It's been quite a while since my last post. I figured no one was really reading this thing anyway. I decided to write again in spite of that. I have now been working in this industry for about 2 years now. It seems contractors never change. We have made some changes in our business everything from lower the price of our leads to giving more credit. Even when we didn't feel all those credits were warranted. We were trying to figure out how to keep contractors on our service longer. Seems that there is no answer for that. The only way to stay ahead of the game is to just keep getting a continual flow of contractors signed up for the service. The reason is, every contractor will quit for any reason and sometimes for no reason at all, ok well no logical reason.
We have had contractors quit our service because they have not gotten any leads. This makes no sense to me at all because we don't charge anything to be on our service. We only bill once we get you a lead. As for credits we have one of the most lenient credit back policies that exist in the industry. Contractors continually attempt to take advantage of this. They will turn leads in for credit stating reasons that are not true, they'll say the lead has a bad phone number. We will in turn call the lead to verify this and find out from the homeowner that it is not only the right number but the contractor in question did in fact call and speak to the homeowner. It mostly turns out that the homeowner decided to go with another company.
It seems contractors all want something for nothing. It's like they think that we are all ripping them off. We provide them with homeowners that want their products, but when they can't sell it they blame us. I wonder if these same contractors call the yellow pages and ask for a discount because everyone that calls them seems to be only looking for information or a price by phone or a ballpark figure? Of coursenot, that's ludicrous, so why do they think that they deserve credit from us for a customer not buying with them?
They want the leads cheaper, they want credit for every one that doesn't result in a sale, this is not realistic. I wonder when any of this will change.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Leads-It's A Numbers Game
Day in and day out we talk to contractors that are not happy. Either they are leaving another lead den company to try us out, or they are leaving us. The main reason everyone seems to be leaving lately? Lead Quality. The thing is, our leads are of the highest quality out there.
This happens because we call every one of our leads and verify it prior to sending it to our clients. Even in the cases where we speak to the homeowner in depth we have still seen a return request come back on these leads. It can range from, "they changed their minds", to "they just want to purchase product for a self install." Now even though we know this is untrue because we spoke with the customer first, we can't seem to get a straight answer out of our clients on some of these return requests.
We have some clients that never ask for a credit and others that waste time turning in every lead they get in hopes of lowering their overall lead cost. We treat every credit request the same, we recall the lead and verify the contractors concern. Most of the time, it is legitimate, the customer didn't fully understand what they were filling out, or thought they were just getting an estimate on products not services.
I just don't get why some companies are able to sell the same leads that other companies say they can't even get a hold of. It seems to me that there is another side to this story. A side that we don't always hear, the 1st contact between the contractor and the customer. I wonder what some of these contractors tell the customers, why do customers that were dead set on getting an estimate on 10 windows somehow change their minds to only need a repair on one window? Are these contractors talking the customers out of their business? I don't get this.
It's a new year and a new round of adventures is beginning. Can't wait to see what's in store this year!
This happens because we call every one of our leads and verify it prior to sending it to our clients. Even in the cases where we speak to the homeowner in depth we have still seen a return request come back on these leads. It can range from, "they changed their minds", to "they just want to purchase product for a self install." Now even though we know this is untrue because we spoke with the customer first, we can't seem to get a straight answer out of our clients on some of these return requests.
We have some clients that never ask for a credit and others that waste time turning in every lead they get in hopes of lowering their overall lead cost. We treat every credit request the same, we recall the lead and verify the contractors concern. Most of the time, it is legitimate, the customer didn't fully understand what they were filling out, or thought they were just getting an estimate on products not services.
I just don't get why some companies are able to sell the same leads that other companies say they can't even get a hold of. It seems to me that there is another side to this story. A side that we don't always hear, the 1st contact between the contractor and the customer. I wonder what some of these contractors tell the customers, why do customers that were dead set on getting an estimate on 10 windows somehow change their minds to only need a repair on one window? Are these contractors talking the customers out of their business? I don't get this.
It's a new year and a new round of adventures is beginning. Can't wait to see what's in store this year!
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