What is a CRM?
The acronym CRM stands for “customer relationship management.” But in reality, CRM software systems are so much more than that.
They are the oil that allows the sales, marketing, and production engines of your business to run smoothly. And just like you’ll have a hard time trying to successfully run an engine without oil, you’ll have a hard time trying to profitably run a home improvement business without a CRM.
Most CRMs are cloud-based apps that can run on a browser or on a phone, and store all your customer information. This means that you and your employees all have access to the same customer data in one central place, and can access it from anywhere.
Here are just a few examples of what home improvement CRM systems can do:
- Lead & Sales Pipeline Management - to help you schedule and close more of your leads.
- Email & SMS Marketing Campaigns - to stay top of mind with prospective new customers, and keep your relationship with current customers strong.
- Scheduling - to help you set sales appointments and schedule your projects.
- Estimating - to help you estimate jobs more quickly and accurately, and close more deals.
- Employee & Project Management - to help you save money, save time, and keep projects moving along efficiently.
- Marketing & Production Data - to help you make good decisions for your business.
In the next section, we’ll explore several different ways that these features have a tangible impact on your business.
The Impact that CRMs Have on Your Business
#1. Improving Your Customer Experience.
Let’s say a customer calls your office (let’s call her Mary) about getting an estimate for her kitchen remodel. Your receptionist (let’s call her Kelly) answers the phone.
Mary tells Kelly about what she’s looking for, and stresses the fact that she only wants to move forward if the kitchen can be done before the holidays. She says she’s looking for a contractor who can accomplish this.
Mary diligently takes notes on paper, and sets the appointment with your estimator, Mark.
On the day of the appointment, Mark rushes over to Mary’s house. As he gets close, he realizes he hasn’t been briefed on what Mary is looking for. He remembers Kelly told him it was for a kitchen remodel, but that’s it.
He wants to be prepared for the sales call, so he calls the office to ask Kelly for more details. No good - Kelly is on the phone with another customer.
Mark arrives at Mary’s house for the estimate. She warmly invites him in and the appointment goes fairly well. Until they are wrapping up at the end.
See, the whole time, Mary thinks that what she told Kelly about having the project done before the holidays has been relayed to Mark. But it hasn’t.
Mary makes a passing remark that she’s excited about potentially having the kitchen done before the holidays. Mark, clueless about how important this is to Mary, replies cautiously “Well, I’m not 100% sure we can finish before the Holidays, or before thanksgiving anyways. Custom cabinets can take longer to arrive once we put the order in, so it just depends on how soon they get here.”
It dawns on Mary that Mark either doesn’t know, or just doesn’t care very much, about her most important need. Since Mary is very polite, you’d never know it - but it rubs her the wrong way.
She was happy with Mark’s professionalism and suggestions up to this point, but now she makes a small quiet decision in her mind to get a quote from another contractor and see if there’s someone she feels like she can trust more.
Mark doesn’t even notice the slight shift in Mary’s demeanor as the sales call wraps up. In his mind, the call went very well and he feels confident about getting the deal. Your company loses this one, and everyone is confused when Mary doesn’t respond to the proposal and stops returning your calls.
Now, let’s see what happens when your company uses a CRM, instead of taking notes on paper.
Mary calls the office and Kelly answers. Kelly gets all the contact details put into the CRM. And as Mary describes what she’s looking for, Kelly types out what Mary describes in the notes section of the CRM - including how important it is to Mary to have the kitchen done before the holidays.
She also schedules the appointment with Mark in the CRM.
On the day of the appointment, Mark rushes over to Mary’s house from his last appointment. He realizes he doesn’t have much info about this customer, and parks on her street and pulls up her details in the CRM before knocking on the door.
He sees the notes.
Now as he greets Mary, he starts off by addressing getting the kitchen done before the holidays. Since Mark is experienced and knows roughly how long it takes for custom cabinets to arrive, he recommends RTA cabinets to Mary.
Initially Mary thought that RTA meant the cabinets would be low quality, but Mark explains and reassures Mary about the cabinet manufacturers your company uses and how good the quality really is.
