More marketing doesn’t fix a bad customer experience. Before you spend more getting people in the door, look at what happens once they’re there.
Key Takeaways
- More marketing won’t fix a bad customer experience. If inquiries go unanswered or the work doesn’t match what you promised, more visibility sends more people into the same problem.
- Customers are often more frustrated by poor communication than by the work itself. A progress photo, a clear next step, or a call before the schedule changes can change the experience when it’s built into your process.
- You don’t have to market everything you do. Spend your marketing time and budget on the work you want more of from your ideal customers.
We define marketing as building relationships, and that includes the whole experience of working with you. What you promise, how you respond, what you deliver, and how you handle a problem all shape that relationship.
Is It a Marketing Problem or a Business Problem?
Look at where things go wrong. If people don’t know you exist, you need to work on getting found. But if they contact you and nobody follows up, or they hire you and don’t get what you promised, more visibility won’t fix that. You need to change how the business handles the work.
You might be paying for ads that bring in inquiries, then leaving those inquiries unanswered for days. Or you’re booking jobs your team can’t finish on the schedule you gave the customer. The campaign can be doing its job while the business fails to deliver.
Get the Offer Clear Before You Promote It
The offer itself can be part of the trouble. Say a home services company sells a maintenance package but hasn’t defined what’s included. The customer, the salesperson, and the person doing the work may all have different expectations.
Get that clear before you promote it. What is the customer paying for? What happens if they need something outside that agreement? Your team needs to be able to deliver the same service you’re describing in your marketing. A better headline won’t resolve an offer you haven’t worked out.
Market the Work You Want More Of
Before you increase your ad budget, ask what would break if your inquiries jumped, and whether anyone would have time to respond, prepare estimates, and schedule the work.
If a service regularly creates problems you can’t resolve, or stretches your team beyond what they can handle, promoting more of it adds to the problem. Maybe that’s a sign you don’t want more of that type of work. You don’t have to market everything you do. Spend your marketing time and budget on the work you want more of.
Read Your Reviews for Patterns
Your reviews can show you what your customer experience is actually like. If several people mention unfinished work, missed appointments, or an unexpected bill, look for the problem behind those comments.
Those are things to investigate and fix. Don’t start by asking how to bury the reviews with more positive ones. Find out what happened, whether it’s happening to other customers, and what needs to change so the next person doesn’t have the same experience.
It also helps to look at what satisfied customers mention. If they valued a clear estimate or knowing who would be arriving, that tells you something worth making consistent across your team. And ask for feedback directly, so you’re hearing from more than the people who happen to leave a review.
Build Communication Into the Job
Communication is a big part of delivering a service. In a Housecall Pro survey of more than a thousand homeowners, most service frustrations were about communication rather than the quality of the work. This applies beyond home services. People want to know what to expect when they hire you, stay informed about what’s happening, and understand what they’re being charged for.
An ordinary thing done consistently can change the experience. A progress update with a photo, a clear explanation of the next stage, or a call before the schedule changes can help a customer understand what’s happening. Build those steps into the job instead of hoping someone remembers.
Clear communication has to be backed by follow-through, though. Telling someone about a wait before they book helps them make a decision. But if your team keeps missing the dates you agree to, you need to fix the scheduling or capacity problem.
Follow Your Customer’s Path
We talked about losing inquiries at the contact page in episode 460. You can use the same approach to inspect the rest of the experience: follow the path your customer takes and see where it breaks.
Start with the inquiry, then go through the estimate, booking, the work itself, payment, and follow-up. Does the customer get a response when you said they would? Can they understand what they’re agreeing to? When the work is complete, have you delivered what you promised and made it clear who to contact if there’s a problem?
Action Steps This Week
Three things to do this week:
- Go through your own customer process from the first inquiry through delivery and follow-up, and identify where you’re not living up to what you promise.
- Read your recent reviews and look for recurring problems across the whole experience, then choose one to investigate.
- Fix one repeated failure or surprise, whether it’s scheduling, scope, billing, or communication. Give someone responsibility for the change and make sure the customer knows what to expect.
A better campaign can’t repair a process you aren’t delivering well. Fix what’s failing in the business so your next customer has a better experience. Then your marketing can bring people to something they’ll be happy to recommend.
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Links in this episode: Housecall Pro: Home service customer experience survey
Delos episode 460: Are You Losing Leads at the Contact Page?
