You’ve developed the perfect website complete with eye-catching images, carefully crafted copy and an impactful call to action. However, no matter how much time and effort has gone into creating it, your site is only useful if people can find it online—and it all starts with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
In today’s competitive market, especially on the web, SEO is more important than ever before. Google processes 65,000 searches per second on any given day, a key indication of just how widely-used search engines have become. Whether a homeowner is looking to purchase a new water heater or someone new to town is seeking a propane provider, both scenarios will likely start with the use of a search engine.
In fact, a recent study from Advanced Web Ranking shows that the first result on Google, or any search engine, garners about one-third of total traffic. However, getting your website on the first page of Google doesn’t happen overnight. Successful SEO is a continuous process, adapting to changes in the algorithms that define website rankings.
Keyword Ranking Evaluations and Improvements
Every search starts with a need. Whether your customers are searching for “home heating oil delivery” or “propane fireplace insert,” your website needs to cover all possible searches and rank for hundreds of keywords. Every month, SEO specialists should monitor your Google Analytics to determine how your website is performing. While making adjustments to page content, titles and heading tags is a time-consuming task, it pays off with ever-increasing visits to your website.
Monitoring of Algorithm Updates
Google releases hundreds of algorithm updates each year. That’s a lot to keep up with! With these algorithms constantly changing, keywords need to be continuously monitored and modified to ensure a high ranking on Google. The better your company can keep up with these algorithms, the more likely your website will appear at the top of searches for relevant keywords.
Google processes 65,000 searches per second, making SEO more important than ever.
Digital marketing technologies are growing at the speed of light, giving way to an era of instantaneous, electronic communications. After last year’s severe weather, communication with customers is more important than ever before.
With frigid temperatures and an unprecedented number of winter storms, many home comfort and energy companies faced dire situations, in some cases letting their customers down. If you weren’t one of them, congratulations! This is a great story to share with your customers. If you were, you weren’t alone. We feel your pain.
During extreme conditions, regular company communications are key to building strong relationships and loyal customers. So how can companies build trust and keep the conversation with customers going? Look no further than the company newsletter.
During extreme conditions, regular company communications are key to building strong relationships and customer loyalty.
Remember the saying: Out of sight, out of mind? This couldn’t be more true in the case of customer retention. In order to stay on customers’ radar, keeping lines of communication open is key. Having a regular newsletter provides a unique opportunity to share business updates with your audience, including new, current and previous customers. Whether it is about new staff members, service offers, special deals or tune-up reminders, consistent updates serve as a gentle reminder to your audience that your business is there for them. During trying times like an unexpected cold snap, a newsletter serves as a tool to admit your mistakes and let customers know what changes you have in place to prevent them from happening again.
When it comes to the residential energy industry, most customers enjoy doing business with companies they know and have come to love. In today’s highly competitive marketplace, your customers need to know that you care about them and that they can trust you. Company newsletters can provide essential support in developing such relationships by providing regular communication and making customers feel as if they are a part of your “family.” Your newsletter should come across as intelligent, helpful and as informative as your company’s best Customer Service Representative.
Position yourself as an industry expert by sharing valuable information with your audience. Whether it is a piece about the benefits of propane or heating oil, a look into energy-efficient technologies or even a guide to saving money on service, your newsletter brings your company to life for your customers, giving them a better understanding of who you are, what you stand for and why you offer better value than your competitors. Articles rich with content and valuable information help consumers make better decisions while allowing your company to demonstrate its expertise.
Energy marketers are raising the bar, improving their websites and equipping them with powerful, user-friendly self-service features. Look at your newsletter as an opportunity to drive traffic to your digital channels, featuring exclusive offers and additional resources available on your website. Newsletter content can also be repurposed on your website or blog in an effort to generate additional traffic from search engines and social media sites.
In this age of instantaneous communications, what people say and think about your company and brand goes a long way. Newsletters provide an unmatched opportunity to showcase your business and market all services and products you sell, from monthly payment plans and price protection programs to furnaces, hot water heaters, air conditioning systems and more. The ultimate goal is to give readers a good idea of what you can provide and what it is like to do business with you so that when a need arises, your company becomes their go-to.
