pay structure. Their techs need an accountant just to understand their paycheck. 

If your techs can't explain how they get paid to their spouse in 10 seconds, it's too complicated.

Your incentive system needs to be incredibly simple. They don't have to dig for information or decipher complex formulas. When techs can instantly understand "If I do X, I make Y," they're motivated to take action.

The specifics are straightforward:

People want to win. But if they don't have the right structure to win, why should they care? "You're paying me an hourly rate? I'm going to give you my hours and go home. That's what I'm paid for."

But if I'm paid for performance — to get that extra review, to do the job in two hours instead of five — I'm going to do it and get the upside.

Want to discuss how you can set up performance pay? Book a strategy call here.

Let me paint you a picture:

It's 102 degrees in Austin. You're hosting a big event tomorrow, and your AC breaks. Guests are flying in. You NEED your AC fixed today.

With an hourly tech: "Dude, I'm on another job. I get paid the same whether I do the extra job or not. It doesn't matter to me that your air conditioner broke. We close at 5pm."

With a performance-based tech: "Typically we close at 5, but I can come over at 5:30 — I have the parts in my van."

That customer will never forget that service.

They're going to buy the maintenance plan. They'll leave a five-star review. They'll tell their neighbors. They'll post on Facebook.

That's what happens with performance pay. You get people who act like owners. Their incentives align with your business goals, so they're texting review links to happy customers, suggesting maintenance plans, and looking for ways to provide better service, not because you're hovering over them, but because it benefits them too.

They go above and beyond to make customers happier, versus an hourly employee who says, "Not my problem!"

Let me share some real examples from our customers:

One company signed up with ShareWillow about a year and a half ago. They had their most profitable year in 10 YEARS after implementing performance pay.

Another example? An electrical company outside Orlando grew 14% year-over-year in Q1 of this year. This isn't a company that typically grows like that! 

The alternative? Companies that are booked six weeks out because they don't have enough staff...

If you can't take on jobs because you don't have people, you're giving up a LOT of revenue. Customers won't wait, they go to the next business.

And if that competitor delivers a great experience? Now they're telling the neighbor to call that company, not yours. They're leaving great reviews for your competitor. And revenue you could have had, is going to them.

At ShareWillow, we help service companies design incentive plans that reward both technical excellence and exceptional customer experiences.

Ready to see how micro-incentives can transform your customer relationships? Book a strategy call to discover how small behavioral changes can drive big business results.