In every market and industry, there are companies that try to win with cheap products or services and price low. There are also companies that deliver premium products and services and price high. If you want to be among the latter, here are four things you must do to justify a higher price.
1. Look worth it
Get rid of the old trucks and upgrade your fleet. Use professional graphics designers like Dan Antonelli at KickCharge Creative to come up with a vehicle wrap that looks professional and stands apart from other wraps in your market. Remember, the marketing research says that your trucks receive 30,000 or more impressions in a day.
It’s not just your trucks that need to look professional, your people need to look the part, too. Put your plumbers in uniforms. The shirt can be a polo, if preferred, but your plumbers should look professional. Facial hair is acceptable today, but it should be neat and trimmed. Shaving should be done daily. Haircuts, no matter the acceptable length in your company, need to be frequent enough that they do not look shaggy. If caps are worn, they should be company caps, not gimmie caps from a distributor, manufacturer or outdoor store.
Your team should start the day with showers. Plumbers get dirty. It’s part of the trade, but they can start the day clean and odor-free.
Your trucks and team are not the whole equation. Your collateral from business cards to direct marketing to invoices to social media to digital marketing should reflect your brand and show consistency in presentation.
2. Be worth it
Train your team… a lot. Make sure they are up to speed on the latest products in the world of plumbing and feel confident installing and servicing everything you offer. Train them on customer service and soft skills, such as posture, listening and how to phrase things. Script service calls and follow a proven system such as Joe Cunningham’s “Perfect Service Call.”
Train your CSRs. They represent the first point of customer contact. Brigham Dickinson of Power Selling Pros notes how an average CSR may convert 60% to 65% of calls and an excellent one can raise that to 85%. Moreover, professional CSR suggests a professional company all of the way around.
Training, by the way, is not limited to your team. Business owners need training on the latest technology and professional practices. Attend seminars and conferences like PHCC CONNECT and the Service World Expo.
3. Be generous
Top companies in all fields do not sweat the small stuff. If you are charging a premium price, you can afford to be generous with your customers. When there’s a problem, resolve it fast with minimal pain to the customer. Train everyone in the company on service recovery to that when things to wrong you can make things very right, very fast.
Give customers the benefit of the doubt when there’s a problem. If they complain about the price, let them make a one-time price adjustment with the understanding that since you give the price upfront, in the future there will be no price adjustments.
Assume your customers are honest and not trying to take advantage of you. If they prove otherwise, you can put them on your “no service” list.
Offer better warranties and guarantees than your competition. If a one-year guarantee is standard in your market, offer a two-year guarantee. Price in a reserve account of one to two percent to cover your guarantees. It’s more than you will need, but when an issue comes up, the money is already set aside.
In short, make people glad they did business with you. When something goes wrong, make them very glad.
4. Join professional associations and organizations
Get involved with your local trade association. Join a national association Be active in every chamber of commerce in your service area. Find a service club like Rotary, Lion’s, Kiwanis, Optimists, or Civitan to join. Become a community center of influence.
