We love to feature blogs from our amazing partners. For this week's partner highlight blog we teamed up with Michael Madison, Marketing Coordinator at ServiceMonster.
The cleaning industry - residential and commercial - has boomed in the last few years. Job growth is expected to increase 6% in 2020 from 2014 levels, and revenues will likely reach nearly $50 billion this year.
But with great opportunity comes great risk.
The average cleaning company loses 55% of their customers due to poor service. Competition is fiercer than ever, and it doesn’t take much for a cleaning business to get up and running. All it takes is one bad job for your customer to take their money elsewhere.
So how do you stand apart from the competition? How can you get more jobs and more repeat customers?
Hatch and ServiceMonster analyzed what works - and doesn’t - across their cleaning customer base to give you the Top 4 Cleaning Industry Tips to Get More Jobs and Repeat Customers.
Put these tips to work and you’ll get results...fast.
Tip 1: Add personal and relevant details to your CRM
When you’re first working with a customer, put information in your CRM that can add that personal touch later on, like:
- Pet names - They’re a carpet’s worst nightmare.
- Allergies - The products you use matter.
- Number of Rooms - Makes your price quotes more transparent.
- Room Names - Some call it a living room, others call it a den.
- Referral Opportunities - Does landscaping need work? What about the roof? Build out your referral engine and be a trusted advisor to your customers at the same time.
The good news is CRMs like ServiceMonster make it easy for you to create these custom fields. Now you can develop deeper relationships with your customers over text, email, and phone as well as on-the-job, resulting in more repeat customers.
Tip 2: Incorporate text messaging
Emailing and calling worked well 10 years ago, but today your customers are less likely to pick up their phone (thanks, robocallers) or sift through their spam-filled inbox. You have to incorporate texting, too.
Hatch has found that cleaning companies see a 64% average response rate over text. Compare that to 4.5% over email and you see why layering in texting is helping reps crush their close rates.
Here’s a great example of how texting, emailing, and calling can work well together.
Notice how I:
- Texted the lead asking for a quick call
- Called the lead to get more details and schedule the estimate
- Texted the lead to confirm the estimate
- Emailed the estimate after the appointment
