fbpx

3 Tips for Redefining Your Customer Experience

by | Aug 17, 2018 | Marketing | 0 comments

3 Tips For Redefining Your Customer Experience

Everyone wants to provide exceptional customer service, yet unfortunately there are few companies that truly wow their customers. The service and personal touch that you provide to your customers will always be evolving, but here are 3 tips to begin redefining your customer experience.

 

1. Understand Your Customer – This should go without saying, but it is so critical to know who your customers are and what they care about. Who is your ideal customer and how can your services make them smile? Understand how they communicate and what really matters to them. Remember, it’s not the tree that pays the bill, it’s the owner of the tree that writes the check to you. If you are not connecting with your customers, you are making it easy for them to find another company to help them with their trees.

 

2. Touch-point Teamwork – Hold a brainstorming session with each department within your company to focus on every customer touch-point within your organization. From your website appearance and functionality, to incoming phone calls and emails, to field staff doing the work, to the invoices and thank you’s that go out after the job is completed, ask yourselves three simple questions for every touch-point:

 

What do our customers love about it?
What do our customers dislike about it?
What can we do to make that interaction better or more shareable?

 

3. Training and Integration – After you have defined the ideal customer and what they want from you, everyone in your company must know how important each touch-point is to have the best possible customer experience. This is best accomplished by the department leaders walking their teams through each touch-point and how the customer should be treated. It helps if similar words or phrases are used to solidify the organization and promote the client first culture.

 

By consciously focusing on your customer’s experience at every touch-point, you will begin to transform your company. Have fun with it, get creative and don’t be afraid to try something new to stand out. Wow your customers so they can’t help but tell others about the great experience they had with your company.

Written by: Eric Petersen

5 Tips for a Better Website

by | Aug 17, 2018 | Marketing | 0 comments

5 Tips for A Better Website

We all know that you only have one chance to make a first impression. In today’s digital world, that first impression usually comes from your website. It is critical that your website is fresh, exciting and portrays your company’s personality and vision to potential customers.

 

Besides the obvious things such as being visual appealing and mobile friendly, here are 5 tips for giving your website a face-lift:

 

Add Video – If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then video is worth a million! Video is a great way to stand out from your competition and showcase your business. You don’t need expensive equipment to make it happen, just use your iPhone! The quality of an iPhone camera is excellent and uploading to YouTube is simple. Want an easy editing program? Download the app iMovie, you can easily add an intro slide with your company logo & music. Video ideas:Film your crew working safely on a job-site, showcase your different equipment, get a customer testimony, or an about us video. These videos can be used on a variety of different pages on your website & make great social media posts.

 

Ramp up your “About Us” section – People want to know the people behind the company, so show your personality! People do business with people they like, so share what values you believe in, how your business was started, tell your story and be real. Also, include photos of the staff with short bios.

 

Start a Blog – This should be a must! Not only is it important for your customers to get information on current industry trends, you can also write about what’s going on at your company and other important topics. Our good friend Google wants to see fresh content added to your website for SEO. If you don’t like to write, find one of your staff members that can write a weekly or monthly article to share on your blog.

 

Incorporate Live Chat – This may seem tricky or too tech savvy for some, but adding a live chat feature onto your website is fairly easy and can be activated whenever someone from your team is available. If a team member is not available, it still allows for clients or prospects to send a message with their questions and it is sent to your email. There are a number of software vendors who offer live chat services for your business. We utilize Pure Chat in our office and have found it to be well received by our customers. Allowing people to communicate with your team via chat is yet another way to being viewed as the best choice in the tree care industry.

 

Call to Action – Every solid website allows the customer to take action immediately by offering clear buttons to request services. Each page should have a call to action on it with a clear message for the consumer.

 

There you have it. 5 simple tips that will revamp your website and give the first impression that you want to have for your company.

Written by: Eric Petersen

3 Ways to Jump Start Your Marketing

by | Aug 17, 2018 | Marketing | 0 comments

3 Ways to Jump Start Your Marketing

With spring finally at our doorstep, I want to ask you; is your marketing ready for spring? The best tree services are already deep into their marketing planning for the upcoming growing season. If you haven’t given much thought to how you are going to make the phone ring this year, here are 3 ways to jump start your marketing.

 

Create Your Plan – No marketing happens without a plan and most plans are not perfect. So don’t get caught up in trying to make a masterpiece marketing plan, just get started by brainstorming with your team.

First focus on what service you want to provide the most of this year. What service is the most profitable for you? What service contains the least amount of headaches or hassles? Which service fulfills your mission as an organization and fits your company’s strengths the best?

 

Next, identify your ideal customer that fits your targeted service. Who are they? What do they value? Where do they live? What is the best way to communicate with them?

 

Lastly, craft an Early-bird deal for customers who sign up for your service in advance. You probably already do this with different discounts like winter pricing, senior citizen discounts and repeat customer credits, but by truly offering a lower rate for a short bit of time you will increase interest from new customers.

 

Social Media Blitz – After you have your plan formulated it’s time to support the efforts online.
Write a blog or two offering free information on the subject/service that you want to promote. In there, dispel any rumors about the service in a non-salesy way. You can offer pros and cons to educate your customer.

Post the blog on all of your social media channels and follow it up with links to similar articles on that same topic.

Edit your website to show the Early-bird deal right on the home page with an easy way for the customer to contact your team.

 

Customer Contact – Now that you have your online backing for your Early-bird deal set, it’s time to reach out to the public. Looking at your ideal client profile that you developed decide on how to get the word out.

 

Start by contacting your current customer base with the Early-bird offer. These are the customers that are the easiest sale because they already know you. You can do this a number of ways, from a flyer in the mail, to an email or even phone calls to the top 20% of customers.

 

Reach out to prospective customers that you have had some interaction with in the past, but for whatever reason they did not choose your services. This may be best through email or hand selected phone calls.

Finally, sending out a series of postcards to designated zip codes will help introduce your company and services to new potential customers. Work with a marketing firm to design a three part series that builds off each other to promote your professionalism, service and company’s brand.

 

By focusing on one special deal to start the season that fits your company’s strengths, you will intentionally gain more trust with your current clients and pick up new customers that fit your desired buyer profile and obviously lead you to greater revenue this year.

Written by: Eric Petersen