Service Agreements, Installed Base & Recurring Revenue
A continuous system that converts the existing installed base onto service agreements, delivers what those agreements promise, triages support requests with system context, and renews before expiry.
- Tier
- Flagship
- Build order
- 6th of 7 for smart home and AV
- Shape of it
- 10 steps, 1 stop rule
- At launch
- Built against your stages, then proven before it runs alone
The problem this solves
Two-thirds of CEDIA members offer service agreements. Far fewer have converted their installed base onto one, and the reasons are specific:
The offer is made verbally at handover, if at all, and never again.
Existing clients from before the agreement existed were never approached.
The agreement renews but the promised proactive visit never happens, so the client cannot see what they paid for.
A card declines and nobody works the failed-payment queue.
Support requests arrive as text messages to the owner's personal phone, so there is no record, no triage, no SLA and no evidence of value delivered.
A client on no agreement gets the same emergency response as a client paying for priority, which teaches everyone that the agreement is meaningless.
Remote monitoring is installed and nobody watches it, so the proactive service the agreement promises is reactive in practice.
And beneath all of it: an integrator's installed base is the most valuable asset they own and the least systematically worked. Every one of those homes has ageing equipment, expired warranties and systems that predate the current platform generation.
How it works, step by step
Every wait, threshold and branch below is a value we set with you during the build, against your stages and your language. None of it is a default we impose.
- What starts it
- A stop rule, so nothing closes itself
Step 1Trigger
The installed base is reconciled into one list with what is installed, when, what platform generation, warranty status and agreement status.
Step 2
Every client carries a status: on agreement, expired, never offered, declined, failed payment, and on agreement but unfulfilled. That last category is the one most firms cannot see and it predicts every cancellation.
Step 3
Support requests are captured on a real channel with the system context attached, so the person answering can see what is installed before they ask.
Step 4
Triage runs against an agreed ladder. Agreement holders get the priority they are paying for, visibly.
Step 5
Remote monitoring alerts become tickets with an owner rather than emails nobody reads.
Step 6
Proactive visits promised by the agreement are scheduled before the period starts, not when somebody remembers.
Step 7
Renewal contact begins sixty to ninety days before expiry and leads with what the client received this year.
Step 8
Failed payments trigger immediately to a named person with the specific card problem stated.
Step 9
The un-agreemented installed base is worked with a reason drawn from the record: equipment age, an expired manufacturer warranty, a platform generation now unsupported, or a system that has needed three call-outs.
Step 10Stop rule
Anyone offered and declined twice is rested rather than pursued.
How it gets built
Built inside what you already run
- D-Tools
- iPoint
- or whatever your office already runs on
Nothing to log into and nothing to license. If a system needs a record your platform does not hold, we add the field to your platform rather than starting a second one beside it.
This is the actual build order, in the phases its own steps fall into. It runs in supervised mode first, with you approving what goes out, until you are happy with the tone.
- 1
Build
Reconcile the installed base first. This will take longer than anyone expects and it is the first month of value on its own.
Built inside the software you already run, against your stages and your language.
- 2
Build
Build the status model including on-agreement-but-unfulfilled.
- 3
Build
Move support off the owner's personal phone onto a real channel. Expect resistance, and expect the owner to be the hardest person to move.
- 4
Build
Build triage with the service lead, and make the agreement-holder priority visible.
- 5
Build
Connect remote monitoring alerts to ticket creation with an owner.
- 6
Build
Schedule proactive visits at the start of the agreement period.
- 7
Build
Build the renewal sequence around what was delivered.
- 8
Build
Build the failed-payment queue with a named daily owner.
- 9
Agree
Write the reactivation reasons from equipment and service history, and have the owner approve the ones they consider honest.
The thresholds, the wording and the names are yours. We write them down with you and get the consequential ones signed off.
What changes after it goes live
How it runs today
Two-thirds of CEDIA members offer service agreements. Far fewer have converted their installed base onto one, and the reasons are specific:
After this one is live
The installed base becomes a list rather than a memory. Support stops arriving on the owner's personal phone at nine at night. Agreement holders can feel what they are paying for, which is what makes renewal a formality. And the ageing systems in that installed base become a pipeline rather than a surprise call-out.
