Home service marketing is mostly about getting the phone to ring. Matt Tyner, who does that professionally for a roofing company, thinks the industry has the emphasis backwards.
Leads Are Easy. Promises Are Not.
“We can acquire leads and opportunities all day long, but if we’re not able to make a promise and ultimately keep that promise throughout the entire customer journey… then everything you’re doing is garbage.”
— Matt Tyner, Bone Dry Roofing
His point about the internal seam applies exactly as well to HVAC and plumbing as to roofing: “we make the promise, but operations ultimately has to deliver that. And if we’re not dialed in on that delivery, then everything we just promised is fake.”
Where Home Service Companies Break Trust
Our list, from the calls we get after somebody else has been. Arriving outside the window without a call. Quoting on the phone and pricing differently on site. Replacing a part without asking. Leaving the old equipment, the packaging or the crawlspace hatch. And not returning the warranty call as promptly as the sales call.
Tyner’s framing is that reputation is the actual asset: “reputation is absolutely everything. And that’s what you truly earn… that trust that you’ve instilled into the community.” He describes the marketing question as “how on all these different touch points can we instill more trust?” rather than how do we sell more.
What We Commit To In Writing
A written diagnosis before any repair is authorised. Pricing agreed before work starts, and any change agreed before it happens rather than after. The old parts left for you to see if you want them. The work area left as we found it. And a clear statement of what is covered and for how long.
One thing we deliberately do not promise is a response time. August is not February, and a company that guarantees the same arrival window in both is either overstaffed eleven months of the year or about to break the promise. We will tell you honestly when we can be there.
How To Hold Any Contractor To It
Get the promise in writing, however informal — a text message counts. Note the date and the name of who said it. And when something slips, say so once, plainly, and see what happens next.
Tyner’s observation is that this is self-correcting in a small market, because “consumers can talk” — “whether it’s someone talking across the fence line or if it’s someone talking across on the Facebook pages.” In Cookeville that is not a theory.
More in how to vet a home repair contractor.
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