Five key points why customer service absolutely matters
Why roofers are walking away from jobs
It drives me crazy when I hear that roofers are walking away from jobs. Sometimes entire teams are walking away from jobs. I want to talk about customer service in the roofing industry and why it matters the most. I am going to share with you five key points why customer service absolutely matters and why it is important to take those tough jobs.
When your sales guy tells you, this customer will be a difficult customer, maybe your competition doesn't want the job, and so you decide that you don't want to deal with it. Well forget about it, that attitude must go. I will explain why it is to your benefit to take on the challenging jobs that nobody else wants and why you should stop walking away from jobs because they're too hard.
Just go online and you’ll see comments from roofers saying things like okay Town Square job is too small for me or I only sell jobs that are forty to fifty thousand plus. The same reason a lot of business owners don't want to do repairs, because they think repairs are not profitable or repairs are a lot of headaches.
What is happening, is that roofers, instead of making money by changing their business model, they get egos and only go to jobs when the customer has a lot of money on the table. I believe they're crippling their business. If you read on you will discover my five critical points pertaining to the how and why customer service is so important. Not only in the roofing industry, but any industry. From understanding that hard jobs will improve your business in the long run to dealing with making better content to market your business with.
1. Serve Every Customer
Point number one, I understand that some clients are very hard to please. But remember without the customers you don't have your business. Even if they're hard to please, stuff happens in the roofing business, deal with it. I take jobs that nobody else wants why because it's all about customer service.
Sometimes you will have to deal with a client who is totally unreasonable. I get it. I don't want you to think that I take every single job out there, I don't, I have had to walk away or turn down work. As a matter of fact, just last week for first time this year I turned down the job because the customer was so unreasonable, he wanted us to take a job without paying us a down payment.
I just asked him would you go to Home Depot and ask them to bring materials to you and not to pay them upon delivery. You wouldn't ask a big-box store to do that, why are you asking me to do that. He would not even agree to give us a down payment on delivery of materials. It was such a sketchy guy and he had a horrible attitude.
So, I don’t want you to think that I don’t turn down jobs because sometimes you just cannot work for someone. Understandably, your price is your price. Don't negotiate your price. At the same time be reasonable. I still believe that you should take on the hard jobs and that brings me to my next point.
2. Hard Jobs Make You A Better Roofer
Point number two, you learn faster and get better quicker when you do the hard jobs. You become a true professional, you become a real expert in your field when you take jobs nobody else wants. People also going to be talking about you and word of mouth will start to spread.
Other roofers will know that you took the hard job, they will know that three other roofers did not want to take that job because one of them was that roofer. They didn't want to do it because it was too small for them.
All of this is just ammunition for domination. It gives you a huge advantage over your competition when you do the hard jobs. You become better, your team becomes better, you learn to please those tough customers. You will become a much better roofer. You will become a much better company. You will become the expert in your field.
3. Your Reputation Will Improve
Point number three, you will build a solid reputation within the community. Those type A personalities are not only hard to please but once you please them, they're going to be talking about you. Those are the type of people who will take the time to write reviews about you, who will spread the word to their friends.
I know, I've taken a lot of those hard jobs. In the end, people always tell me I know it wasn’t easy, I know your employees struggled, I know you guys had this big challenge, but you did what you told me you were going to do. That makes a big impression on someone and you never know when they might repay the favor by talking about you to someone else who needs roofing help.
Now I understand that you're probably not going to make a lot of money on the hard job because it took double the time that you estimated.
But you know what, people will go and write you a glowing review. Tell all their friends about your service, and yes it was hard to please them. That said, now you can be proud because you did earn your reputation. You are now the guy who takes hard jobs.
Your reputation will go ahead of you and you can trust that. You can feel comfortable about that solid reputation bringing you more business.
4. Create Better Content
Point number four, hard jobs are your perfect opportunity to create original content. When you have a hard job and maybe it's an insurance claim that everybody's been denying but you stuck to it and made it happen. You fought for your customer for two years to get the job done and you did it.
Now you can turn that hard work into inspiration for others by making it a great story, you can write a blog about it or do a video about the project. Show the world hey I was here, and I did this. It was not easy, but we fixed it, check it out.
Keep in mind that we are a commodity business. Honestly, it's boring content to publish pictures or selfies of us on roofs that you think look great. Its just a bunch of dudes and a new roof no big deal, it's the same stuff repeatedly.
But if you have some custom work you can show off that will make you stand out from the competition. Like the work you did for a hard client, perhaps talk about a hard insurance claim you pulled off, a hard repair job you took on, or maybe a tricky house design you accomplished.
All of those are opportunities for great content on social media or a video for your YouTube channel for your website or something interesting to write a blog about. People like to read and hear stories about the hardest jobs out there. Roofing is not an easy job and when you take the biggest hardest jobs make sure you create the content about the experience. Make sure you spread the word that hey we do this kind of work we're not afraid. Even if it's a small job we're still taking them.
I brag about my repairs all the time. When people call us and say can you do repairs, I tell them I absolutely love repairs. By the way they don't have to be cheap. They don't have to be free. You can charge a lot of money for repairs. But like I said, make sure you create amazing content when you solve those problems for your customers.
5. It's All About the Customer
Point number five, and the last reason why I highly recommend you take on your hardest customers is because in the roofing business it's all about the customers. It's not about how ambitious you think you are or about how much money you think you should be making, it’s about the customer being number one.
I see a lot of cases, especially early on in the roofing business, where people make the mistake of putting their ego ahead of the customer. Talking about how much money they are going to make. Talking about how this is the way we are going to do things, my way. Sometimes they get called to an expensive house and they see a person with money and the only thing they think of is dollar signs. They think I'm going to make a big sale right now.
I’m sorry but this is not how it works. Your number one job is to please your customers. When I see big house, I don't care how much money they have. I don't care if they're millionaires my job is to provide a service, the best service in the industry. My job is to be professional, my job is to be competitive, my job is to fix their problems, to be a great service at a great value to them.
I know when I do all those things, I will be rewarded with fair market compensation. I will be rewarded with a positive review, with a bigger network, with all those great things that come from a job well done.
But, if I come in and it's all about me and my ego and I just think about how much money I should be making, forget about it, you will not make it in this business. It is way to competitive for that kind of ego attitude. You must make one customer happy every single time. It's all about customer service. Leave your ego at the door.
It doesn't matter if they're picky, if they get your hackles up, if they're hard to deal with. I don't believe in walking away from the job because it is a hard client.
Understandably, your price is your price. Don't negotiate your price. At the same time be reasonable. You will be rewarded at the end of the day with a great reputation. People who walk away from jobs have a poor closing rate and their reputation as well as their reviews suffer. So always put the customer first and you will be rewarded in the end.
Those are my five points about why customer service matters. I would like to hear from you in the comments below. How many jobs do you pass on, how many hard jobs, hard clients do you say no to? Do you do almost every job, every estimate you get? What's your closing rate?
I would like to hear from you in the comments below. I would like to hear what you guys are dealing with on a regular basis. Let me know what you think. If you agree or if you don't agree, comment below.
Also, if you would like to learn more about this topic as well as many other important topics in the roofing business sign up for one of my classes and get personalized answers to all your roofing business questions. Until next time thanks for reading.
