do you close the deal over the phone?

C

Carpet Dude

Guest
or at the least schedule for an inspection?

It's been said judgement about you is made through first impressions, appearance/behavior....but when you get the call from a first time potential customer is your speech and knowledge about their cleaning concerns, polished enough to either book the job or a least set up an inspection?

I find that a good number of my 1st time callers they have no knowledge of what to look for in a cleaner. Most have no glue were to begin to search other then phone book, web search or they saw your name number somewhere. They become impressed with your technical talk of fiber cleaning.

Do you fumble and learn from your speech mistakes?

Do you hold a phone script and read and follow it?

Or are you so well polished that the caller books with you and searches no more? (I had a caller book this morning, I was the 1st cleaner he called)
 

Scott

Member
Joined
Oct 7, 2006
Messages
1,720
We don't do residential inspections. We put a moratorium on them about 5 years ago and vowed to close over the phone. The only objection we get is from price shoppers (found via YP) who wouldn't use us even if we gave the best presentation/quote on the planet.

No script, but we ask the questions that most don't ask like - "are you looking for the best or cheapest?"

We don't close every single one but far more than we did (with much less hassle) than when we did do quotes.

As far as commercial goes, we still have a set of qualification questions for them before we go out. First and foremost we're specifically looking for the decision-maker.

Scott
 

GRHeacock

Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2006
Messages
1,406
Me- I want to see the job first before giving a price.

I never close a job over the phone for first time customers.

Too many variables, in my opinion, and I want to see what I am getting into. Been stung too many times where the person on the phone says- "Well, it is only lightly soiled, our little doggie is housebroken, and we always take our shoes off at the front door" or something like that. But they never mention there is 100 pet urine deposits, and there is a ton of grease from overhauling their motorcycle in the middle of the living room, carpet was last vacuumed in 1990, etc.

But if phone closing works for you- good for you.

Gary
 

bobrog

Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2006
Messages
39
We close 6-10 jobs per day over the phone. We have standardized geographically selective pricing. We also ask enough questions to ensure we're not walking into surprises. We don't make up prices on the fly. After throwing out the price shoppers we don't want, we close 90% of our phone queries.
 

Royal Man

Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2006
Messages
4,989
Location
Lincoln NE
Name
Dave Yoakum
I don't see how you guys find the time for in home estimates. If I did that My family would never see me.
 

bobrog

Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2006
Messages
39
JB,

Standardized Geographically Selective Pricing is simple. We have Whole House Pricing (up to 1250 sq ft) for lower income areas of $149.95. This jumps to $50 per room in the middle-income areas, and $75-$100 per room in the high-income and resort markets.

You have to know the income profiles of your geographical market (ours has an MSI of 700,000 residents).

It takes a good, knowledgeable phone person who can instill confidence in the caller. And the $149.95 blows off the price shoppers.

Using this technique and doing apartments, Apex has grown to five trucks in 15 months. We don't market price; we market image.

JB said:
We have standardized geographically selective pricing.

Okay, you have my attention go on...
:?:
 

adamh

Supportive Member
Joined
Oct 7, 2006
Messages
1,533
Location
Nampa Idaho
Name
Adam Hale
I haven't given a home bid in about 5 years. We do no advertising and its all word off mouth. The people calling all know we are expensive but the best. I have no time to drive around looking at price shopper carpets. If they are worried about price they are not our type of custy.

It takes time to build a business like that. At first we had to bid jobs.
 
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