“Fly bite me.”
That’s what my two-year-old sobbed after being attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets in my yard. Like most two-year-old boys, he was playing with a stick in the yard, beating it against the ground. Unfortunately, buried in that ground was a yellow jacket nest. They didn’t like the noise he was making. He and my wife were each stung multiple times.
Like any good father and husband, I raised a fist to the sky and swore revenge against yellow jackets. I immediately went to the store and grabbed some maximum strength foaming hornet killer and blasted their underground home. Revenge was mine, and it was sweet.
Or so I thought. A week later, I happened to be walking by a first floor window on the side of my house, absent-mindedly thinking about the rain barrel I was going to check. Next thing I knew, I’m amongst about 5 yellow jackets. I slowly backed away and luckily wasn’t stung.
Unfortunately, as I observed from a safe distance, the nest was likely underneath my siding. I didn’t feel comfortable spraying into the cavity. Mainly because I’m a giant chicken; the window is about three feet from a fence, meaning my only escape route was a narrow, 12 foot run over uneven rocks. I shuddered thinking about what would happen if I slipped and fell. I decided it was time to call in the professionals.
In the process, I learned about what makes a great field service sales process:
Get Listed Where Your Customers Shop
One of the first things I did when I decided to call in a pest control expert was hop on Angie’s List to find a pest control business to call. My goal was to find highly rated (more on that later), reputable folks and see how much they cost.
Angie’s List isn’t always the best resource because I understand that in many cases, it’s pay to play, so it’s not necessarily rating the best contractors. But if I want to find a long list of contractors, it’s where I start.
So make sure you’re listed somewhere where your customers shop. For many field service businesses, that is Angie’s List. But for others, it may be somewhere else. Directories, trade associations, Houzz. These are all places people may go to find contractors.
Have Many Good Customer Reviews
Since my son’s health was at stake, I wanted a good, reputable contractor. So not only did I peruse Angie’s List reviews, but I also did a Google search to read Yelp and Google reviews. Those that had bad reviews were eliminated.
So make sure your business has a number of good reviews. The more, the better.
Want advice on how to get them? Ask your best customers for them. HindSite’s service business marketing add-on, HindSite Connect Pro, can help you do that. After every service is completed, you can automate HindSite Connect Pro so an email is sent asking your customer to review your service. Then, if they rate you highly, you can automatically send an email asking them to rate you on popular review sites. It’s an automated, easy way to generate more reviews from the customers who love your work.
Invest in Your Website - Both Content and Features
The next thing I did was review the company websites. I’m a marketer, so I may have looked at them a little more closely than the average Joe, but that website was really my first impression of their brand. I did actually eliminate a couple from my call list because they were still rocking a website straight out of the 1990s.
It’s not hard to get a professional website these days, so those that don’t have one leave a negative impression.
Having a great website is about more than just the look, though. It’s also about the content. Tell your business’ story on your website. I was intrigued by one that talked about being employee owned. That seemed unique and they became one of my finalists.
But also include things like your price, your guarantee and even what you do. Few of the pest control websites I looked at talked about how they sent yellow jackets to purgatory. Do they use a spray? An insecticide? Do they seal up the opening? Remove the nest? What exactly do they do? The more information you deliver, the more likely you are to be seen as reputable.
Finally, make it easy for potential customers to contact you. Obviously, you need to make phone numbers and email addresses and contact forms ready to find. But think bigger. One pest control company I looked at had live chat. When I tried it, it wasn't really more than someone asking for my contact info and saying someone would call me. Though the execution was lacking, the idea is a good one.
Reply Quickly
My next step was to complete a couple online request forms. My advice: If you have online request forms, respond quickly.
I was especially impressed by one contractor who sent an auto responder telling me he'd be in touch and then explained their process for eradicating pests. Even better, they responded within 15 minutes, the fastest of any contractor. The reliability of your sales process is a good indicator of your service process.
Most contractors replied to my request within one day, though one national chain still hasn't replied five days later. Needless to say, they were eliminated from my list. If you're going to create a contract form for your website (and you should), make sure you respond quickly.
Answer the Phone
After receiving replies from four contractors, I eliminated one based on price. They were nearly twice as much as other contractors and did nothing to sell me on why I should pay more for them. I didn't view the work as a commodity, but charging twice as much as the competition is going to get you eliminated in many cases.
So I called the remaining three contractors. I admit it was late in the day (around 4:30), but only one answered the phone. Not only did they answer the phone, but they told me about their process, their guarantee (more on that later), how long to expect it to take to kill all those dastardly yellow jackets, and what to do after they’ve all died. I was impressed with her knowledge, and scheduled the job immediately.
That’s right, I scheduled the job immediately, mainly because they answered the phone and could succinctly say what they do. Once I’d narrowed the list, I didn’t see much differentiation - not enough to warrant talking to every contractor. So I went with the first one that I talked to. So answer your phone.
Guarantee Your Work
When I was trying to differentiate between vendors, I couldn’t really think of anything that would make me spend more on a vendor, outside of a guarantee. If someone would come out and treat my siding should the yellow jackets return two months later, I could conceivably pay more. So a guarantee was one of my purchasing criteria.
So have a guarantee. Even better, analyze your competitors and see what kind of guarantees they offer and whether you can match or better them. Then, once you have a guarantee in place, analyze how much it costs. If you find you do very little warranty work, then you may want to improve your guarantee. It’s definitely a selling point.
Use Software
Ok, ok, so this one is self-serving. The pest control company comes tomorrow, so I don’t know if they’re using software. I’m hoping they do. Because field service software can significantly improve your business. It can help you schedule and route faster, send information electronically to and from the field easier, and invoice much faster.
The first six tips will help you sell a customer the first time. But if you want them to keep coming back to you year after year, you need to deliver great customer service. Software can help you do that, in addition to saving you administrative time managing your business.
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