Amazon changed buying for everyone. Though many of us find ourselves in a love/hate relationship with the giant, business owners have to admit it: ease is now a baseline customer expectation. How can you make it easier for potential customers to do business with your construction company?
Step One: Answer The Phone
It’s so basic, yet so often neglected: respond to phone calls, and return messages promptly. Nick Howell from T&N Asphalt services points out that just this act alone is highly likely to result in more customers for your business:
Answer calls promptly and respond to them in a timely manner. This is the cornerstone of attracting more work. If you are responsive, you are almost always ahead of your competition. I can’t even begin to count the number of times a caller has expressed frustration that other contractors never even returned their call. And most of those people are now our clients. Maintain the initial level of responsiveness by promptly providing a quote — not weeks later but days later (or even hours later if possible).
Once you are in conversation with a potential customer, continue to demonstrate your professionalism and interest in responding to their needs. Specifically, Howell offers these pointers for making it easy for customers to do business with you:
- Ensure that you have a comprehensive understanding of what you are selling. The people who reach out for a quote want and need to know more than the price of the job. They want to know their options, the differences among the options, what kind of material you’ll be using and more….
- Make scheduling a breeze. Avoid over-scheduling and strive to complete projects within a reasonable timeframe. Don’t overpromise that you can do the job sooner than you can. Your client will make plans based on the schedule you provide, and an accurate schedule makes it easier for them….
- Promptly invoice clients after completion and be open to various payment methods. Many contractors delay invoicing for months and restrict payment options – but cash flow is essential in this business so why not make it as easy and convenient as possible to get that cash flowing to you?
Take another lesson from Amazon: think about how easy returns are, and apply that to your approach to complaints. Let’s face it, most clients don’t want to have to reach out about problems, and most contractors don’t want to hear about what’s going wrong. But the sooner, the better, so take the call, respond to concerns and work into solutions to keep everyone moving forward.
Up for A Bigger Project?
When your construction company is ready to go after even bigger clients and opportunities, you’ll need to add a few more communication tools to your playbook. For example, to avoid being forgotten after an introductory conversation, execute follow-up efforts as soon as possible. In fact, best practice before any meeting ends is asking: “What are our next steps? And “May I send you a short overview of what we discussed today?” In addition to responsiveness, clarity, specificity and brevity are essential to presenting yourself as ready for the big league. Other marketing pointers to keep in mind when aiming to win larger projects include:
Send a brief email request for a meeting introducing yourself and the company you represent. List the highest value benefit of what you want to present…. Ask for a short 30-minute meeting…. If you get no response, send another shorter message directly over your first note….
Have a great…presentation with no more than five slides. Make it colorful, with not too much text….Begin by thanking the public officials for their excellent work. Spend no more than four minutes introducing the company….Be specific and selective about what you present and explain that you’ll follow up with a brief one-pager….Move quickly to the benefits you can offer and how your offering works. Plan for this part of your presentation to last no longer than 15 minutes and encourage questions.
Taking It to The Next Level
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- surety line of credit—in writing.
- private digital dashboard.
- daily snapshot of single and aggregate limits
- ability to update work on hand
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Founded in 1930, Colonial Surety Company is a leading direct seller and writer of surety bonds and insurance products across the USA. Colonial is rated “A Excellent” by A.M. Best Company and U.S. Treasury listed. Let’s connect today: Colonial Surety.