What happened to my customers?

I had been in business for years, staying busy and the phone would ring for quotes year round.

I would hear from a few of the same customers a few times a year and they were so happy with our work they would refer us to their friends and colleagues.

At this point we had been in business for over ten years and the tradition continued, we stayed busy but not overly busy and I quite often thought

“Whatever happened to —–?”

And…

“I wonder if Mrs. — still owns that beautiful house?”

Then I drove by one of what I thought GOOD customers and someone else was painting their house!

I had become the Forgotten Contractor.

I needed to change things and change this NOW.

Can you relate to this?

Are you the “Forgotten contractor?”

I had to find my customer and I was on a limited budget.

The following steps turned me from the forgotten contractor to the contractor they thought of FIRST, by staying T.O.M. “Top of Mind.”

• I had to touch base with all my current and past customers
  • A personal handwritten note to all my past customers letting them know I am still here if you need me.
    • “Hello Mrs. Smith   I wanted to say hello’ and let you know we are here if you need us…

“This handwritten note generated five calls the first week”

• We signed on to the service Send Out Cards (SOC)
  • SOC lets us set  planned mailing with a personalized note processed and mailed by the company with our Brand on it.
    • We make this funny and light and avoid the typical holidays
    • Items of G.I.E.
      • Gratitude
      • Inspiration
      • Entertainment

Our last mailing was to celebrate national crème filled doughnut day

 

• Email our customers with funny videos of me, my company and the crew. Again emails are G.I.E.
  • This gives them a reason to share our message and name, plus something to remember us by.
  • The investment for this was $ 0.00

• We “friend” our customers on Facebook with our Personal and then invite them to Like our  business page, this allows them to see what our business is doing and that we are part of the community, because business is all about relationships.
  • The investment for this was $ 0.00

• I made phone calls to our past customers.  Many of the calls went to voicemail but those that were answered were met with a positive conversation.
  • The calls went something like,
    • “Hi Mrs Jones, This is Ron with Ramsden 1-800-PAINTING, just calling to say hello and to let you know you are a valued customer. How’s the family, the dogs, the neighborhood etc…”
  • Notice we did NOT ask for work or a referral. They know we are in business and being in business, we are always grateful for more work and referrals. No need to insult their intelligence. Instead, keep it focused on them.
  • The investment  for this was $ 0.00

The above steps were to touch our present and past customers with our limited budget.  We were able to generate a positive vibe and calls and emails started to come in.

Sales from customers who we had disappeared from their radar have helped our overall revenue growth and have kept our crews busy year round.

It is MUCH easier and far more cost effective to stay T.O.M. to our customers as they already know, like, and trust us, then it is to invest so much money and effort chasing after new leads.

In short, stay T.O.M.

If you would like to see many for was to stay T.O.M, like the rest of us, you can check is ALL out for just $1 CLICK HERE

I’ll see you on the inside…