An estimated 2.15 million newsletters are distributed annually.When it comes to building value in your company, generating new leads and improving customer loyalty, there is no better promotional tool than a customized company newsletter.
So go ahead and show readers why it’s smart to call you. Get them psyched about some new product you’re offering. Educate them so they see the quality difference your installations bring–even if you cost more. Give them some tips to add value. Most importantly, write content that’s relevant to them, not you. The final product will be a newsletter that not only sells your products and services, but your company as well. ICM
Whether you’re a large, well-known name in the industry or a smaller business looking to grow, your target audience’s tastes and behaviors are evolving and no longer what they might have been 10 years ago. While Yellow Pages or print advertising in local newspapers once seemed effective methods for customer acquisition, today’s customers’ tastes, behaviors and viewing habits have changed.
As a propane, heating oil or HVAC company looking to acquire new customers, you can sit around and hope that new customers will call your office, or you can take a proactive approach to reach those ideal prospects. It all starts with an integrated, multi-channel marketing strategy.
Through a combination of modern marketing techniques and frequent exposure, your company can reach your ideal prospects where they interact, at the right time, with the right offer. With the anticipated busy fall season arriving sooner than you think, the time to establish or refine your customer acquisition strategy is now.
Here are some channels to expand your reach and grow your customer base in preparation for the upcoming season.
Digital Marketing
The internet never sleeps and neither should your online presence! With 81% of homeowners conducting online research before they make a purchase, it’s essential to consider how your company is positioned online.
Whether it is in the form of email marketing, pay-per-click or online videos, digital marketing provides the opportunity to be in front of prospects at multiple stages of the decision-making process. From interest, to active research, to reaching the buying decision, digital marketing provides the best possible strategy to keep in front of prospects.
Search Engine Optimization
Arguably the most effective customer acquisition strategy, search engine optimization (SEO) allows a company to reach customers where they’re actively searching for products and services: Google (and other search engines). Local SEO is especially important for propane, heating oil and HVAC companies because they need to be found in town, city or regional listings to drive organic search traffic to their website.
The better the content is, the better the SEO ranking will be. With a continued effort to keep a website optimized, it will continue to generate traffic and leads for years to come. With this in mind, it’s no wonder why SEO is the best strategy for long-term revenue.
Direct Mail
With more and more businesses turning to digital marketing initiatives, the volume of direct mail in consumer mailboxes has been on the decline. Less mail in mailboxes provides an opportunity for your direct mail promotion to really stand out. With the right list and the right strategy, direct mail can be a powerful tool for generating high quality leads from homeowners in your market area.
Social Media
As the gasoline and fire that spreads online content, social media platforms have evolved in recent years, proving essential to engagement and relationship-building. With over 1.7 billion active daily users, Facebook is the largest social networking site and among those users are some of a company’s ideal customers. In fact, research shows that 77% of businesses have acquired customers via Facebook. Given its expansive user base, Facebook has a vast amount of data on users, providing an opportunity to serve targeted ads to users that fit the profile of ideal customers in your area.
So what is your company’s plan for acquiring new customers this fall? While there is no single solution for acquiring new customers, using the right combination of tactics and channels will ultimately create a process that works for your business’ unique goals. ICM
Editor’s note: Part I of this article appeared in the June 2013 printed edition of ICM. For the benefit of our readers, we present the COMPLETE article below. Contact information for Roger follows this article.
Part I
Relationship opens the door to revenue. Plumbers, and technicians, who focus on the relationship as opposed to the transaction, will have more transactions over time. Technicians must identify with the role of trusted advisor in a relationship (not a salesperson), which means it is your job to ask questions, find pain, and help others make the best choice for themselves—like a doctor. Sometimes, the best choice for them is to say “no” to your recommendations. We all have the right to ask questions of others and we all have the right to say “yes” or “no” to those requests. If you can advise people and lead them to say “yes” or “no,” many of them will say “yes” once you have established trust.
Trust is not established by controlling and eliminating the other’s right to say “no.” Traditional sales methods teach us to present and overcome stalls and objections and make people say “yes.” I believe that if you open up a space for others to say “no,” it allows more room for them to say “yes.”
