7 New Solutions to Help Your Clients Automate Their Home

BY: Joe Crisara

As a service professional, the concept of “pure motive service” means constantly offering the customer the most choices possible and knowing that you are truly offering things which are beneficial and will improve their quality of life. Besides the standard machinery and components involved with plumbing, electrical and HVAC, there now exist cutting edge electronic products which enable systems and appliances in a home to be controlled through advanced pre-programming as well as in real time through wife-connected devices. A house with many of these technological products is often called a “smart home.”

When you make the human connection, when you invest yourself in your customers and really listen, something changes. You key into the details of their wants, needs, issues and overall lifestyle. You get a sense on where they stand when it comes to convenience vs luxury vs frugality vs safety. As a top service professional offering pure motive service, you can recommend specific smart home products to different customers because you know positively that they actually would be interested in such a solution and they would benefit from it.

TURNING UP (OR DOWN) THE HEAT

Let’s say that your customer is out all day at work, as is their spouse, and their children are at school for at least some of the day, too. They want to save money on heating and cooling but also maintain a certain temperature all the time so their home climate conditions don’t get too extreme for when family members arrive back home. You might suggest a smart thermostat, which allows home owners to view, modify and change their home’s heating and cooling settings from their cellphone, from across town or even while hundreds of miles away. Many of these can also sync to voice-interactive smart systems like Google Home, Amazon Echo and Apple Homekit.

If your customers would benefit from having a lot of control over their thermostat, then a smart thermostat would offer them true value and life improvement. This helps them save money on fuel while still maintaining a desirable climate at all times (perhaps to avoid frozen pipes or distressed pets).

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Why Your Business Will Fail Without Field Service Software

BY: Julie Crisara

Nowadays there seems to be an app for everything. An app to get your food delivered, make a doctor’s appointment, stream any movie, there’s even an app to help you find your soul mate. But what about your business?

How are you tracking your team towards the path to success? If you focus all of your efforts on putting feet in the street and fail to monitor your progress, you will undoubtedly fail. Don’t fall into that trap! Check out walk-through infographic on how field service software helps contractors every step of your business.

To save yourself from these pitfalls, sign up for our new app Jobi and see how you can follow this roadmap to keep your business going strong for many years to come! Get your free 7-day trial at www.jobi.pro/trial

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How to Use Texting to Grow Your Contracting Business

BY: Julie Crisara

In the contracting industry, you use the latest tools to make your efforts the most effective. It’s all about taking advantage of the best technology. Why should marketing your company be any different? The basic principles of marketing may remain constant but the platforms we use change over time, and sometimes rapidly. It wasn’t all that many years ago, that Internet advertising seemed like a wild new frontier. Many folks in our industry questioned this weird, far out “World wide web,” saying that they would stick with the old tried and true methods like newspaper advertising in the Yellow Pages. Nowadays, what contractor working today doesn’t have a website, and how many established contracting businesses only spend their advertising budget online?

We’re in the same kind of evolutionary period right now with another cutting-edge technology- texting. That’s right, the same text messaging you use to send notes to friends and family from your phone can be used to significantly improve your contracting business!

The first thing you need to know about text messaging (technically known as SMS) communication is that you need to make sure that those receiving your messages have subscribed to your marketing list. They need to have “opted in”. Don’t just blast text messages to any and everybody because besides being highly frowned upon, there are actually laws against this.

To start building your text message marketing list, include a brief opt-in code, or “Text ‘Start’ to this number” on all your existing marketing and customer communications- flyers, print ads, business cards, invoices, receipts, coupons, in-house signage, vehicle signage, website, emails, social media, etc.   Continue reading “How to Use Texting to Grow Your Contracting Business” →

The Uberization of the Service Industry

BY: Julie Crisara

Unless you’ve been living in a well-hidden cave for several years, you’re familiar with Uber. Press a button on your smartphone and a driver immediately shows up in a nice clean car, taking you where you’re going for around 1/3 the price of a traditional taxi. Sure, taxi drivers hate this phenomenon, but passengers love it and so do those who’ve been suddenly allowed to become professional drivers overnight using their own car!

The taxi drivers were forced to deal with this new reality. Their options are either to A) Quickly develop innovations to make rides more affordable and accessible in this modern age or B) Quit the cab company and go work for Uber. A surprisingly large number have done the latter. This same shift is happening in the house cleaning, dog walking, product delivery and almost every other service industry you can think of… including the contracting industry.

The days of customers sifting through directories and websites to find a plumber, electrician or HVAC technician are gone. Homeowners are sick of waiting on a contractor to show up and wish there was a better way to schedule time with a trusted professional. They want more options – cleaner, slicker, smarter choices for getting maintenance issues taken care of. They want instant service – a way to get the right professional for the job in a matter of hours, not days. They want transparency and automation – to know exactly who will be coming to their house and the process/ cost estimates for getting the job done.

This technology-based revolution is happening in the contracting industry as we speak. The only question is will you adapt and when?

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