How can trades increase their conversion rate

How to increase your conversion when doing a survey and quote

There are things that you should be doing to increase your conversion when you go and do a survey for a job and then quote, many trades don't do them so if you do you can clear up.

I once went to look at a job for a rewire, during my survey of the house another electrician that had been booked to quote turned up.......2 hours early and unannounced, the first lesson here is turn up on time, do not be late or early!

He was in the house for no more than 5 minutes, looked around a bit asked the owner how many sockets and lights he wanted, He then said I suppose I better write this down took out a scrappy note book, then looked at me told me how much he'd charge and left. 

Doing a survey is marketing too!

When you go to do a quote, be presentable, take time to build rapport with your customer and understand what's important to them about using a contractor. I designed a quote sheet to use on a clipboard which allowed me to get all the information I needed, and it then helped later when working out the quote, the key thing was it looked professional and more importantly showed I cared about the customers job. Another key point is to make sure to get an email address.

Make sure you have a template on a word processor that once you have completed the quote save it as a pdf (portable document format) to send in an email (I use word as this allows you to do this) immediately as you send the email call your customer to let them know you've sent it, so they know to look out for it. This is also another contact with the customer.

I use Gmail for emails, please note though you can set it up to send through your own domain, I do not use my Gmail address to send business emails, also gmail has a free app called yesware that can track email opens and when people click on any links.

Make the call

Once you know your customer has opened your email call them between 24 and 48 hours to 'check' they've got the email, here is another point of contact with the customer and you can ask if they have any feedback on it and if they'd like to go ahead with the work.

More contact = More business

So why have I been saying to make so many points of contact with the customer, well if you do these simple things you'll increase your conversion, because the more contact you have with a customer the more they will trust you, remember you and hopefully like you, they'll see you as someone who communicates well. I consider all these things marketing, and it means all the marketing you've done to get to the survey stage would have cost you less.

By the way the rewire job I spoke about earlier, I not only got the customer told me that the other guy was much cheaper but because I was more professional he wanted me to do the job.


To your success
Paul Jennings