I own a life insurance policy that I purchased from a man who I have known for a long time, a man I like and trust. In fact, we are very close friends. I purchased this policy from him because of our relationship. However, the company that holds the policy has terrible customer service and communicates everything through direct mail. I needed to notify the company about my change in bank accounts and it took three months and four phone calls for them to finally make the correct change. If it were not for my relationship with my friend, I would change companies; however, my relationship with him is so strong I wouldn’t even consider it.
There are four different kinds of relationships in business and each type needs to be treated differently. These relationships can be defined as suspects, prospects, customers and clients:
Suspects
Each person you come into contact with is a suspect for your business. You do not know them, they do not know you and there is no established relationship. You can establish that relationship with communication, and good communicators are quick at building rapport. Rapport builds trust. I have a client in Lincoln Nebraska named Harris and he is an HVAC Tech. One day, as he was getting gas, he struck up a conversation with a gentleman who noticed his truck. He was able to set an appointment for a service call and by the end of the afternoon, he had set another appointment for the owner to go out the next day and advise this new prospect on a replacement. The next day, Rick (the owner) sold a nice change-out for about $9,000. Open your eyes, because there are suspects standing all around who have needs to fulfill and money to spend. They are just looking for someone they can trust.
Prospect
A prospect is someone who has never given you money, but knows who you are and may have called you. These are the new people who call. Your goal should be to establish that relationship of trust. You don’t do this by running straight to the furnace and sticking your head in the problem. You must focus on the relationship, much like you would if you were at a party. You have to learn how to warm up to people and encourage them to talk about themselves. SLOW DOWN, but don’t take more time. There is a great book out there called “How To Talk To Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships,” written by Leil Lowndes. If you can get the prospects to talk about themselves, you’re probably going to turn them into customers.
Customer
A customer is a person who has given you money at least once. There is an established level of rapport, but you have not established a trusted advisor relationship yet. Our goal is to nurture them along and serve them with love. That sounds strange, but stay with me. By “love” I mean putting their needs above your needs. Have an attitude of service to many and serve others in love and you will make a fortune over a lifetime. Services to others are like seeds that multiply and grow over time. It takes patience to produce a client.
Clients
A client is a person who has given you money several times over an extended period of time and trusts you completely because your past behavior has earned this trust. Businesses that build these relationships over time will encounter a lot of transactions that are easy to make. The relationship is natural, the communication is easy, and sales simply happen. There is no need for a sales process, you only need to advise them and help them make the best choice for themselves. One never has to sell a client anything; they just buy from you.
Rapport Killers
Please understand the emotional process from the prospect’s point-of-view for a moment. Let’s pretend we are going on our first call to Mrs. Jones. She has no heat and it is very cold outside. She has invited six women over tonight for their monthly quilting club. Does she feel well or does she have anxiety? That’s right, she is very anxious and there are a lot of unknowns.
First, get out of your truck or van immediately upon arrival because she is probably looking out the window and may even meet you in the drive. It frustrates, aggravates, and adds to her anxiety if you sit in your truck. Sitting in the van and doing paperwork or calling the office is a rapport killer. DO NOT DO THIS!
First Impression
Get out of the truck very quickly with a spring in your step and a smile on your face, because they are wondering what kind of person you are. A good first impression will make a difference and help you. Also, make sure you are presentable, clean, and smell nice. For guys and gals who smoke, the odor is not helping you. If you must smoke, plan to do it afterwards to avoid the odor or get some breath mints.
Let me give you an example to illustrate my point. Some years ago, I had to call a plumber and within the first 10 seconds, I had a terrible experience in my kitchen as he talked. He was 20 minutes late and did not call. When he arrived at the door; I could smell onions on his breath and see fresh ketchup on his shirt. I even knew which BBQ place he had eaten at because I recognized the distinct odor. All he said was, “Sorry I’m late; I just ate lunch.” My mind went blank. I did not listen to anything he had to say and certainly was not going to hire him. He was probably a nice gentleman, but it started out all wrong. Bye-bye relationship and bye-bye money!
