Contractor Marketing Training: People Work With People, Not With Companies
You have invested time and money into building up your company with contractor marketing, creating a website, crafting social media content, and spending cash on paid advertising; that will help your first customers find you. While that is vitally important, at the end of the day, homeowners choose the contractors and home service providers they work with because of the people that make up the company.
The majority of homeowners aren’t loyal to a specific company or brand anymore. What sways a customer is the individual experience that they have.
And we’re not talking about years of on-the-job experience here.
We’re talking about how much they enjoy the human interaction of working with someone - that’s what makes return customers and creates customer loyalty that drives referral generation.
How can you show off your people and highlight the best drivers of growth and loyalty for your business?
Customer Service Training Is Contractor Marketing Training
Home service businesses spend a lot of time and effort on skills training, which is obviously important to getting a job done properly. But customer service training tends to fall by the wayside.
The best techs in the world can push your company’s growth only so far. But techs that can do a good job while also connecting with your customers and actively building relationships will do more to build your business.
Customer service training is a vital component of your contractor marketing efforts. Work with your employees to work on your customer etiquette and general customer service skills to best connect with your customers.
Embrace Personality In Your Outbound Marketing
Your marketing materials should encapsulate the attitude and unique personality of your team members. Pictures of your staff at work and at play can inject a little personality into your marketing presence.
That can include personalizing your email marketing efforts with an “Owner’s Corner” type section where you can customize a greeting to your customer base. Taking a group picture of your crew with their work attire in front of your work vehicle fleet can be great social media and website banner content.
Creating A Sense Of Pride With Your Employees
When a work vehicle and employee arrive on site, they immediately start to represent your business. With a good employee, you can also assist in cultivating a sense of pride of themselves and in their work. That doesn’t happen easily, nor should it.
To start, you can’t necessarily anticipate that every single employee will have the same dedication and sense of pride in their work as an owner or manager would. Some employees may view work as more of a clock-in, clock-out experience - collecting the paycheck and calling it a day.
Work with your employees and give them the rewards and opportunities that help to cultivate and instill your staff’s sense of pride. Recognition of staff contributions and abilities, along with the appropriate financial incentives, can help to drive employees to improve their performance.
When your employees are more aware of the impact of their attitude and work as a reflection of the company and of themselves personally, they will deliver a better work product and strive for continuous success.
Marketing And Promoting For Yourself And Your Employees
While it’s obvious that your business name needs to be spread to help improve your online marketing footprint, a bit of marketing and promoting for your employees can help to humanize your business and further develop that sense of pride amongst your team.
Getting online reviews for your contractor business is a great example of how you can accomplish both at the same time. Gamify your review processes to make it interesting to your staff.
Online reviews, like on your Google Business Profiles, obviously benefit your local optimization efforts. But you can make it a rewarding experience for your employees, too. Have a monthly or quarterly competition amongst your staff for who can drive the most reviews that mention an employee’s name - with a nominal prize and some recognition for the winner.
You could have tiered prizes (3x reviews earn you a gift card, 10x reviews earn you a bonus PTO day, etc.) along with your 1st place prize and recognition. That way, your employees can all earn some smaller benefits if you have a single employee killing it in reviews.
For a relatively low cost, you can greatly improve your review count while instilling a further sense of pride in employee work. That means improving your local optimization while deepening your customer relationships and your employee relationships with your organization.
Contractor marketing isn’t just websites and print materials.
Customer service - as developed by specific training efforts, deepening employee relationships, and collaborative marketing efforts - creates those relationships and bonds that will keep customers coming back and employees satisfied.
Take active steps to train your employees and invest in those staff relationships to grow your business, inside and out.
About Chris Lonergan
Chris Lonergan has over 12 years of contractor marketing experience with Footbridge Media. With a background in web design, print design, content creation, and online marketing, Chris is focused on providing quality marketing and business solutions in the construction and service industries - helping small business owners to more efficiently manage their companies and grow their operations.
Chris Lonergan has previously contributed to and/or been featured in PM Magazine (Plumbing & Mechanical | Contractors x Engineers), theNEWS (ACHR - Air Conditioning | Heating | Refrigeration), Service Roundtable's blog, inPAINT Magazine, the SMB Marketing Agency Show, and the Green Industry Podcast. Chris is also a past SGI/CertainPath breakout session presenter.
