RESIDENTIAL CONTRACTOR REPEAT BUSINESS

Posted by John Able on December 3rd, 2019

For a residential contractor, repeat business is key to long term sales and success. All businesses, residential contractors included, need customers. Basically the customers are the business.

So why do many residential contractors tend to invest more time and resources on customer acquisition versus customer retention?   By comparison, it is NOT a wise investment on your part if your goal is to grow your contracting business and profits.

Residential Contractor Statistics

According a recent article in Forbes, the majority of potential customers give a business only one shot. Think about that, just one shot.

Residential contractor repeat business requires about 20% of the cost to retain and nurture versus attracting a new customer. Consequently, if you can increase your repeat business by 5%, this will increase your profits from 25-95%.

Just think about that. When you focus more on your existing customers, you will lower costs and increasing your business profits.

Here are some tips to increase your residential contractor repeat business and see more money in your bank account.

Start With The Basics

You need to get business in the first place, in order to get repeat business. Certainly sounds obvious, doesn’t it? So you need to be AVAILABLE to perspective and former customers, basically all the time.

Answer the telephone call and respond to your voice mail, email or social media inquires promptly.  Besides, if you aren’t available, these valuable sales contacts will go elsewhere. Finally, if you are too busy, get staff to support you.

Whatever marketing activities you might employ to develop your contractor business, your goal is to stimulate customer action, resulting in some type of contact. Consequently value the importance of these contacts.

Build Customer Trust and Loyalty

Trust and loyalty are the building blocks of a strong contractor customer base. Consequently they are essential for earning long-term repeat customers. Also, beyond residential contractor repeat business, 83% of customers say they would recommend a business they trust to others.

Customer trust and loyalty are earned. Basically, like any personal relationship, it starts by doing what you will say you will do.  Additionally, this means arriving at the scheduled appointment time, having the professional quote ready, delivering the project on time, with the quality expected by the customer.

Your repeat customers, who had a positive experience, expect the same level of consistency as their first time. Consequently focus on meeting their expectation of consistency and your customers will reward you with their loyalty and word of mouth reference to potential new customers.

Trust And Transparency

For your customers to trust you, you need to be deserving of their trust. Accordingly that means being honest and transparent about what they can expect from your company’s services.

Be as clear as possible about what you have to offer and provide clear project quotes to establish accurate customer expectations from the start. Because your customers do not want surprises, rather simply quality work, done on time, at a reasonable price.

Every customer should know exactly what to expect before signing your project contract and making a deposit payment.  Especially it is much more important to the long-term growth of your contractor business that all of your customers are satisfied with their experience versus generating as many sales as possible.

Remember, residential contractor repeat business is based on a highly satisfied customer base. Consequently, these customers, who have made an informed decision, will be appreciative and will know that they can trust you in the future.

Loyalty Retention Program

When you offer some type of incentives/rewards for repeat business, you give your customers a clear incentive to stick with your residential contractor business instead of switching to one of your competitors. When you offer a discount on the next remodeling project, a special invitation for a complementary home service, or a complementary gift for a new customer referral, your existing customers will remember your company and mention it to perspective customers.

You should extend the concept of your loyalty retention program to Activate Your Advocates. Especially you want to leverage your existing customers, by adding referral opportunities to increase your residential contractor brand.

Regardless of the exact loyalty retention program your offer, the goal is to make it more advantageous for your customers to continue working with you than to test out their other options. Consequently, the more your business relationship caters to their needs, the more effective you will be in getting residential contractor repeat business.

Conclusion – Residential Contractor Repeat Business

To increase your residential contractor repeat business is pretty basic. Indeed you simply need to be the type of residential contractor that customers want to work with.

What do you need to do?  Basically provide excellent quality and service, be punctual and complete your projects on time. Also, be transparent and honest, setting the proper expectations with your customers beforehand.

Home Improvement Helpers recommends that your the goal is to put your customers first and to make sure that they know they are your business’ top priority.  Basically, be the type of residential contractor that you would hire yourself.