Last Impression
When you walk out the door, assuming you have solved the customer’s problem, do you know how they are feeling? Are they feeling better? Certainly. In the above example, let’s pretend that you fixed Mrs. Jones’s heat and heroically rescued her party. She gives you a tip of $40, you walk to your van and you sit in her driveway for 10 minutes doing all your paperwork, calls, and all the work the office requires you to do. You also wait on your next call.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Jones wonders why in the world you are sitting in her driveway. She might think you are casing the neighborhood. Perhaps she thinks you didn’t charge enough and are coming back in for more money. Who knows? But it’s not helping you. Please leave immediately. The customer feels good; don’t blow it with this mistake.
Women in particular have told me that this bothers them. I’ve ridden on thousands of service calls as an observer and this mistake will cause people not to call back. Respect their space and leave. If necessary, pull down the road out of site to do any necessary paperwork or phone calls.
Second Impression
Be kind and express gratitude. These people have asked you into their home and have given you an opportunity to serve them. They actually write your paycheck, whether you know it or not. Without this opportunity, you might be sitting at home unemployed. Be sincere. Thank them for allowing you to come out and remember, it’s all about them, not you. You are there to serve them. I usually say something like this, but it’s important to be yourself: “Thanks for letting us come out this morning and we really appreciate it. How can I best help you today?”
Let me illustrate this point. I trained a new electrician for a company and on his first call, I told him to let me be the voice and he could be the hands. The person we were visiting was a new prospect who called because he received a direct mail piece. When he invited us in, we chatted in the hall and then I asked him the question. “Thanks for inviting us out. Tell me how we can best help you today?” His response was instant connection and rapport. He relaxed and said, “Wow, nobody ever cares. I really appreciate your attitude.” We fixed four electrical problems and sold a $398 whole-house service agreement for HVAC, electrical and plumbing. It was a nice ticket for over $1,500. But there was no selling; the customer just picked us after we established the trust through rapport at the door. Sometimes it happens fast.
No Rapport, No Trust! No Trust, No Relationship! No Relationship, No Transaction!
Do What They Called You to Do
We do not have the right and it is not appropriate to bring up other issues in the home until we have solved the problem for which we were called. This can come across as self-serving and stinks of sales. Now I know that every call is different and people and situations are complex; but, in general, focus on the problem at hand and present your solution and receive their agreement.
If you were to go to the doctor with a sore throat and he started endorsing their new health and wellness program before he looked at your throat, and then prescribed something for you, it would be inappropriate. Stop selling and start serving. But stop fixing then leaving. Serving involves asking questions and finding needs.
How and When to Explore Further
Art and I were called to a client’s house to fix a leak in a sink and a faucet. We focused on that, presented the repairs, and got permission to do the work, which we completed. The customer was happy. Now, we could ask other questions and find more pain, which we did. This is what it sounded like after we had been there an hour and had fixed two problems:
Roger: “Mrs. Smith, did you know that we do heating and AC work?”
Mrs. Smith: “No.”
Roger: “I’m just curious. Do you have a company you trust that takes care of your systems?”
Mrs. Smith: “ No.”
Roger: “You have lived here five years and you don’t have your systems serviced?”
Mrs. Smith: “Am I supposed to have them serviced?
Roger: “You change your filters, right?”
Mrs. Smith: I have filters?”
When we found the filters, she exclaimed, “Yuck, that’s disgusting!”
We had found more pain and she had money, so guess what she purchased. That’s right—an HVAC service agreement on a plumbing call. The situation resulted in a very nice ticket of over $1,500. Serve, serve, serve. We helped this client by taking care of her initial problem and discovering other issues. The key here is discovery. We never pushed; we simply asked good questions and discovered more pain that was less obvious, but still existed. This is what a good, trusted adviser does.
Where to Present the Repair
The furnace, boiler, sink, toilet or whatever is broken is the source of the client’s problem and anxiety. It’s good to talk with them about their pain in front of the problem, but it’s not good to present the solution standing over the problem. We must interrupt the pattern by moving them away from the source of their anxiety. Go anywhere, just move. The customer will be much more open to your solution if you can help them change their state. This is simple to do; just ask them if you can go to a comfortable place so you can spread out your book, papers, or work sheet.
