Right now the situation is such that all the businesses have been facing the heat of COVID-19. Home service businesses too have been impacted quite gravely by the pandemic. Some of the services in this industry fall under the essential services so they are still running but the call volume has gone down quite a bit and the cancellation rate too has spiked a little in some zones.
In such situations, any Home service business need to focus on two major aspects
- Following all the safety guidelines, rules and regulations set up by the government to protect the customers and your team members.
- Maintaining the business cash flow and trying to build a future pipeline rather than pulling back the business.
Time to make changes in the pricing structure.
Getting the cash flow is what keeps any kind of business going and also the team members motivated to put in more effort.
Given the present scenario, cutting down on the pricing just enough to make a bare minimum profit seems right. For some businesses, it would even be good enough to set the pricing at an amount where you don’t make a profit and neither do you run into a loss.
The home service businesses which fall under non-essential and are incomplete lockdown can actually offer discounts to the customers who are booking in advance for any service calls.
Applying this would be the right thing to do as this would be a way how you can retain clients. If you are using a CRM ( customer relationship management ) platform it would make it all the more easier for you to get reports on your list of customers who make frequent service calls and that would be a great data insight as that would give a precise idea on who you need to reach out to. Smartserv is a great CRM platform which help you streamline your business operations and make scheduling, dispatching, creating invoices a lot easier. To know more click on this. It also provides multiple customized reports which will help you understand your customer well.
Follow up your past customers and also reach out to new prospects.
Make use of every social media platform where your customers are active and also run email campaigns to reach out to people so that you can get yourself completely booked for the coming weeks because if you are not doing it then your competitor out there might be grabbing this opportunity. Try to get your hands filled up with some service jobs ready to be done as soon as the lockdown is over.
Note – If your business falls under essential services and partial lockdown is in place, you can pitch in a discounted service offer to your existing customers, this is how you could get the cash flow and at the same time build a strong relationship as you are willing to provide services in the tough conditions. They will realize you want to serve the community even during the tough phase.
Start contacting customers with maintenance contracts
Most businesses are experiencing a decrease in repair/installation service calls and some are completely down. These businesses can check on their list of customers who fall under the maintenance contract list, so now is the time to make the phone calls and ask them if they would be needing the services and offer discounts to book more appointments.
Communicate more with the customers
As the concerns about the covid19 have increased, some businesses are still in shock and are not able to understand how to react and communicate with their customers
Create a plan or a strategy on how you want to position your business right now, it needs to be clear and you must keep the safety and health of the customers and team members at top priority while planning all this out.
- Offer contactless appointments with virtual quotes and payments
- It would be better to put their services on hold rather than cancel
- Look for alternative services to offer, such as deliveries, or providing remote services via video call. SmartServ has come up with Smartview which will make remote services feasible.
Smartview
1. Video Conferencing – The customer will be able to join the video conferencing through a link sent by the dispatcher and will be able to show the equipment with their mobile phone camera.
2. Notes – These notes will consist of all the media and can be shared with the technicians so that they have a proper idea about the product and the problem.
3. Screen Freezing – The customer/dispatcher will be able to freeze the screen.
4. Telestrations – After freezing the screen the user will be able to mark the particular part of the equipment which has the issue.
5.Screenshot – Customer can click the button for screenshot and the screenshot will automatically be downloaded
6. Video call logs – The whole video call with audio, notes, screenshots will be saved under a folder with the meeting name. Users can rename the title of the video call history anytime according to his/her reference.
