Marketing seems to be the biggest struggle for many businesses in the field service industry. They know how to do the services, talk to customers, and send out a bill, but when it comes time to figure out the entire scheme of marketing, many fail. In fact, our Green Industry Benchmark Report indicated it was the biggest area in need of improvement for green industry businesses.
I was one of those business owners that struggled with the marketing side of my business. I owned an irrigation business and was really good at all aspects of irrigation service and installation. However, I lacked the skills to know how to grow my business through marketing.
Marketing is a process all its own. Just like your business has a process for scheduling a work order, a process for installing new systems, and a process for billing, you need a process for marketing. Without it, you will reach a plateau in your business and not be able to grow farther.
Irrigation software can help your business develop a process for marketing. This comes just in time to help you market for your blowouts since the summer season is coming to a close.
With irrigation software, you are able to collect and store all of the crucial information needed to market to your customers who will needi a blowout in the coming months. Information such as:
Contact Information
Contact information is a must. If you have no information, how will you get a hold of these customers? With the help of field service software, information can be collected one of two ways. First, the office person can add a new customer when they call in. Here they can collect their address, email and phone. All are great tools for marketing.
Secondly, the field techs can enter information from their mobile field device. This is great for two reasons. First, the tech can make any changes to the contact’s information right in the field. No need to transfer the data multiple times to get it into the system. It’s been found that a lot of information “slips through the cracks” when it has to be entered multiple times. This means you lose an email address or a mailing address when you are sending out flyers and special deals. Secondly, techs can add customers from the field. If a neighbor comes up and asks how much is so and so service, your tech has the opportunity to add this prospective customer to your system. This gives you one more lead to email when it comes time to market.
Having a complete list that you can quickly and easily email or mail to is a huge time saver when you’re feeling the pressure of having no time to market.
Customer History
Customer history is one of the best tools when it comes to marketing for your customers. Both the office and field benefit from it and can use it to make another sale. A customer’s history allows you to know which services a customer is using and which ones they are not, but could benefit from. It is also a great place to put any notes a tech feels is important. These could range from the customer asking if you push snow to the tech noticing the customer will be in a need of a new piece of equipment or part in the near future so your company should reach out to them and offer your services.
With the information of who is using your company for what, you are able to send out direct marketing campaigns targeting the services these customers are not using but could benefit from.
Contracts/Service Agreements
Irrigation software is also capable of producing contracts that you can send to customers. We have a customer that sendsa form asking which services his customers would like him to perform on their property the upcoming year. This is a great way to showcase the services you are able to provide, since sometimes customers think your business only does one or two things.
A contract is not as “salesy” as some other marketing approaches but it still gets the word out there that you do offer a variety of services and if a customer is pleased with one service you provide, chances are they will try out more of your services.
Sales Reports
An added bonus not all field service software provides, but HindSite Software does, are sales reports. These reports allow your sales person to see exactly where they stand with each potential customer. Whether they are not interested at this time, or they would like to be contacted come next spring for a start-up, your sales person can see all of this information in one report.
Marketing is a tough field. It takes some creativity and you have to have thick skin when one idea does not work like you hoped. Irrigation software is just an extra tool to help you market a little bit easier when it comes time for blowouts, startups, and everything in between.
Want more marketing tips? Check out our Mindful Marketing Worksheet today.