As your material costs rise from your suppliers due to inflation, you’ll need to adjust your service charges to keep your business profitable. While there will always be a demand for residential roofing services, the sticker shock will surprise some of your customers. By explaining to your customers what goes into the costs, delivering exceptional customer service, offering payment options, and providing financing resources, you can help your customers afford their roofing projects and continue to win jobs despite your higher prices.
Roofing software like AccuLynx provides resources that can streamline the payment process with payment options and financing. Here are some best practices to help protect your project pipeline from the impact of higher prices.
3 Ways How to Mitigate Inflation Risk in Roofing
Set realistic expectations from the start
During the initial meeting with a prospective customer, it is best to be transparent about how high the cost of their roof might be, especially now that roofing prices are higher than what they were a year ago. Talk to your customers about why the pricing is what it is, pitch how your services stand out compared to competitors in the industry and explain the benefits of going forward with the job instead of waiting to see if prices go down. By emphasizing your expertise and addressing the price head-on with the customer, you can help them understand why the cost is worth it.
Deliver exceptional customer service
Transparency from the start about job costs and the reasoning behind it is essential to help build trust with your customers. Still, it is important to show your customers how you will take care of them throughout the sales process and duration of the job. Customers want to know you will provide a high level of service, and by addressing how you will do that at the start of the sales process, you will provide more reasons why your service is worth its price and give your customers the confidence they need to know they are being taken care of.
Through AccuLynx’s Customer Portal, you can provide top-notch service so that your customers can easily communicate with you and know what is happening throughout the job. This feature allows your homeowners to see the status of their jobs, access all the essential documents, view photos, and more whenever they want virtually. Further, they can quickly communicate with you if any questions or concerns arise right from the portal. By providing customer service such as this and showing your potential customers you will take care of them from start to finish, they will see more worth by going with your company even if the price is high.
Offer payment options other than cash or check
Most customers prefer to pay with credit and debit, due to their ease and convenience. In addition, by offering credit as a payment option, you are giving your customers a way to pay off a job over a month or longer, depending on their interest rate and current funds. This gives customers more flexibility, especially with the high cost of roofing projects, and helps you mitigate inflation risk in roofing.
If you are a roofing contractor who only accepts cash or check, transitioning to accepting credit, debit, and e-check payments is easy with AccuLynx. AccuLynx features a digital payment processing tool called AccuPay, which allows you to process electronic payments in many different ways, including online, over the phone, and in person. This gives your customers the options they want and ensures that you will be paid on time. Payments are securely processed through WorldPay, the world’s largest payment processor, and automatically linked to your QuickBooks account, making accounting easier for your office staff.
Provide financing right from the job estimate
Providing financing to your customers is an easy way to help your customers afford higher prices. With financing, your customers can pay off their projects over time in monthly installments instead of all at once. This makes high prices seem more manageable for your customers and ensures that you will always be paid on time.
AccuLynx provides the tools to quickly provide financing through our software platform, instead of having your customers apply for loans at a bank or another financial institution. Through AccuFi, you can provide your customers with a link where they can apply for financing right from their job estimate. The application process takes just minutes, at no cost to you or them, and will not impact your customer’s credit score. If approved, your customer will have a choice between multiple competitive loans which will help ease the burden of the high costs of roofing projects and help move the project forward more efficiently.
How to mitigate inflation risk in roofing with AccuLynx
Being transparent about your business’s costs and providing multiple payment and financing options for your customers will help close more deals and keep your business running smoothly and profitably despite high inflation. Learn more about how AccuLynx’s online payment processing and financing tools can help your business succeed in a customer demo.