This strategy also applies to salespeople. Once, Pat and I were on a referral to recommend replacement options for a new system. We were getting nowhere. We had very poor connection and little rapport. As we stood in front of the old furnace, Pat pointed out a serious problem with the water heater vent and the lady went into a panic because her mother almost died from something similar. We had found a major need, but had no rapport, which is unusual.
The customer’s arms were crossed and she was not very talkative. Pat made a rookie mistake and started trying to make her feel better by talking about solutions while standing in front of the water heater. He went into presentation mode while the customer was closed off emotionally. It was going poorly. I was able to get the customer to walk outside to the backyard and she relaxed. We talked about the birds singing, the nice sunny day, and then she began talking about the room addition that they dreamed of. At that point, we were able to reset and come back to meet with her and her husband. This never would have happened in front of the water heater.
How to Approach the Subject Service Agreement
I believe it is best to wait until the end, after the customer is feeling better emotionally. Once you have fixed their problem, they will be more open to listening to you. Always take the customer around and show them what you have done so they can see it. A picture speaks a thousand words and they will have positive emotions about what you have done.
You are now Superman or woman to them and they are ready to pay you back with money. I have seen customers get out their checkbook and start filling it out. They want to pay you and this is a great time to ask permission to show them how they can save before they write that check. Simply ask for permission to show them—then show them. In my experience, a technician with good communication skills can achieve a 60% conversion rate if it’s done this way. Do not go in pitching a service agreement at the door unless that’s why they called you out.
Don’t Miss the Replacement Opportunities,
Set Appointments for Later
I do not know why this works, but I know it does. I had to knock on doors and hope people would let me into their houses to sell HVAC. We learned how to do it by experimenting with different behaviors. We found people were most willing to set non-threatening appointments for later. Therefore, we learned how to set appointments.
Setting an appointment is a qualifier, much like a service call fee for plumbing is a qualifier. If you wave that fee, it is much more difficult to bring in the repair. If you don’t set the appointment, it’s much more difficult to make the sale when the customer is not in a lot of pain. It’s easy to make a sale in extreme weather and it doesn’t make sense to set an appointment in this context. However, the weather is not extreme most of the year. When someone has a repair, all you have to do is ask them if they would like to set an appointment to have a comfort adviser (or whatever you call them) come out and go over options for replacement. You’ll be amazed at the number of people who will change out systems that could be repaired.
The appointment helps them get comfortable with the idea of replacement. We got so good at setting appointments that we decided to just go on in the house and not wait. When we made this change and skipped the appointment setting process, customers would back and out and change their minds. I think it was too much too fast.
Need vs. Want
Rick, my client in Nebraska, told me that he could not believe how many people were purchasing systems that they really don’t need. So should we sell people things that they don’t need? My wife Inna does not need any more shoes, but we still buy them. I don’t really need an iPad™ but I want one. Tell people that they don’t need a new system but they may want one; they are much better and more comfortable. In reality, we may not need air-conditioning. It’s strictly a want. It hasn’t even been around 100 years.
You’ll have to Learn How to Answer
This Question to Set Appointments
How much does a new system cost? They’re very expensive! And that’s true. Don’t be afraid to be bold, but at the same time, humble and not rude. A very high percentage of the time, you’ll get this question.
It’s not time to give a presentation. We do that later and give them options if that’s what they want to do. If they push for budget, tell them it’s like asking how much a car costs. There are lots of options and ranges. If they are afraid to take a look, maybe we should just fix it and forget the appointment. It’s really up to them.
Influence people with integrity and allow them to say “no.” Communicate with them in an open, honest and natural way. They will make the best choice for themselves and you’ll keep a client for life.
