Your heat pump quote: has the customer seen the numbers?

On 3 November in Bologna, CNA presented the results of a heat pump survey aimed at installers. There were 217 responses, all from people who had attended the project’s webinars, events or courses. The findings therefore reflect this group’s experience and are not representative of all installers in Italy.

Nearly three in four installers, 74.7%, identify installation costs as a barrier for customers. In the same questionnaire, around one in four report difficulty explaining the value of the equipment they propose. Another 31.3% struggle to manage the information they need to give customers.

The upfront cost weighs on the customer’s decision, while the business struggles to explain what that money will buy them. Here’s what the figures tell us and how you can address the issue in a business with around ten technicians, starting with your next quote.

What the CNA survey found

The survey brought to a close a project coordinated by CNA Milano together with the national CNA Produzione and CNA Installazione Impianti divisions. The results were presented at the project’s closing event, “Electrify to Compete”.

Before looking at price, it helps to consider installers’ experience with the technology. Of those who responded, 59.4% had installed heat pumps in the previous twelve months. Within that group, 9.7% reported unsatisfactory performance and 30.4% had encountered no problems. Reports of unsatisfactory performance therefore came from a limited proportion of those who had installed them.

After installation costs, the customer barriers installers mention are a lack of suitable space for the equipment, cited by 46.1%, and the cost of energy to run it, cited by 22.6%. These are installers reporting the objections they encounter in their work: this part of the questionnaire did not collect answers directly from customers.

When the call comes

The point at which a customer calls also helps explain the problem. Of the installers surveyed, 61.3% are contacted when a boiler needs replacing. For 15.7%, the call comes after a renovation is already complete, and for 10.6%, during the building’s construction.

Imagine a typical November job at a plumbing and heating business with around ten technicians. A technician arrives at a house and finds a boiler at the end of its life. That evening, they prepare the quote: heat pump, outdoor unit, storage tank, total. The next day, the customer replies: “It costs too much.”

That quote lists what the customer is buying, but leaves out the comparison between what they spend on heating today and what they might spend after the work. In this scenario, the customer is in a hurry because the boiler needs replacing. Faced with a list of components and a total, they lack the information to assess future running costs as well. This is one possible explanation for the communication difficulties highlighted by the survey, and something to check against your own quotes.

One page, based on your customer’s bills

A simple alternative is to add a comparison page to your quote. At the top, show what the customer spent over the past twelve months, using their energy bills. Below that, estimate what they could spend after the work, explaining the consumption figures you have used and the assumptions you have made about the future. The customer can then understand how you reached the estimate and discuss its assumptions, rather than being given a forecast with no explanation.

During the site survey, the technician also records the space available for maintenance and repairs. Among those who have already installed heat pumps, the most common difficulty concerns the space needed for this work: 33.2% report it. Checking where the outdoor unit will go and how it can be reached for future work lets you consider the needs of whoever will maintain the system while you are still preparing the quote.

The two figures about space answer different questions. The 46.1% concerns customer resistance linked to a lack of suitable space for the equipment. The 33.2% concerns difficulties encountered by those who installed the systems. Both are useful to your business: one helps you understand an objection; the other highlights something to check during the site survey.

Where AI can help

Gathering information from bills takes time. An AI assistant could read a photograph of a bill and fill in the comparison sheet, with the technician checking the extracted data. This is an option to assess within your business, not a solution described in the CNA survey. Its role would be to help gather the information; the estimate of costs after the work would still need to be prepared and checked. To learn more about how we approach these topics, see our dedicated page: https://www.gitogi.com/en/servizi/integrazione-ai/

Price remains a real barrier. In the part of the survey aimed at businesses considering electrifying their processes, upfront investment costs are the most frequently cited obstacle: 53%, or 44 out of 83 companies, mention them. These respondents are businesses, rather than households facing a boiler replacement. Even with a clear comparison of running costs, the upfront investment still has to be funded.

The survey does not test whether showing customers the numbers helps you sell more. A comparison based on their bills does, however, give them the information to assess another aspect alongside the cost of the work: what do they spend today, and what might they spend afterwards? With that comparison, the extra page in your quote can make the conversation more useful.

CNA highlights the role of installers’ skills in the quality of the work and in customer trust. That expertise includes the ability to design, integrate and manage systems. Explaining a home’s energy use and the assumptions behind your proposal is a practical way to put those skills to work for the person making the decision.

Getting started in a business with around ten technicians

To find out whether this page is useful to your business, you can follow four steps through the quoting process.

First, review your most recent heat pump quotes that customers turned down. For each one, check whether you showed what the customer was spending with their boiler and what they might spend after the work. If the comparison is missing, you have found information to add to your proposal. That alone does not explain why they declined, but it tells you what information they had when deciding.

Second, try doing it manually. For your next quote, ask the customer for the past year’s bills and prepare the comparison in a spreadsheet, setting out the assumptions behind your estimate. As you do it, note how long it takes and which information you need to retrieve. You will then have a concrete example to work with, based on the data and difficulties you encounter in your own work.

Third, add a field to your site survey form for the space available for maintenance and repairs, together with a photo of the proposed location for the outdoor unit. Whoever prepares the quote will then have the information collected on site, without having to piece it together later.

The fourth step comes once you have confirmed that the comparison is useful. You can then identify the tasks that repeat and decide which to hand over to a tool: reading the bill, filling in the template or adding the data to the quote. Doing it manually first also makes clear which work you want to simplify and which checks need to stay with someone who knows the system.

How we work

At Gitogi, we help Italian maintenance businesses digitalise their work and use AI. We build bespoke software and integrate AI around the needs of the people doing the work. You can read about our approach on our page for maintenance and service businesses: https://www.gitogi.com/en/field-service/

We start with a month of your service work: job reports, invoices and contracts.

It is the same principle as the extra page in the quote: before asking the customer to decide, show them the numbers that relate to their situation and explain how you arrived at them.

If this sounds familiar, write to us and tell us how you work. We’ll start with a month of your service work.