Spring storms can bring some of the busiest times for roofers as the season begins and work starts to pick up. New clients with storm damage are flooding in, paperwork is stacking up and new hires are just getting started at the company. With so many things going on it is easy to become disorganized and make common mistakes that can hurt your productivity.
Take advantage of all your new business by avoiding these top five mistakes this season:
1. Your Paperwork is a Mess:
Piling up disorganized paperwork without an easy-access system is one of the biggest mistakes roofers can make during storm season. Unorganized papers can get lost or mixed up, leading to errors that need to be fixed – often requiring entire documents to be rewritten. These mistakes can be costly; the inability to accurately process orders and schedules, compounded with the time it takes to correct the mistakes means your teams are spending double the time on paperwork instead of on selling.
Eliminate paper mix-ups (and save some trees) by switching to digital documents. Estimates, material orders and contracts that are stored and accessible from the cloud cannot get lost or deleted, and will save you the time-consuming task of having to sift through papers or rewrite documents. With digital paperwork, you can tie documents directly to clients, tag them according to different criteria, or even sort them into groups. These features will keep all of your documents organized and easily accessible during the storm season, increasing your efficiency.
2. Dropping the Ball with New Clients:
When your sales and office staff are suddenly slammed with leads and new customers, processing and scheduling the influx of work can be daunting. You may find yourself not returning calls or emails, double-booking crews, or even missing delivery schedules.
A good CRM helps keep information for each client sorted and organized. Setting alerts and notifications for follow-up, as well as having access to all of your calendars and delivery schedules allows you to easily keep track of each job and all of the details that go along with it so that the roofing storm damage can be repaired effectively and quickly.
3. Not Prioritizing New Hires:
With everything going on it can be easy to push new hires to the back of your mind, and not make their training a priority. However, not providing proper training and instruction to new hires, even those that are experienced, can lead to simple mistakes that add up to big problems down the line.
New hires are supposed to lighten your load as the chaotic storm season roles in, so make sure they have clear expectations and the proper training to do so. Having a system in place to train new hires on your quality standards, processes and software tools keeps your company organized and allows you to dedicate time to your new employees even when you have a million other things to do.
Providing a definite set of steps for projects is also helpful for new hires, as it clearly communicates what is expected. Once this has been done, new hires can help your company handle more clients and take advantage of the increase in business.
4. Letting the Chaos Show:
After a storm, potential clients are stressed out and worried about their homes. A stressed out salesman doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in your customers, either. A calm and knowledgeable salesman will help to reassure the homeowner, ensuring professional, quality workmanship.
Arriving at the site with measurements already calculated using programs such as EagleView or SkyMeasure shows that your company knows what it is doing and will help to put the client at ease. Being able to pull up estimates on site with a mobile device and show the client their options right there not only reassures them that something is being done, but also increases the efficiency with which you can complete the job. In the end, the client’s satisfaction is a priority and salesmen should reflect that from the moment they arrive at a site.
Be the Roofing Industry Expert: How to Communicate Better with Homeowners (Learn More)
5. Waiting for the Storm
Many companies will wait until storm season to implement these preventative strategies. However, you should start preparing well before storm season approaches.
Pre-ordering supplies can help make sure your company is ready when the storm does hit and can get right to work rather than waiting around for a shipment. Having defined milestones set in place will help keep things organized when the rush comes and prevent your company from getting behind on work.
Even after the first few storms have passed, keep records of how different situations were handled so this information is available in case something similar happens in the future. Doing all of these things will help your company prepare ahead of time for the storm season meaning you can be effective and efficient when the storm does come.
—
The roofing storm season can be chaotic to say the least, but it is possible to benefit tremendously from the increase in roof damage sales rather than drowning in them. Preparing ahead of time and making sure you stay organized can help you increase efficiency and service more homeowners during the hectic storm season.
AccuLynx is the most powerful tool for your roofing business. Simple to use software, industry-leading tools and the best customer support –AccuLynx makes it easy to grow faster than your competition.
