We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy.
As a contractor in the home services industry, when it comes time to hire your team, you want someone who either has experience in the industry or has the talent to be trained properly.
Certified and licensed technicians, plumbers and electricians have undergone rigorous training and know how to diagnose and repair most problems they could encounter in a customer’s home. You also know that hiring a well-trained staff helps your company build trust with your customers every time they need to hire your company.
Now, imagine if your call center and back-office staff were as well trained in their roles as your technicians.
If you are a small- to mid-sized home service company, chances are you either started your business after working as a service tech or you are an entrepreneur who specializes in big-picture thinking and planning. And without a background in customer service, bookkeeping or accounting, you may find it difficult to know what to look for when hiring people to fill these roles.
If you want to take your professionalism up a notch, it may be time to outsource these roles to companies who can provide the experts you need to build the successful business you want. These call center or accounting firms can attract the top talent in their fields because they offer competitive salaries, diverse projects and opportunities to receive ongoing training and the ability to work with innovative technology.
That makes it easier for you to ensure you’ve hired the right talent to help you manage your business.
Missed calls
With all the ways your customers can stay in touch with your company online, you’d think that the old-fashioned telephone call would be nearing obsolescence.
Even with the use of text messaging, chatbots, social media engagement and email, nothing has completely replaced the telephone as the main means of first communication in most business settings. Even today, 60% of customers prefer to contact (tinyurl.com/42nkvnmc) the people they do business with by phone.
That’s why your home service team needs customer service professionals who understand how to properly answer a call, actively listen to the customer, gather necessary information and remain positive during the entire interaction.
Positive customer service interactions directly impact customer loyalty, generate repeat business and help build a strong reputation between your home service company and the community. Trained customer service professionals know how to quickly and successfully resolve customer concerns, can effectively upsell and cross-sell and will use their problem-solving skills to find solutions to complex problems.
When customers are treated professionally and with respect, they are more satisfied, and a satisfied customer leads to repeat business. The rule of thumb still states that it costs five times more to create a new customer than to retain an old one. Keeping customers happy and willing to call upon you for service again is a good return on investment.
Outsourcing your call center is also a great way to save your small- to mid-sized contracting business money. Instead of paying salaries and benefits and purchasing all the proper equipment your call center team needs, you pay a fixed price to a service provider who can properly hire, train and pay call team members.
By outsourcing your customer service team to a professional service, you’re able to provide your clientele with expert-level amenities and ensure that your customer service team is professionally trained without breaking the bank.
Cultivating your financials
While an expert customer service team can help your home service company take care of your customers, outsourcing your bookkeeping or accounting team is also attractive to a smaller business who would rather focus on its core competencies.
Hiring the right accountants or bookkeepers might also be a bit out of your wheelhouse as a home service contractor. But if you hire the right accounting service, you can rest assured that this partner understands the background their accountants and bookkeepers need in order to work with your company successfully.
Not only will you have access to the expertise you need, you are also purchasing business efficiency. An outsourced accounting service stays up-to-date on tax law and compliance issues in their industry and they know the training that needs to be implemented. These features help your accounting partner properly maintain your records which improves your financial reporting.
Imagine being able to streamline your financial tasks to ensure accuracy and maintain compliance while freeing up your time to work on your core business and plan your strategic growth.
While outsourcing your call center and accounting team may seem like a good idea on a surface level, a good back-office partner will also offer you a deeper level of understanding about your business.
An expert call center team and a professional accounting service specialize in the services they provide. They have developed a series of qualified processes and invested in expert-level technology so that they can do their jobs more effectively.
While this means that they are providing your customers with impeccable service and your staff with the financial records you need to properly maintain your business, they can also provide you with the advanced analytics and specialized data you need to scale your business.
As a smaller company, it can be daunting when you’re making decisions about how to grow your business. Even without access to this data, you also face a limitation in resources. But by hiring teams with specialized customer service and accounting skills who have access to the best technologies available in their fields, you are able to have the confidence in the data they provide to build a detailed growth strategy.
The flexibility and expertise an outsourced team can provide you allows you to focus on your core home service business offerings.
By choosing the right outsourcing partner, you not only have access to next-level customer service and dependable financial records, but you can use the time you save, the data your teams gather and the expertise these teams can provide to help your business create the growth-oriented and scalable operation you’ve always wanted.
Lynn Wise is the founder of Contractor in Charge, a company offering organizations services such as accounting, dispatch and customer service representatives for the home service industry. She is also the author of “Build It, Grow It, Sell It! Nine Steps to a Thriving Contracting Business.” Wise has spent the last 35 years as the successful owner of multiple small businesses, including a plumbing and heating repair company and a remodeling company.