Roger Daviston can be reached at:
During my years as a heating fuels company GM, I would start each day with a glance at my business dashboard. (Actually I would start each day with a cup of coffee and some sort of pastry—and then move to the dashboard). First, I would check the obvious metrics. Where are my gallons compared to the same month, last year? How are my degree days shaking out? Where is my margin per gallon? But after that, I was mostly interested in what was happening to my customer base. Not just the new and cancelled account comparison, but movement inside my base. What are the numbers of customers buying and cancelling heating and AC service agreements? Who is jumping on and off of budget plans, on and off of price protection agreements, and most importantly, who is moving from automatic delivery to Will Call?
In a recent industry survey, almost one third of heating oil consumers admitted to changing suppliers in the last five years. And one in three of those have changed providers more than once. We aren’t even talking about customers who are considering or have moved away from heating oil. How many of these potentially lost customers started with “Change my delivery to Will Call”?
As a moderator of the Warm Thoughts Breakthrough Groups, I was involved in two recent sessions with dealers all across the Northeast about this very issue. Both focused on the same challenge, “Managing and Measuring Churn.” Here are a few of the lessons and findings from those Breakthrough Group meetings.
Stemming the Will Call Tide
We are all seeing an upswing of customers switching from Auto to Will Call. The high price of fuel makes it tough to get a big bill when you aren’t expecting it. The bad economy hasn’t helped, nor has the general gravitation towards price shopping. This shift is obviously not in our best interest for a lot of reasons. So what can you do about it?
1) Handling the Switch from Auto to Will-Call
Most CSRs aren’t equipped to handle these calls well. Many of these customers are not simply changing delivery method. They are politely saying “adios.” You need to deal with it like it’s a customer quit call, and get the best resource on it.
The way some dealers are starting to handle this is to tell the customer that only “Mary” is authorized to change the status of accounts for liability reasons.
“What liability?”
“Well, if an account is changed to will-call improperly, then customers may run out of fuel and we’ll be liable, so Mary handles all of them.”
“Mary” needs to be your “Ace”—the best person capable of ferreting out what’s really happening. If the customer wants to switch because the bill is too high, she should be great at suggesting budget instead. If the customer is really looking to leave, either because they are thinking of switching to gas or looking for a lower price, she should be good at ferreting out what’s really happening and, if appropriate, empowered to do some negotiating.
Of course, there will be a few cases where this is over-kill. But many of the companies who dug into this “moment of truth” came away feeling that they were letting far too many people slip through this big crack. And the shift in their approach has been saving accounts.
2.) Keep Customers in the Degree Day schedule
Just because we move a customer to Will Call doesn’t mean we should only catch their calls. We should throw the ball to them, too. One company keeps the good Will Call customers on a degree day schedule, and calls them if they haven’t ordered when the system says a delivery would be due.
Other companies take a broader approach—they use either auto-dial or email to reach larger groups of customers in areas where they’ll be delivering, offering a discount if they get a delivery when the truck is in the area. This generates some business that they’d otherwise miss, restores some delivery efficiencies and is very inexpensive (especially email—all the more reason to get as many email addresses as possible). You can make it really easy by providing an option for the customer to place an order with a simple click.
An even better approach used by one company included text messaging. “Our records show you might be running low on fuel. Would you like to order now and save an extra five cents per gallon?” Texting is particularly effective for getting more tune-up appointments and also for confirming service calls.
It also seems to be smart to set up a “reason” code for customers who drop. That way, if you want to set up a “We Want You Back,” you can target your efforts. If customers switch to gas, and you service gas, you can target them. If they were bad payers, you can expunge them from your efforts.
Just make sure the information being inputted is legitimate. The old expression, “garbage in, garbage out,” really applies. Without proper controls, these codes can be dangerously misleading. One of the companies shared that through our benchmarking—they realized the number of customers listed as having converted to gas was exceptionally high for their area. When they started investigating, they found that filling out the box where the “reason code” was located in their computer records required their CSRs to go to another screen. When things got busy, the CSRs let it slide. Or they felt intimidated about asking the customer “why” because customers were often reluctant to tell them, and they knew their manager would be upset if they didn’t find out.
So the CSRs started going in at the end of the day and filling in blanks. And it was more permissible in their culture to lose a customer to gas then to another oil company. So to take the heat off, they disproportionately put in “gas conversion.”
