One of the perks of being the Chief Content Officer at Finturf is that I can tap our sales team for knowledge anytime I want. That makes it a lot easier to pack expert advice into articles like this one.
This week, I reached out to them about how contractors can keep homeowners at ease during an emergency. Here is some of the best feedback I got from the pros.
When the customer has just had their HVAC go out or a major issue with their roof, they call you up. This gives you a golden opportunity to make a sale. The ball is all teed up, but you only have one swing.
How do you keep the homeowner calm and make a sale?
Here is what the sales team said:
Step one is normalizing home improvement financing. That’ll help a lot. Once they understand that this is how people typically handle an HVAC or roofing emergency, then financing doesn’t seem as strange.
Helping the customer understand that there might be money available through financing can alleviate one of the most stressful parts of the emergency. Keep in mind that a recent survey from the Federal Reserve showed that only 63% of adults can cover a $400 emergency expense with cash.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to normalize financing. Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies shows that homeowners use cash to pay for home service projects over 60% of the time. If it wasn’t an emergency, then chances are the customer would have saved up to pay for the project.
Step two is price conditioning. You don’t want to reach the end of the conversation and find the price is much higher than what the customer expected. If you start them out so they understand how normal the pricing is, you can avoid a sticker shock situation.
Show them that with financing, they’ll be paying the same monthly amount for their new HVAC or roof as what they already pay for their car. It’s how this works, and it’s all very normal.
The opposite of price conditioning is setting the bid too low. You never want to give low prices and then increase them through change orders. This ends with negative reviews, court cases, and customers being very upset, all of which can lead to companies going out of business.
Step three is to avoid overpromising on timeframes. These people may be hysterical, saying they need help immediately. But if you can’t start the job for a month, you shouldn’t say you can start in two weeks.
My main takeaway from this is that roofing and HVAC projects often differ from what the customer expects, especially in emergency situations. When they call up a contractor, they’ve likely already made false assumptions about price, timing, and payment method.
Your job is to walk them through all that so the price doesn’t feel too high, financing makes sense, and they understand it won’t get fixed overnight.
If the customer understands all of that after the first sixty seconds of the conversation, you will be in pretty good shape.
The steps above can help put the customer in the right mindset, but they might still be anxious about the emergency. Here are some tips on how to calm them down:
Again, it all goes back to normalizing the process with accurate information.
Introducing the topic of financing can be tricky. As I said earlier, the customer may not even have considered financing as an option. Here’s what the sales team said about how to bring up the topic during an emergency call:
I always ask the customer, “How do you plan on paying for this project? How were you planning on budgeting for this project? Were you thinking about financing?”
If they say “maybe,” you can offer third-party financing as a practical solution.
Nine out of 10 times, they will ask what kind of financing options you have. If I bring up financing, I can make it more affordable and win their business.
Leading with financing reduces the chances of cancellation. It locks them in a little bit if they’ve filled out a loan application. They’re more invested in the process.
It all ties back to one of the best practices I hear from the sales team repeatedly. Just be honest with the customer and give them the right expectations. You don’t want to leave a sour taste in their mouth by overpromising and underdelivering.
The last tip I got from the sales team was about what to avoid:
It’s best to never promise anything to the customer. The only thing that you can promise is the product you’re delivering, but you never give them an unrealistic timeframe. For a roofing job, you can say seven to 10 days, but you don’t know when the inspections will happen. You can give them a time range.
The customer should leave the call with real expectations and convincing solutions. That will start your relationship off on the right foot, making it easier to close the sale when you finally reach the kitchen table.
Thank you to the sales team for helping out with this blog. If you have any questions about this (or if you want to chime in with your own tips on how to take a sales call), please reach out to me at michael.n@finturf.com. I’d really like to hear from you.
