Successful home service brands don’t see an appointment as “just another job.” They use each service call as an opportunity to connect, build relationships, establish long-term impact and educate. In other words, they’re excellent at providing a quality customer experience.
In this article, I want to examine the key role customer education plays in elite customer service and how it has helped some of the top-performing home service providers drive repeat business and generate referrals.
Teach and Inform From the First Point of Contact
Customer education is a powerful sales tool. An emphasis on education empowers your marketing team to be proactive with their communication. They don’t have to confine their activities to pushing sales gimmicks and promotions.
Customer education is a way to connect with potential customers based on shared pain points and struggles. A plumber in upstate New York, for instance, might focus content in the fall on frozen pipes and energy-efficient hot water tanks. This aligns with customer interests and answers questions they might have heading into a cold season.
Service-related education also allows you to set clear expectations in a potential customer’s mind. Information is an effective way to help customers understand what’s being done, why it matters and what to expect next.
For example, Axiom Pest Control has a “Learning Center” on its website that provides details on individual pests and answers FAQs. This helps inform potential customers about what they may be dealing with and what next steps to take. Giving customers information helps them feel empowered to make decisions confidently. It also is the first step in building trust and credibility between them and your company.
If you’re in home service, you want to treat that initial touchpoint and first contact as a way to immediately start educating and building trust.
Post-Service Communication and Follow-Up
Customer education continues after the job is done. Techs should be ready to bring a customer in to look at a completed job. They should explain what they did and demonstrate why it fixed a problem or improved a situation. They should be ready to answer questions with a smile that encourages trust.
This approach builds loyalty. And it leads to repeat customers, which everyone knows is much more valuable to long-term business than acquiring new ones. Benchmark research by Bain & Company found that as little as a 5% increase in retention rates can boost profits by between 25% and 95%.
Follow-up and customer education after the point of service are more than nice flourishes that get you a better review or rating. Use them to help your business build its bottom line.
Invest in Real-Time Customer Education
I think it’s easier to get people to see the value of pre-sale information and post-sale education than in the in between. After all, that’s when you’re doing the work, right?
The more I’ve seen the “We’re the professionals; just sit back and watch” approach, though, I’ve found it sacrifices long-term gains for short-term wins. Sure, it’s faster than interrupting work to answer questions. But it turns out there are deliberate and effective ways you can invest in customer education when a tech is on a worksite, too.
For instance, A1 Garage Door Service has spent the past few years scaling a garage door installation business. A huge part of finding success in a niche market has been technical professionalism. The company is always pushing “hire slow, fire fast” policies. It wants the best people in the best fits so it can train them to do the work and wow customers at the same time.
Once you have the best people in the right positions, you can confidently train them, and not just on how to do their job well. You can teach them the home service equivalent of a bedside manner. Field techs in any industry should be ready to answer questions, connect with customers and upsell when appropriate.
To put it simply, the best customer experiences come when your technicians are capable and well-rounded enough to double as salespeople and customer service reps, even when they’re about to get their hands dirty.
Using Customer Service to Succeed in the Trades
The trades demand more than technical skill. Technicians must be ready to communicate and educate on the job. They require people skills and strong scripts to help them build trust. They also need to be backed by informative marketing and confident dispatch teams.
When I step back and look at the best home service companies, I see brands built around a desire to come alongside customers, educate them and help them feel comfortable and confident. Those are the brands that stand out. They’re the ones that keep people coming back.
