Finding Thousands of ££££ Down the Back of the Sofa
Introduction
We worked with a small but ambitious tree surgery business based in West London. Their client base was a mix of residential owner occupiers and managers of commercial premises such as block managers and lettings agents. What both client groups had in common was that each had trees sited on their respective land that needed looking after.
Challenge:
Every month the estimator team visited between 150 and 200 properties to view the tree stock, make recommendations, and provide each client with a written quotation. Approximately half of these quotes were accepted within a day or two of being sent. The business had no wish to make follow up calls as they thought their clients wouldn’t like it.
The management team wanted to find ways to win more work and were thinking of investing in digital marketing. Given the impact of Covid and the subsequent lockdowns, the business didn’t have much spare cash to invest in marketing campaigns that might not work. But maybe there was an opportunity to win more of the work they had already quoted on?
Solution:
We developed a simple follow up process and approach. Graham - one of the office team - was given responsibility to call clients who hadn’t responded to the quote they had been sent. We then met with him weekly to check on progress and answer any questions he had.
Outcome:
The impact of these simple follow up calls was impressive. An additional 20% of clients said 'yes' to their quotes which represented over £90,000 in new income over the course of the first year that the programme was in place and they are forecasting £120,000 for year two. Graham shared with us that many of the clients said they either couldn’t remember seeing the quote or that it was on their to-do list and then promptly forgot all about it. So, a polite nudge 3 or 4 days after the quote was sent out did the trick.
Importantly, no client was annoyed at being called, and none threatened to take their business away. In fact, most appreciated being called and reminded. Not a bad return on Graham’s investment of under 30 minutes a day on follow up calls.
As the business owner put it, “It’s like finding thousands of pounds down the back of the sofa!”
Tagged as: London, Small Business
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