In the world of home services, it’s a good thing to be increasingly busy. You want calls coming in and technicians out in the field. It doesn’t take long, however, for growth to get really overwhelming.
That’s the perfect time for a home service business to ask for a lifeline in the form of three letters – CRM.
What Is A CRM?
CRM stands for customer relationship management. It’s a system that helps manage interactions and relationships with customers, clients and prospects. Essentially, it’s a piece of software to track anyone and everyone who has ever come into contact with your company while keeping everything organized and accessible in one database.
A CRM should have an impact on all facets of your business – from dispatch and customer service to billing and revenue.
Whether it’s a call center representative talking to someone on the phone, a prospect filling out a form on your website or a technician in the field getting a homeowner’s information, that data all goes into the CRM.
Every note on a customer or potential customer can be included so your business has the most complete record possible on each and every person’s story.
Contact information. Purchase and job history. Dispatch notes. Techs who have been to their home. Their dog’s name.
Okay, maybe not the dog’s name – but you never know!
Once your team is onboard with collecting data and keeping it organized, it’s time to let the CRM do its job – to not only streamline your operations and marketing but marry them.
Marrying Operations And Marketing
Quality, organized data does a lot for your company – from both the operations and marketing points of view. It allows a customer service rep to jump on a call and instantly know what’s going on. It keeps dispatch coordinated and efficient. It lets a technician know everything that’s happened between your company and a homeowner.
And it allows your marketing messages to get incredibly targeted.
“As call centers are fielding phone calls and customers are interacting with websites and data gets poured into the CRM, the data collection and data organization allows the marketing side to go in and mold, massage and enhance campaigns with actual, market data and personalize them,” said Ryan Schilling, Leadhub’s Chief Experience Officer. “This allows your marketing partner to enhance your marketing efforts because, operationally, data is being collected and organized in the right form.”
Even better? Some CRM tools allow the marketing to be automated.
For example, let’s say you’re an air conditioning company and a homeowner just booked an AC tune-up for the upcoming summer months. Not only is dispatch including the job in the CRM record, but the technician also makes a note that the system is nine years old.
This sets up the homeowner to be segmented into two different groups.
One, they’ll need another tune-up in six months.
Two, they’ll need to start thinking about a new AC system in another year. When your CRM allows for automated campaigns, specific messages (usually email or text) will automatically be sent to these segmented audiences at the right time – either to remind them to set up their next service appointment or to send over your latest deal on a new system. You don’t even have to think about it.
This is an untapped gold mine for a lot of home service companies.
“By growing that contact list – from someone you did business with 20 years ago to someone who landed on your website yesterday – segmenting that list and creating automated messaging, you can engage and activate that database,” Schilling said. “That turns into more jobs, more revenue, more add-ons and higher average tickets.”
How To Pick The Right CRM
So, maybe you’re sold. Your business needs a CRM. There are a lot of them on the market – especially for home service companies. How do you pick the right one? Leadhub has a few pieces of advice.
- Pick one that’s easy to understand – If you’re training your entire team on this software, you want them to be able to spin it up rather quickly.
- Pick one that’s easy to navigate – Even if your team understands the CRM, you want them living inside of it, so user experience is key.
- Pick one that allows for segmentation – As you just read, it’s key for your CRM to be able to segment your contacts and database.
- Pick one with automated campaigns – Once you segment those audiences, you want the CRM to automatically send out messages and generate business.
Leadhub Is A ServiceTitan Certified Marketing Partner
ServiceTitan is the leading CRM for the home services industry. Only five agencies in the world are ServiceTitan Certified Marketing Partners – and Leadhub is one of them. We earned that distinction by passing 27 exams to prove our knowledge and expertise in how ServiceTitan can help businesses in the trades.
We recommend ServiceTitan for most of our clients, but we also have years of experience working with CRMs of all sizes and scopes. The key is recognizing that you’re ready to invest in the efficiency of a CRM — and knowledgeable teams like Leadhub make the decision even easier.
Learn More About CRMs
Ready to discuss how ServiceTitan or another CRM can take your company to the next level? Lean on the industry expertise of our team at Leadhub. We can make sure that you find a CRM that matches your operational structure and budget. Contact Leadhub today for a free discovery call!
