How often should I call a customer? Do I leave a message, and if so, what should I say?

These are all valid questions, and if you’re a contractor, chances are you’ve asked them plenty of times. As a general guideline, keep in mind that each customer should be called a minimum of 5 times. We’ve seen and heard plenty of success stories from contractors who made upwards of 10 calls to reach a homeowner! In other words, welcome to the era of the World Wide Web. It’s a time when CalFinder customers tangled up in busy lives return a contractor’s call while killing time at an airport, on a business trip, or during one of those rare, free moments at home.

To help you out, here is a good calling sequence for new referrals:

1. Once the referral has been received, call IMMEDIATELY! CalFinder screens every homeowner and they are the most excited and the most motivated right when we hang up the phone with that homeowner. If you don’t reach someone, leave a message.
2. Follow up with an email introducing yourself and schedule a phone conversation. Many of our homeowners like to operate initially by email.
3. Call again in the morning and in the evening the following day. If nobody answers right away, call again immediately afterwards. Sometimes, when a homeowner sees a foreign number calling twice in a row, curiosity will persuade them to answer.
4. Call again the third day and leave another message.
5. Follow up with another email stating a time that you will call again. It is important to remind them that you are busy and in high demand, but you can still keep an appointment and follow up on what you say you will do.
6. Call them at the time stated in the email and leave another message.
7. Call every other day for a week with no messages.
8. On the 7th day, leave a message again. If contact hasn’t been made by this point, leave a message with regards to how they can reach you.

As you can see, it’s critical not to drop the ball while it’s in your court. If you follow the steps above, homeowners will appreciate your persistence, and professionalism, once you do make contact.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 11:05 am and is filed under Lead Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.