Routine Maintenance Calls are on the Rise

Are you Getting Your Fair Share?

More than any other time in recent memory, routine maintenance issues are affecting homeowners to a greater degree than ever before.  Because of the pandemic, spouses and kids are at home day and night.  A fully functioning, comfortable home isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.  When owners are working at home and a circuit starts tripping, plumbing is leaking or the A/C stops keeping up with rising temperatures, it’s more than a nuisance – it’s an emergency.

A new trend in the home services industry is an increased concern for preventative routine maintenance.  In normal times, homeowners tend to wait for problems to become emergencies, but with more time at home, they are more likely to plan ahead to prevent a disaster that they can’t escape, because they have no other place to go.

Turn the procrastinating homeowner into a preventative maintenance guru

Homeownership doesn’t come with an instruction manual and most homeowners don’t know what a routine maintenance checklist looks like.  You can educate and motivate them by publishing a series of blogs and articles.  Building up your routine customers base will help steady the workflow and cashflow and build a more predictable business.

• Help homeowners understand the consequences of bad choices as well as good ones. Maintaining high-ticket items like HVAC, sprinkler systems, sump and grinder pumps and gutters will cost a small fraction of the costs of major repairs or replacements.
• Give homeowners seasonal checklists and a “catch-up” checklist for first-time owners.
• Create easy to understand, quarterly or annual maintenance plans that take the guesswork out of maintenance scheduling.
• Tell homeowners how you have adapted to keep them safe. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, homeowners want to know how your business is adapting to protect them and protect your employees from the hazards of the virus. If you’ve adapted your business practices to reduce contact and increase safety, those extra steps could be the dealmaker that makes the homeowner chose you over a competitor.

Push Out Your Blog Content through Digital and Social Channels

For emergency calls, consumers would just hit the web, search for a contractor and start dialing the phone.  But to get your share of the routine maintenance, you need a steady awareness and engagement campaign that pushes your content to consumers where they spend the most time – online and on social media.

1. Up your digital communication touches – Homeowners are spending more time online now than before the crisis – by 30% or more. They’re reading the news, on social media and in their in-box throughout the day.
2. To build name recognition you need to be advertising on digital websites. You can specify the audiences you want to reach (homeowners) in the areas you want to advertise (specific cities or areas of town).
3. Create engaging social media posts and use “paid boosting” to get them in front of the right eyeballs through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
4. Promote and distribute your blog posts through social channels and email links to articles on a regular basis to your customers and prospects.

Let Alabama Media Group help you attract new customers developing and distributing engaging content that homeowners want to read.  Contact us today to learn how your business can be successful in the COVID-19 economy.