Mary feels more informed about RTA. Although she had initially preferred custom cabinets, she’s convinced that RTA is the best option to help her meet her goal of getting the kitchen done quickly. And she’s glad that Mark is working with her to create that solution!
This time, your company wins the deal.
#2. Selling More Jobs
There are lots of ways having a CRM can help you sell more jobs. Having centralized customer information and notes is part of that (like we saw in the previous example), but it goes far beyond that.
One feature that most CRMs have in some capacity is automated email and/or text messaging. These messages can be either blasted (sent out to hundreds or thousands of people at the same time) or can be sent in a drip campaign (an automated email every few days, weeks, or months.)
As your company grows, and you get more and more potential customers coming through the pipeline, it can be hard to follow up with everybody. Sending texts and emails takes real time - especially to hundreds of people.
These automated emails and texts help you win more jobs by reminding prospects of your company. As prospects get busy in day to day life, or busy getting estimates from a few different contractors, it can be easy for your company to get lost in the mix.
One automated email from your business might be all it takes for someone to remember to call you, get an estimate from you, and for that deal to go through.
Digital estimates can also help you win more deals. Not only do digital estimates help you be more accurate, but they also allow you to create templates for certain types of projects, and get jobs quoted much more quickly.
If a customer is in a hurry to start the project, getting your estimate a day sooner could mean the difference between you winning the job and not winning the job.
Let’s take a look at the real impact this could potentially have.
Let’s say you have 100 leads. Normally, you would set appointments with 50. However, from the automated emails and texts going out, you set another 5 appointments. You just increased your sales appointments - and consequently, your total sales - by 10%.
3. Helping Your Team Collaborate
As your business grows, it will be vital for your employees to be able to collaborate in the CRM software.
Your office staff might need to input customer contact information, take notes, and schedule appointments.
Your sales staff may need to refer to the initial notes, and create a quote for the customer.
Your project managers may need to refer back to those quotes, and will need the customer information to contact them and schedule the job start date.
Someone on your team who handles finances may need to see the initial quote, what the job finally cost at the end, and what the gross profit was.
That being said, you may not need your office staff to know the gross profit of each project. And you may only want your employee who handles marketing to be able to send out automated text blasts.
On the other hand, managers and owners should have access to everything to be able to properly manage the business.
CRMs allow you to accomplish all of this and more. Everyone can work together and collaborate efficiently, without necessarily having access to the same features or same information.
4. Data, Data, Data!
Without data, it’s very difficult to assess the state of your business, customer relationships, effectiveness of particular marketing channels, etc.
Data gives you the pieces to building the story of your business. As a financial accountant can collect data and create a story of your finances, a CRM can collect and bring critical information about your operations.
Data can give you valuable information about:
- How your employees are communicating with clients.
- What lead sources or marketing channels are resulting in the highest ROI for your business.
- What types of projects are resulting in the most profit and least amount of headache to your team.
- Untapped opportunities for revenue, like additional services customers are always asking your team about that you could easily add on.
Trying to make good business decisions without having the proper data is going in blind.
And growing your business efficiently and profitably will rely on you making good decisions!
What to Do From Here?
If you’re serious about growing a profitable home improvement business, having a good CRM is almost non-negotiable.
Which CRM is right for you? Well, it depends on your business.
If your business model relies on managing a few projects at a time - albeit, very complex ones - you may need a CRM like BuilderTrend that’s geared towards project management.
On the other hand, if your business relies on doing a high volume of low ticket items like duct cleaning, but sales features aren’t a high priority, you may want to focus on something with strong scheduling features. HouseCall Pro would be a great example of that.
Some CRMs offer a wide range of features, rather than specializing in a few. One of the best CRMs for this is BuilderPrime.
Here’s a full list of 7 of the best CRMs for home improvement companies.
Final thought: whatever CRM you go with, use it
What’s really going to drive results is consistently keeping customer and project records updated. This will help everyone on your team operate efficiently, give you accurate reporting, and ultimately help your business grow!
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