Playbook

Home Renovation Text Messaging

Text messaging is the next tool your home renovation business needs to boost revenue. Ready to see how?

This business texting advice can apply to home service businesses of all sizes, but we do have teams of 30 to 50 in mind.

5 Home Remodeling Service Essentials Before You Start Texting

1. A list of home renovation customers to contact.

You can only text customers if you have their phone numbers. So you’re going to grab those numbers from your existing customer database and put them into a spreadsheet to upload into Text Request later.

Organize this spreadsheet by:

Cell phone numbers in column A
Client names in column B
Any desired merge fields in the preceding columns (service, neighborhood, market, etc.)

If you don't know which of your customer phone numbers are cell phone numbers vs. landline number, our Text Request support team can clean landline numbers from your list, so you know who you still need to contact for their mobile number.

This is the first simple—but essential—step to setting your home remodeling business up for SMS success.

2. A tech stack for scheduling renovation services and reminders.

Having the right tool stack will ensure no sales opportunities slip through cracks, as well as streamline your workflow.

Here are the tools we recommend for home remodeling services:

Angi Leads: For getting and automatically following up with new leads

HubSpot: Everything your home service business needs for marketing, sales, content management, and customer service in one place

Quickbooks: Auto-tracks income and expenses to streamline payments

Zapier: Creates automations based on a customer’s behavior, like when they submit a service form

We have integrations with each of these software, so you can mesh your text messaging strategies with them.

3. Designated team members to manage your text messaging.

Business texting can strengthen many aspects of your home remodeling business, but you need to know who will manage it and for what purpose.

Consider the people who are already in charge of:

Dispatch
Communicating with customers
Sending customers seasonal promotions and check-up reminders
Checking on contractors in the field, or having them check in with you

You’ll see as much success with business text messaging as the amount of strategy you put into it, and that starts with defining who will manage SMS as a communication channel at your business. Once you have that in place, the other steps we’ll cover will fall into place.

4. Reasons to reach out.

Just because a customer used your home renovation or construction services once, that doesn’t mean they’ll come back. Regularly reaching out to past customers is key for staying top-of-mind, but it only works if you have valuable things to share like:

Service discounts and promotions
Educational information about maintenance and upkeep
New add-ons or upgrade services

All of these things remind customers why they should continue working with you for remodeling and construction services.

5. Online review platforms to gather feedback.

Online reviews are how customers decide which renovators they allow to work on their home. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not being present on review platforms and actively gathering feedback.

The more positive online reviews you have, the higher you rank in search results and increase your chances of beating out competitors. Get listed on Google Business and Facebook to start, so you can connect your page to Text and Request later and earn more online reviews through text.

After that, you’ll be ready to boost your amount of online reviews using the strategies we cover below.

10 Ways to Implement Text Messaging Into Your Home Renovation Business

1. Speed up renovation services with MMS.

Driving out to do surveys or talk about initial plans is time consuming. Photos make it easy for customers to send ideas of what they want built in the space. Use MMS, or picture messaging, to exchange pictures of:

Areas or objects that need to be serviced
Product numbers or models, to ensure you have what customers need
Headshots of the rep the customer can expect to work with
Proofs or documentation of finalized projects

This helps you to complete a variety of projects in potentially just one visit, which is great for the customer and your bottom line.

2. Capture more website traffic with SMS Chat.

Customers typically go with renovators they can quickly and easily start conversations with. That’s why having a tool like SMS Chat on your website is so invaluable.

SMS Chat is a widget that website visitors can use to start conversations with your home remodeling business. Customers see this SMS Chat widget and think, “Cool, I can text and immediately reach someone!”

It’s a convenient way for potential customers to ask questions and get answers in real-time, plus see if they’re a good fit for the kind of remodeling and construction services you offer.

Businesses that have SMS Chat on their website typically see a 30-100% uptick in lead conversion—which means more overall revenue for your home renovation and construction business!

3. Lock in customers with autoresponder.

Whichever business responds to the customer first is typically the one to win the lead. You want that to be your remodeling business—which is why you should set up autoresponders to make sure customers always get a response, even when you’re not in the office:

“Thanks for contacting [Business Name]. Use [link] to start a service request."

This empowers potential new customers to schedule home services on their own—without your team even having to be on the clock!

4. Streamline the scheduling process by texting links.

Coordinating a service visit over the phone can take days. So skip the phone tag and text customers a link to schedule instead.

Customers can just click the link, schedule the time and date they want you to stop by, and you’re both ready to go!

You can even resend the link, if a customer realizes last second that they need to reschedule their construction or remodeling time slot. That eliminates scheduling bottlenecks and ensures work keeps chugging along.

5. Preventing no-shows with scheduled SMS reminders.

Your contractors won’t get much work done if they can’t get inside your customers’ houses. Scheduled message reminders are a great way to let customers know your contractors are on their way.

Type the service reminder message when it’s convenient for you, then schedule it to send at the proper time and date. You’ll be able to get back to your other tasks, while knowing the customer will see the reminder and be properly prepared for your visiting contractors.

6. Keep common communications consistent with templates.

We’ve given you a lot of different ways you can text customers. Now we’re going to give you a way to save the texts you most frequently send.

Create a library of pre-saved text message templates to save time on everyday communications, like:

Links to schedule services
Common inquiries
Dispatch updates
Review requests

Templates can even include links and pictures, so everything you need is ready to go. It keeps your communication consistent, so your contractors don’t have to worry about how to stay on the same page when it comes to common inquiries. Plus it saves you a ridiculous amount of time when you’re not typing the same message over and over again!

7. Share remodeling and construction promotions with your entire customer base.

Need to get discounts, new services, and upsells in front of your customers? Mass texts give you the power to tap all your contacts once for things like:

Texting past leads about upcoming availability
Discounts on specialty services
Ongoing sales and promo codes

Any replies to mass texts become one-on-one messages—like BCC email—so you can handle individual customer queries with ease. It’s a time efficient and painless way to boost revenue quickly.

Text Request also gives you the power to track link clicks across your mass texts, so you can see who is engaging with your discounts and promos that are shared with links.

8. Increase your Google search ranking by texting review links to happy customers.

Your home remodeling business will lose out to competition if they have more quality reviews than you. Reviews determine where you rank in Google searches, so if you aren’t gathering them ongoing, you risk not being seen by potential customers.

More reviews means higher search rankings and more customers finding you. Here’s how Reviews can help:

Connect your Google and Facebook business pages to Text Request
Insert custom reviews links into your texts asking customers for feedback
Monitor and respond to oncoming reviews from inside Text Request
Filter out lackluster experiences to handle privately

Text messaging is the fastest way to reach customers for those reviews, and Text Request gives you one place to manage your review campaign efforts.

9. Know where your contractors are in the field with text updates.

Need to grab a contractor’s attention to see where they’re at in their schedule of services? Locations enables contractors to share location updates through text messaging.

How does it work?

You send the location request via texted link
The contractor clicks the link
The address they’re at gets sent back to you as a text

It’s that simple!

This way you can replace contractor check-in calls, and in turn smoothen out dispatch updates to customers, to ultimately save everyone more time.

10. Provide stellar customer service by texting payment links.

Don’t lose valuable time chasing customers down for payments. Gives your home renovation business one, secure place to:

Send a formal estimate as PDF
Create SMS payment requests for installments
Track and process transactions
View and download payment request histories
Send payment reminders

With Payments, customers reply to your SMS payment requests with a confirmation code to pay. First timers are then prompted to put their debit or credit card on file, so the payments process is even smoother the next time.

Make your payment process painless and quick, and more revenue and positive word-of-mouth marketing will come your way!