Get Ahead of Your Home Service Competitors with Message Qualifying

If you’re in the home services business, you’re probably already familiar with the importance of a qualifying lead. Getting a lead is the name of the game, and you need to know what percentage of inbound inquiries result in potential customers – essentially, whether a lead will actually turn into a prospective point of business.

Call qualifying is what most of us are accustomed to dealing with. But as you’re listening to a call, how can you tell when something is an actual prospect, or whether this lead has dried up? Here are a few pertinent questions our talented call qualifying team at VitalStorm ask:

• Does the call have the initial intent to schedule service? That is, are they saying things like, “I need someone to come fix my water heater,” or, “There’s a burning smell coming from my outlet, can you take a look at it?”
• Does the caller provide an address? This usually indicates that they’re in the immediate market for a service.
• Does the caller confirm a specific day and time – that is, a service window – for an appointment?

Changing Modes of Communication

Qualifying calls to your business is still important, but the way that we communicate in the digital age has evolved. When somebody needs something, they don’t immediately pick up the phone and dial your business like they used to.

Emails are just as popular as a mode of communication, and VitalStorm has recently begun qualifying them as well. The qualifying team receives emails in the same queue where calls show up, so the process for determining prospects isn’t all that different. In fact, the guidelines that VitalStorm uses to qualify emails are the same ones we use to qualify calls.

But there’s still another method of qualifying that we haven’t gotten to yet.

Immediacy is Key

Although everyone’s got a smartphone these days, it seems like fewer and fewer people are using it to call people – instead, the more popular mode of communication is through texting. Although that may seem like a dead end when it comes to qualifying leads, did you know text messages can be even more helpful for determining a prospect?

Qualifying text messages can be instrumental in helping your home services business take the next step. Since texts are so immediate and don’t require a second party to answer them, customers can text their problem straight to you instead of waiting on someone to answer a call.

This makes a massive impact, since time is of the essence for emergency-type situations. And once your prospects have established that they can use texting as a means of communication, you can capitalize.

Text messages have a 90% open rate, compared to roughly a 20% open rate for emails. A message popping up on your phone makes a world of difference in how much you want to open it. VitalStorm will soon be qualifying texts in addition to emails and calls. We’re confident that it’ll help give your business a leg up on the competition.

 

Here at VitalStorm, we pride ourselves on implementing a comprehensive strategy to help your business make its mark in the digital marketing landscape. In addition to qualifying leads, we offer PPC, web development, social media and content marketing solutions to help you stand out above the rest.

Give our talented team a call at 1-877-311-5695 to take the first step in fulfilling your business’ digital marketing potential!