The danger is that you want to make decisions based on this information (the same is true about lead sources). This particular company finally found success when they: a) spent time educating their team about why this information was so important, and how to ask for it; b) reviewed the results with the CSRs at least every two months (they tried monthly but couldn’t keep it going) which ensured the CSRs were included in the process; and c) installed a call monitoring program and periodically listened to calls to compare to what the CSR had written in the notes. A few CSRs were “busted” and the problem changed overnight.
3.) See Will Calls as a work in progress and act accordingly.
Companies take diverse approaches to paying commissions or spiffs for bringing on new Will Call accounts (also, everyone agreed they are seeing a much higher proportion of their new customers coming on board that way than ever before). But it’s not unusual for sales people or CSRs to get nothing for bringing on a Will Call account. Smart companies stack their incentives to make it easy to choose auto, and train their people to get them down that path, rather than simply offering it as an option.
But one of our very successful members surprised us by saying she had changed her attitude about Will Calls. Now she “loves” them. Why? Because rather than looking at them as “junk bonds” she sees them “…as a warm lead. With a little investment, they could be upgraded.”
The trick, she said, is implementing a process that moves the customer up the ladder until they are fully engaged in a service agreement, automated payment program, and an automatic delivery cycle. This is achieved through a series of contacts with the customer: by phone, through the mail and via email. It requires discipline. After each will-call delivery, the company provides an incentive for moving to automatic (discounts, gallons, or credits toward future deliveries). They also push budget plans heavily to those customers who are credit approved to make it easier to deal with the bigger deliveries. And they follow the same pattern with service plans. There are also programs like Destwin that make it easier to get customers up this loyalty ladder automatically, by using customized messages whenever they log in to their payment portal.
4) Managing the Summer Will Call Request.
Many customers don’t like to get deliveries in the summer. But once they go on Will Call, they are free agents. How do you handle it? Don’t just drop them into the black hole of “Will Call.” Several members now tell customers they are suspending automatic delivery for the summer, and will begin again on October 1st. Then they promptly follow up with an email confirming the conversation so there is no doubt. When it’s time to resume deliveries, they also send an email to reduce the possibility of a spill, in case that customer had gone elsewhere anyway. They’ve shared that this approach has become a nice solution for them.
Dealers all across the country are looking for the best solutions to meet these challenges and grow their businesses. Warm Thoughts’ Breakthrough Groups are one example of where they are turning to uncover the most impactful action steps. What I’ve listed above are but a fraction of the findings from these groups. Perhaps there is a concept, idea, or tool here that you can build on or use in your retention program.
And as you work on your retention strategy, remember that a Will Call ticket to a Jimmy Buffett concert is good thing. When a love interest says “I Will Call you tomorrow” after your first date, that’s definitely a good thing. But, “I Will Call you when I am ready for my next delivery” is in another category, and needs to be managed.
Until my next installment of Lessons from the Breakthrough Groups, be well, play smart, and think “cold”.
The best way to tell if your website is generating traffic is to look at your Google Analytics. This free service will tell you how many visitors you have had, what pages they go to, and how long they stay on each page.
But what it won’t tell you is how many actual leads you’re getting. In online marketing, we refer to an action taken (a phone call, submitting an online form, sending an email) as a conversion. The more conversions you have, the more effective your website is at driving business.
If you think you’re phone isn’t ringing, either it’s not, or you’re not actually tracking your calls well and you don’t really know whether your calls are coming from your website or from some other source. (The way to rectify this is to use tracking numbers, but let’s save that for another conversation.) So for the purpose of this answer, let’s assume it’s the former and your phone just isn’t ringing. The implication here is that users aren’t fully engaged with your site, and consequently aren’t taking action.
The call to action
In some ways, marketing on your website is just like any other type of promotion. You have to ask for the sale! Every promotion, be it a postcard, a newspaper ad or a radio spot, needs a call to action. And your website is no different.
A strong call to action is the key to conversion. If you tell your prospects exactly what you want them to do, they are much more likely to move from being a “browser” to an actual lead.
The bottom line? Every page of your website should have a marketing purpose, and your prospects need to be guided to do what you want them to do.