How to measure whether it worked
Your arithmeticRun with your numbers, not ours
Four numbers the business already has: the share of the installed base on an agreement, the renewal rate, the share of active agreements whose proactive visit was not delivered, and the value of support hours delivered free to clients not on an agreement. The last one is usually the largest and is almost never measured.
We agree the baseline before anything is built, and we do not take credit for things that were going to happen anyway. There is no figure on this page claiming what we have produced for somebody else, because there is no verified figure to publish.
What we will not do
This is from the same delivery document as everything above it. It is on the page because a supplier who has not thought about it will not tell you, and you would find out later.
This trade does not carry the healthcare regulation of the med spa and dental playbooks, but it carries a different and equally serious exposure.
Client privacy is the primary risk. These systems are installed in the homes of wealthy and often deliberately private people. Every system here touches data that must never leave the business:
- Never expose a client address, a floor plan, a rack elevation, a network diagram, credentials, camera locations or a security configuration in a demonstration, a case study, a proposal template or a marketing asset.
- Every demonstration uses synthetic data. No real project, no real address, no real client name, even with permission, because a permission granted once travels further than anyone intends.
- Credentials handed over at completion go through a secure mechanism, not an email body.
- Remote access and monitoring integrations are a security surface. Any automation touching them needs the same review an integrator would apply to a client's network.
United States messaging rules still apply. Automated SMS to clients and prospects sits inside the TCPA and inside carrier A2P 10DLC registration:
- Classify every system as service or marketing before it sends. An appointment confirmation and a seasonal upgrade offer are different things under different consent standards.
- Record consent per number with date, source, wording and scope.
- Quiet hours 8am to 9pm in the recipient's local time.
- Honour STOP and free-text opt-outs immediately, cancel queued messages, and propagate suppression across every sending system.
- Route replies to a monitored human queue. A reply saying the system is down is not a marketing response.
Trade partner relationships are commercially sensitive. Builders, architects and designers refer work on the strength of trust. Any automation that contacts a homeowner in a way that cuts across the partner's relationship with their own client will cost referrals. Every system that touches a trade-referred project needs the partner's role defined before it sends anything.
Nothing in this document is legal advice. State privacy and telemarketing law, carrier policy and contractual obligations to manufacturers and trade partners can each add requirements. Every template stating a commercial term requires review by the company's own counsel before it goes live.
Nothing here is legal advice. Rules in this area have moved more than once recently, and every template that states a commercial term or a guarantee goes to your own counsel before it goes live.
Seven systems forsmart home and AV.
We build one at a time and prove it moved before starting the next. The tiers are the dependency order, not a price list.
Tier 1Foundational
Nothing arrives late or unowned. These come first because everything above them assumes they are true.
Tier 2Growth
The recoverable money. These work the pools the foundational systems have made visible for the first time.
Tier 3Flagship
One connected system end to end, plus what the owner reads on a Monday. Only once the pieces are proven individually.
- 5The Complete Project SystemThe flagship, once the pieces are proven individually.
- 6Service Agreements, Installed Base & Recurring Revenueyou are hereCompounds everything above, and depends on the installed base data that System 5 starts producing properly.
- 7The Owner's Morning BriefOnly meaningful once there are systems to report on.
The tiers are the dependency order for smart home and AV, not a price list. Most firms do not start at the first one, because the order is a default and the call is where it gets changed.
A note on sequencing this trade
Do not build all seven at once.
Each stage is proven against its agreed measure before the next begins.
One sequencing note specific to this trade. System 3's existing backlog of open proposals should be worked by hand in week one, before any of it is automated. At project values of ten to a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, one recovered proposal usually pays for the entire engagement, and working it manually is what tells you what the five branches should actually say.
Back to the smart home and AV overview for the stage map and where these fit.
Is this the oneyou need first?
Often it is not. On the call we look at what is actually costing you most right now, which is frequently a different system from the one that brought you to this page. If there is nothing worth building yet, we will say so.