How to Convert, Manage, and Maximise Plumbing Leads
July 26, 2024 | Read: 8 minutes
There will always be a strong demand for plumbing businesses and their services. And while acquiring leads might not be a problem, making the most out of all your plumbing leads will still be a challenge.
You’ll need to find a way to manage a fully booked calendar all-year-round and help to get the most out of your team…
There are a lot of ways to generate new business opportunities, but are you doing it in the way that’s most profitable for your company?
Keep reading to learn how to convert, manage, and maximise your plumbing leads at a consistent rate.
Breaking Down the Buyer’s Journey
When it comes to winning customers over, when was the last time you evaluated precisely how customers interacted with your business?
Most field service managers overlook that customers’ expectations are shaped not only by your direct competitors but by every other company that a customer comes into contact with.
Therefore, you should focus on improving your experience to meet & exceed what customers expect. By doing so you’re more likely to attract leads and convert them into customers.
However, if your only goal is to “improve their customer experience”, it can be overwhelming and tough to find a true starting point.
A customer journey map will be of great use here. It helps to illustrate the process that a lead goes through to complete their purchase with your company, and their experience as a customer, too.
When you break improvements down into smaller, more manageable chunks, you can craft individual journeys that lead to a greater experience overall. Improving small details like offering customers more ways to request a job or providing them with a variety of secure ways to pay makes this task more achievable.
Of course, compared to your average online shopping experience, the average customer journey for a plumbing lead is a little more complex.
That’s why we’ve created this infographic to help you visualise these journeys a little more clearly.
Without optimised journeys, you can see the struggles that both you and your customers may face, versus the ideal scenarios you can create if you take care to improve every interaction.
Field service customer journey mapping arose as the answer to solving the problems of digital-focused customers; the kind who expect both online and offline excellence.
This is where software plays a significant role: with Sales tools helping you to manage plumbing leads and the jobs that follow, seamlessly.
We’ll touch more on this shortly…
Nurturing and Managing Plumbing Leads Using a Customer Database
But even though you’re generating a steady influx of leads, they may not be converting at the rate you were hoping for…
So how do you nurture them and manage your sales pipeline for the most success?
If they’re on the fence about booking a job for your plumbing services, they’ll need to be convinced in some way.
This is a good time to ask yourself, what value is your company providing them compared to the competition?
If you haven’t recently, do some extra research on your competitors and focus on finding the ways that your service exceeds theirs. Then use your newfound insights to sell your customers on why they should pick your company.
But as you know, not every plumbing lead you acquire is going to convert into a sale. Sometimes, they only come to the website or call to ask questions or gather information, perhaps for a future project.
This is why another essential conversion tool for your plumbing business is having a place to store these still undecided leads. And by “place” we don’t mean a filing cabinet.
What we mean is a digital customer database that allows you to classify leads into different groups, like proposals sent or ready to schedule.
The beauty of having a database when you start collecting more plumbing leads is that you can analyse and divide them according to what’s most relevant to your business.
With the daily task of manually organising leads streamlined for your administration staff, they’ll have more time to focus on generating new strategies that maximise these leads’ value, making your customer’s needs feel better understood.
How To Manage the Sales Pipeline
Now that your leads are stored properly, understanding the best practices of opportunity management will help you oversee every stage of selling while keeping all opportunities in one place.
Software will always be the best choice if you want a streamlined sales pipeline.
When you use both plumbing software and a sales CRM platform (like those offered by Commusoft), you gain the ability to visualise your potential and current clients across an intuitive sales pipeline and quickly see which ones are progressing smoothly or where they’re most frequently dropping out of the process.
We make it effortless to manage multiple pipelines from a single screen and customise the different stages to reflect your unique business and the services you offer. Whether by customer type, asset, or industry – it’s entirely up to you!
On top of that, when you automate the follow-up process, you can ensure no opportunity is buried by enrolling leads in automated communication workflows with set triggers.
Now you might be wondering, what are the sales process stages and does my business acknowledge all of them? The six steps are:
- 1: Enquiry Made
- 2: Survey Booked
- 3: Survey Completed
- 4: Proposal Sent
- 5: Follow-Up Sent
- 6a: Opportunity Won
- 6b: Opportunity Lost
Remember that clients generally won’t be on the same step throughout the process and you’ll need to find the best methods for your business that keep customers moving from enquiry to opportunity won.
For example, you may have a client who is enquiring about a large plumbing project outside of a engineer’s normal duties. While at the same time getting an emergency request from a new customer who just had a pipe burst in their home!
Some opportunities may be easier to win than others, but you’ll still have to move them through each stage. Thankfully, even during a hectic work day, it can easily be managed with our software.
Check out our guide if you’re looking for more information on mastering your sales strategy!
Taking Advantage of Customer Self-Service Portals
Combining your organised database and sales pipeline with customer self-service portals will give your target audience an efficient method to access your services 24/7.
When you offer easy-to-use self-service options, you transform the customer experience. They’ll appreciate having access to an online platform where they book jobs, manage appointments, accept quotes, pay invoices, access files or certificates, and even review your services after the bill is paid.
Any current or potential client who seeks out your plumbing services becomes empowered to help themselves at their convenience. This benefits them and you by relieving administration and field team pressure without hiring more staff.
Maximising Your Sales and Plumbing Leads
At the end of the day, even though your sales aren’t hurting, you may want to focus on maximising the value each customer brings to your business.
Playing the long game will work in your favor since plumbing services will be a necessity for every type of property owner at some point.
Therefore, It’s crucial to focus on customer retention, whether it’s sending consistent service reminders or securing contracts that earn recurring revenue.
Finding ways to keep customers coming back to your business is the best way to make the most of your plumbing leads and maximise sales.
Take Control of Your Sales Pipeline with Commusoft
No matter whether you call it selling, quoting, or estimating – winning work is a vital part of your business.
That’s why we’ve built an all-in-one sales CRM software designed specifically for plumbing businesses so you can gain total control over your sales process and expand your operations.
With Commusoft, you can transform your company from the ground up by speeding up estimating with beautiful proposal templates, increase conversion by monitoring the entire sales process, ensure profitability by tacking exact costs, and grow revenue at every stage.
