Text Request Talks
5 Home Renovation Business Tips with Bumble Roofing’s Jeff Labrecque
Business texting can help your home renovation business attract more leads, share home service quotes faster, schedule appointments, and more.
Here’s how to use text messaging to create the best customer experience possible, so your home renovation business can attract more new customers.
This article takes insights from our Text Request Talks podcast with Jeff Labrecque and further distills it into advice specific to texting. Labrecque is the owner of Bumble Roofing.
Watch the full interview on YouTube.
1. Offer the fastest customer service possible with texting.
Labrecque says your number one goal should be to provide better customer service than your competitors. That boils down to speed and clarity, which text messaging offers, especially when you text photos to speed up services.
Exchange photos with customers of things like:
Areas or objects that need to be serviced
Product numbers or models, to ensure you have what customers need
Proofs or documentation of finalized projects
This is significantly faster than driving out to survey a work area, or waiting for a customer to open your emails. Text messaging gives you the power to offer solutions instantly, which is why 77% of customers want to text for customer service.
2. Document info about properties for future upsell opportunities.
Labrecque takes every one of his customer interactions seriously, and he asks that his reps record detailed notes on potential areas that could be improved within the houses they visit. It’s their job to point these things out to homeowners and ask if they want to take care of those issues now.
This helps Labrecque’s team provide preventive services that ultimately builds trust with homeowners. The more individualized services you offer, the more confident and satisfied customers will feel during their experience with you.
You can take the same approach by splitting up contacts based on the future work you know they’ll need done, then using those segments to strategically upsell. Text Request has a Group feature to organize your contacts to do exactly that.
You can create as many Groups containing as many contacts as you need to market your upsells as targeted as possible. There is also a dedicated notes section in every contact’s details where your documentation can get even more thorough.
Even if the customer doesn’t immediately want the upsell you’ve presented, you can still use the group you put them in down the line for when you send out future promotions related to it.
Labrecque says that the more you know about your customer, the better you can serve them and generate additional sales.
3. Send text follow-ups after services.
Part of providing that stellar customer service we talked about earlier is being there for customers beyond just the initial service you provide. That’s why Labrecque makes it a point to follow up with customers after every service.
A customer can't review your work until it's done, and sometimes it takes time to realize if something wasn't actually fixed. Texting to see if there’s anything else you can help them with creates both trust and additional sales opportunities for you.
If the customer decides they want you to come back out, you just text them a scheduling link, and the process starts all over again!
4. Stand out in web searches with Google reviews.
Your home renovation business will lose out to competitors if they have more quality reviews than you. That’s why Labrecque says you need to prioritize gathering reviews to showcase the quality customer experience you’ve been providing.
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.
Text Request’s 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 your home renovation business one place to manage your review campaign efforts.
5. Use SMS promotions to cross sell with partner companies.
Partner companies, or companies whose services have a natural overlap with yours, can be valuable for referrals and cross-promotions. Labrecque is a big fan of running coinciding promotions with his sister brands to stay top-of-mind.
You can do the same thing, by sending SMS marketing texts to promote:
Coinciding deals
Discounts for proof of purchase from sister brand locations
Referral links
Labrecque stresses that when there’s natural overlap, you need to take advantage of it. This becomes even easier when you have all your detailed groups and notes about customers inside Text Request to refer back to for your SMS promotions.
Customers will ultimately see you as an industry expert who has their home’s best interest in mind when you promote these sister brands. It’ll ultimately make you their go-to for future services and generate more positive word-of-mouth marketing.
How Else Can Text Messaging Grow Your Home Renovation Business?
The above are just a few quick tips—but we have an entire in-depth home renovation text messaging playbook for those who want to learn even more ways to implement SMS into your growth tactics.
Our business texting software has helped hundreds of home renovation businesses, and we’re ready to help yours next!
