“So how can I push my techs to sell residential contract cleaning?”

improve-residential-contract-cleaning-signupsHi Steve,

We are finally getting ready to implement the great pre-paid residential contract cleaning “Stay Beautiful” program we learned about our SFS class.  I want to be able to hold the techs accountable in selling this carpet maintenance program in our customer’s homes.  So are there any statistics that I can hold my employees to as far as a percentage of customers that sign up for the Stay Beautiful program?  I want to make sure this is a success!

Thanks,

Demanding in Dover

Good question, Demanding. I don’t have a specific percentage but here’s a few meandering thoughts:

1. Be very careful about pressuring your employees re: booking Stay Beautiful (S/B) accounts since that may easily translate into them high pressuring the home owner. And here’s the deal: We have found there simply is no NEED to high pressure people on the Stay Beautiful concept. (And of course high pressure selling inside the “inner sanctum” of your client’s home is always counter-productive and just plain wrong ethically!) So here is the secret…

2. Once your customers UNDERSTAND the Stay Beautiful program they will either love it OR simply not be interested. (And with the ones who didn’t want to sign up on the S/B program I was delighted just to keep them as long term, regular clients!) So your job is to increase your customer’s awareness and understanding of the S/B program. And to me that means…

3. As much as possible take the “load” off your on-site (and often running behind) techs. Here is how you do this- Make the Stay Beautiful program a center-piece of your marketing. (After all, a main goal of your marketing should be to “differentiate” your company and obviously the Stay Beautiful program is different!) Now don’t forget to…

4. Tie this new marketing emphasis into your website. Develop a separate landing page on your website just for the Stay Beautiful program plus link to it in your customer emails and from your front page. And speaking of emails…

5. So are you folks sending out a “How to Get Ready For Us” checklist? (You should be.) If so, include a brief explanation of the S/B program along with a link back to your S/B landing page. Then “pre-orient” your clients again when they call the office …

6. So have your phone reps mention the program during the booking process. Normally they should not try to sell it over the phone. Instead just say that “Bill will explain our optional Stay Beautiful program to you after we see how the carpets clean up.” 

NOTE #1: The perfect time to sell (actually explain) the S/B program is when the customer is paying the tech while they are delighted with their sparkling clean carpets!

NOTE #2: Then IF the tech signs up the customer as a S/B client then your phone rep gets a small spiff. Talk about “peer pressure”! 🙂

7. Now even with all this you do need to hold your tech’s “feet to the fire”. I would hold your techs “accountable” in two ways:

a. Economically. Make it VERY profitable for your techs by giving them the first month of every signed S/B contract they bring back to the office.

b. In your follow-up Immediate Quality Check Call (Are you kids doing this? You should be!) just make one of your questions: “Now did Charlie explain our Stay Beautiful program to you?” Then every time you get a “Why yes, he did.” from the customer keep track of it. (Whether the client signed up for the program or not doesn’t matter.)  Now the tech with the highest percentages of customer “yes” responses over the last week/month gets a prize (And big recognition!) at your next company meeting!

Hey, Demanding, I hope this stuff was helpful. Plus I’d REALLY like to know YOUR S/B sign-up percentages you come up with. Plus any more promotional ideas you develop.

Best wishes!

Steve

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