Forward schedule to make life easier for your repeat clients

Your customers SAY they clean their carpets every year.  Yet due to budget/ time/ hassle concerns more home owners are “stretching” their yearly cleaning.  Meanwhile both your cash flow and your reputation suffer as in, “You know, honey, look how fast the carpets got dirty after this last cleaning.” (Try vacuuming more than once every other month! GRRR!)

With the SFS pre-paid residential Stay Beautiful maintenance plan your customer’s carpets will look great year round- easily and economically.  Even better, you get “guaranteed clients” that provide you profitable AND predictable cash flow.  Win-Win!

NOTE:  Download the details of the Stay Beautiful program on our website.

However, even with the painless pre-paid automatic withdrawal feature of the Stay Beautiful program (which customers love!) the biggest challenge is slowing them down for their regular every-six-months cleaning.  Time to learn from your dentist and his or her “Forward Scheduling” concept …

With your Stay Beautiful accounts ‘forward schedule’ your customer’s next appointment in six months while still on the job. Just ask, “Mrs. Jones, what day of the week is better for you for your next Stay Beautiful cleaning?” 

Once she picks the day, your tech calls the office (or checks your online schedule) and comes back with a tentative appointment.  “Mrs. Jones, I have a Thursday for you on March 19^th at 9:00 in the morning?  We’ll put you down for that and then e-mail you one month before and call you two weeks before on March 5th to confirm that the 19^th still works for you. If you need to reschedule then that will be fine.”

This is a GREAT idea! Once again, the biggest single issue I find with the SFS Stay Beautiful concept (and it IS a fantastic idea) is just getting people slowed down enough to schedule for their PRE-PAID cleaning.  (So obviously this ‘scheduling reluctance’ isn’t a matter of money!)  This ‘forward scheduled’ commitment adds formality to the next cleaning and your customers will be more likely to follow through.

Heck, dentists learned to forward schedule years ago!  As we learn in SFS homeowners inevitably view the intrusion of carpet cleaning as a ‘Tolerated Irritation’.  However, even the most clueless technician isn’t as ‘painful’ as dental work!  So if dentists can lure you back into their office by forward scheduling a much feared dental appointment the concept will work even better with carpet cleaning.

In fact, even if you don’t implement the Stay Beautiful program this ‘Forward Scheduling’ concept will work.  Just ask your customer when you are finishing up in their home, “So Mrs. Jones, how often do you have your carpets cleaned?  (Customer replies, “Oh, at least every year.”) You say, “Today is Tuesday- is that usually the best day for you?” (Checking your smartphone scheduling program) “Hmmm, I have a 9:00 available on a Tuesday exactly 12 months from today on …”

Now instead of telling yourself this won’t work why not forward schedule today?  Then let us know your results below in the comments.  After all, we are all in this together!

Steve