Often times, plumbers spend a lot of time and money advertising. They work hard to find areas to advertise, everything from the Yellow Pages to local advertising online. Advertising like this is just fine, but it can be expensive. What becomes frustrating is learning that your competition, or perhaps another home improvement business like your own in the local area, is getting far more customer referrals than you are. You know you do a great job, so why don’t you get more calls?
What’s Your Reputation Really Like?
If you are like many small businesses, you spend a lot of your time on the job, working the problem, and answering calls. You do not have a lot of time for social media or marketing online, but you put in just enough to get the attention your business needs. What you may not know is that other people in your community are using social media sites and various review websites to rate your business. As a direct result, they are saying something about you and your business and you have no idea what it really is.
Have you taken the time to learn about your online reputation?
- Do you search for information about your company?
- Do you have a Facebook or Twitter page?
- Do you know how to search for reviews that relate to your business?
Let’s face it – that’s a lot of time consuming work, especially when you don’t have a lot of experience with using these sites in the first place. The key question you have to ask yourself, though, relates to your customers. What are your customers saying about you that is causing you to not get the referrals you want?
Take a look at some of the reviews you do find online. You may become frustrated that some simply don’t make sense or may even be mistakes. You may learn about your drain cleaning service being late or that a customer didn’t think your plumber was friendly. This is the information you need to make changes, but you simply don’t know what people have to say.
Reputation management is one of the most important components to managing a plumbing business today. You need those referrals, but you are not going to get them if customers are leaving notes about your business online. That’s why you need a team of professionals who can keep your business’s reputation clean all the time.