Your marketing is only as good as your people.\u00a0 The most creative, eye-catching and compelling HVAC marketing campaign can fall flat on its face at your front door, if your staff isn\u2019t aware of the details.\u00a0 Trust me on this.\u00a0 I\u2019ve watched it happen more times than I can say.<\/p>\n
Case in point:<\/strong>\u00a0 an established and successful HVAC dealer we worked with for many years told me that the latest postcards we had created for him didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t get nearly as many leads in the weeks after we mailed his cards as he used to.\u00a0 And he was upset.\u00a0 Weird, I thought, when I pulled up his call tracking reports.\u00a0 He was still getting a comparable amount of phone calls \u2013 why weren\u2019t they turning into leads and sales?\u00a0 I picked up the phone to discuss it with him and got my answer.<\/p>\n His new receptionist answered the phone with an unfriendly \u201cService!\u201d \u2013 without identifying the company or herself, for that matter.\u00a0 I asked to speak with the owner and she rudely told me he wasn\u2019t available.\u00a0 You won\u2019t be surprised to hear that she didn\u2019t offer to take a message.<\/p>\n I called back the next day and got the same greeting.\u00a0 \u201cService!\u201d she bellowed.<\/p>\n \u201cHi, I\u2019m calling about the ductless special you advertised.\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n \u201cHey, are we running some sort of special?\u201d She barked at someone in the background.<\/p>\n I tried to explain.\u00a0 \u201cI received a postcard from your company\u201d It didn\u2019t help.\u00a0 She said she hadn\u2019t heard about it and someone would have to call me back.<\/p>\n If I had been a real customer, do you think I would have taken that call?<\/p>\n Needless to say, the owner had no idea that this was happening.\u00a0 I later learned his \u201cnew\u201d receptionist had worked in the company warehouse for many years and had recently been moved to an office position.\u00a0 And clearly, she was none too happy about answering the phone.<\/p>\n How did he miss this?\u00a0 He was a highly successful dealer, who had been in business for many years.\u00a0 When we talked about it, he admitted that he had been busy with a large commercial job, his kids, and well, life in general, and he just wasn\u2019t paying attention.<\/p>\n A cranky receptionist will turn leads away, but even a perfectly polite CSR who is uninformed can do plenty of damage. When a customer calls in about an advertised promotion, you\u2019ve only got one shot at converting them to a lead and a sale.\u00a0 That first contact is vitally important.<\/p>\n You spend your hard-earned dollars to promote yourself.\u00a0 Don\u2019t sabotage your marketing efforts. Make sure your office staff is fully aware of your marketing promotions, or any manufacturer or utility rebates, or distributor programs.\u00a0 It\u2019s wise to create a script for each promotion you run and go over it in detail with your CSRs.\u00a0 Review questions that customers might ask when they call in so that your CSRs know the correct answer.\u00a0 What could be worse than a customer calling about a special offer your CSR has never heard of?\u00a0 That\u2019s a quick way to lose a sale and appear sloppy and unprofessional.<\/p>\n And you\u2019re better than that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Staff Sabatoge Your marketing is only as good as your people.\u00a0 The most creative, eye-catching and compelling HVAC marketing campaign can fall flat on its face at your front door, if your staff isn\u2019t aware of the details.\u00a0 Trust me on this.\u00a0 I\u2019ve watched it happen more times than I can say. Case in point:\u00a0 an established and successful HVAC dealer we worked with for many years told me that the latest postcards we had created for him didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t get nearly as many leads in the weeks after we mailed his cards as he used to.\u00a0 And he was upset.\u00a0 Weird, I thought, when I pulled up his call tracking reports.\u00a0 He was still getting a comparable amount of phone calls \u2013 why weren\u2019t they turning into leads and sales?\u00a0 I picked up the phone to discuss it with him and got my answer. His new receptionist answered the phone with an unfriendly \u201cService!\u201d \u2013 without identifying the company or herself, for that matter.\u00a0 I asked to speak with the owner and she rudely told me he wasn\u2019t available.\u00a0 You won\u2019t be surprised to hear that she didn\u2019t offer to take a message. I called back the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[94,11],"tags":[95,96],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":640,"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions\/640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebandlmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}