With each quickTIPS idea we receive I am more and more impressed with the insights our SFS website readers bring to the table. Those who build their business with Value Added Service are having a blast as they make a fortune! Thanks so much for sharing and keep it coming.!
Even better, all your contributions are greatly valued by the SFS team and your fellow carpet cleaners industry wide! For example, check out this fantastic approach to making Customer Cheerleaders:
I’m sure that many of you are giving a free bottle of spotter to your clients. We all know it’s a great way to keep our name and number in front of the customer and to deter them from using store bought cleaning agents that shouldn’t go within 10 feet of carpet and take us longer to clean out. My clients are always pleased to received my free bottle of spotter. Especially housewives, which of course make up the vast majority of all carpet cleaners’ residential clients.
Over the last few months as I am handing over a spotter bottle I say “and of course you should always use a white towel with any cleaning agent on any fabric so here’s one for you to use with it”. When I decided to try this out I hoped my clients would appreciate the gesture. I quickly realized I had grossly underestimated the impact.
As it turns out, many of my clients and especially housewives get more excited about the 30 cent towel than they do the spotter bottle! In fact recently of one of my clients called to ask for another spotter bottle and when I arrived to give it to her she asked “Do I get another towel too?” Well of course you do!
The free “spotting towel” has increased my credibility as the carpet cleaning professional in my customer’s eyes and as a result I’ve found that it has increased my add-on sales average as well! I get the towels at Costco for about $0.30 apiece.
Chris Sutton
Carpet MD Inc.
Thank you Chris for sharing! By appreciating the cleaning experience through the “Customer’s Eyeglasses” Chris discovered and tapped a POSITIVE differentiation factor. While it may be contrarian thinking to spend more and give away more, for Carpet MD Inc. the proof is in the profits.
Steve
P.S: Whether you try Chris’ “free towel approach” or not, puhleeeease implement a FREE Spotter for Life program with all of your customers. I believe I was the first one in the industry to implement this hugely successful marketing tactic way back in the mid 1970’s. But what a hassle it was! I had to design the program from the ground up: a) design the art work, b) order the bottles with my silk-screened logo on them and c) painfully fill each one. (My kids still talk about our family “bottle filling parties” we used to hold at the dining table every month.) Now everything is turnkey for you with Jon-Don’s Spot-Out custom label program.