Using Data to Build Customer Relationships and Boost Bookings

When business starts to slow a little bit, it’s easy to start freaking out and trying to be everything to everyone. Maybe you start thinking of investing in Facebook or Yelp ads, or wanting to add a bunch of pages to your website when you’re not closing as many calls. 

One of the resources we love is the Melissa Data report. You can upload everybody out of your system and they come back with some really valuable information, like who’s spending the most money with you, or the best service areas to be focusing on.

We’re recommending a few things for this weird economic period including understanding your customer data. Generally right now, customers are calling with interest but booking rates are down. We suggest dedicating more time to build your brand, highly train your CSRs for conversions, and knowing your customer with data.

How Melissa Data Reports Can Help Home Service Businesses

• Identifying & understanding your ideal customer: Melissa Data reports can help you identify your ideal customer by providing demographic information, spending habits, and other data. This information can help you target your marketing efforts to more effectively reach the right people.
• Understanding your competition: These reports can also help you understand your competition by providing information on their size, location, and marketing strategies. This information can help you stay ahead of the competition and attract more customers.
• Finding new customers: Melissa Data reports can help you find new customers by helping you compile lists of potential leads. These lists can be segmented by demographics, interests, and other criteria to help you reach the right people.
• Making better decisions: Melissa Data reports can help you make better decisions about your business by providing insights into your market, your customers, and your competition. This information can help you be more targeted with your marketing and pricing strategies. 

We love Melissa Data reports because they can help you improve customer service by understanding needs and preferences. Marketing costs can be reduced and refined by targeting more effectively. Sales can be boosted by understanding buying habits. You can continue to grow your business in this weird economy by researching and understanding new markets and attracting new customers. 

If you’re looking for a way to improve your home service business, Melissa Data reports are a great place to start. With their help, you can gain the insights and information you need to make better decisions and grow your business.

Understanding your customers

Once you know who your ideal customer is, the next step is finding out what their fears and desires are. Once you know the things they’re most concerned about or are most important to them, you can be better informed about writing your website or social content that speaks to them. Directly answering questions they already have or giving educational insight ensures your business is in alignment with the things they desire most. 

A Scrappy way to determine customer concerns

Give every one of your CSRs and service techs a yellow pad of paper, and for 24-48 hours, have them write down every question that a customer asks no matter what it is. There are no silly questions!

Compile all of these questions afterwards and you’ll have a fantastic idea of what core questions your customers are wanting to know the answers to. Then you can bring the answers into your website and social media content to begin resonating with your ideal clients. 

Look at website through the lense of your ideal customer

Check out your website at least once a quarter on your laptop/desktop and also your phone. Remember to look at the website as if you were your target customer– this is much different than the preferences you likely have as a business owner. 

Use the questions you came up with in the previous exercise to see what content needs to be updated or created. Think about what’s important to your ideal customer, for example, price may be much more important than licensed technicians with background checks for some (or vice versa). 

Don’t forget the simple stuff. Explaining how your booking or in house process will work on your website can help you resonate with your ideal customers.

It’s time to get creative

Although calls are not down, booking rates generally are. Getting creative with understanding your customer and proactively answering questions and concerns will help you continue to build your business in these weird economic times.

Thoughts? Shoot us a message at [email protected] to talk shop!

To your growth,

Stephen