Are your customers telling you the whole truth?
For many residential construction companies, winter weather means less business. On one hand, that gives you well-deserved time to relax, spend time with your family, and focus on your hobbies. On the other hand, it can also mean a temporary loss of income, which can be scary.
Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to set yourself up for a successful opening season in 2020. From seeking customer feedback to investing in new tools, here are a few tips you should consider.
Seek Customer Feedback
Whether you provide a product or service, building up customer reviews can help you enter the market with greater success for the next year. According to Forbes, 90% of customers read reviews about small businesses before making a purchasing decision. What do your reviews say about you? Do you have any at all? Here are some tips for securing more reviews safely and ethically:
- Decide beforehand on a realistic goal for the number of reviews your business may need.
- Engage your customers and encourage them to leave reviews of your product or service.
- Maintain a consistent campaign to attract new and updated reviews over time.
- Follow up a declaration of a positive experience from a customer with a request for a review.
- Consider rules for compliance on different platforms.
Stay active on social media
Just because you may not actively be working on projects, there’s no reason to stay quiet. Posting regularly on social media will help you stay relevant and top-of-mind to prospective and prior customers.
Post photos or videos of your favorite projects, or ask your customers to share their own photos of your work and use a special hashtag to keep everything organized. Take it a step further and hold a little contest or giveaway for previous customers to show your appreciation for their business!
Analyze and act on data
During your busy season, you likely collected a lot of data about your customers – perhaps not even on purpose! Online reviews, social media followers, and accounting data are all gold mines for finding valuable information about your clients and your overall performance. Check for factors that hinder and help your business. Once you have identified these factors, make the necessary changes to support them.
Consider improvements if you notice a trend of certain complaints, but keep in mind that not all customers may feel the same way, even if the issue seems widespread. Consider offering alternatives instead of making any dramatic changes that may alienate clients who are already happy with the way you do business.
Introduce better technology
If your business prefers to keep things old-fashioned(i.e. accepting cash or checks only), then you may find yourself less appealing to the next wave of homeowners: Millenials and eventually, Gen Z.
Both generations rely heavily on technology and expect the businesses they’re working with to keep up with the never-ending advancements and changes. Do some research to find out what easy, online payment methods you should consider, or what kinds of improvements you can make to your website.
Find ways to go green
Millennials are the most likely generation to spend money in alignment with their belief systems or causes they support. One such common cause is green living. For this and other reasons, green living is becoming more popular, making it a smart idea to embrace environmentally conscious materials, construction or design approaches. Examples include installing EnergyStar appliances that use less electricity and water, improving insulation levels to reduce energy bills, or even using recycled construction materials.
If you already make green choices for your business, share this. Whether your company specializes in small home construction, solar panel installation or high-efficiency windows, highlighting that dedication to eco-friendly alternatives may help to draw in customers with similar values.
Start off on the right foot
No company should make changes to its structure, brand, or offerings without first considering its customers. Failure to do so may lead to changes that alienate your customer base. This could cost you sales revenue and customer relationships. Some companies get the information they need by using market research and analyzing sales data.
At GuildQuality, we believe that a far more effective starting point is to ask the customers themselves. This is the only way to truly understand what affects customer satisfaction and sales. Start surveying your customers today to get the answers you need to build a better business for tomorrow. For more information, give our sales team a call.
