If time is the most valuable thing we have to spend, imagine how rich your company would be if you could rid your business of inefficiencies. In the home service industry, nothing is more important than customer service. Even if your techs have difficulty making a repair, if the customer feels that their concerns were addressed and their voice was heard, a problem with execution could become an example of a stellar customer experience.

But when you spend your valuable time training new customer service representatives or hours managing office snafus, you lose sight of the reason you started your home service company in the first place.

That is why many home service companies are outsourcing their customer call center and back office teams. Professional call center and accounting service companies provide the training, management and oversight of their teams, leaving home service company owners with more time to manage their business.

Too much on your plate

As a plumbing company owner, you know how important it is for your team to answer calls efficiently. The people who man your phones are directly responsible for customer satisfaction by addressing client concerns, answering questions, resolving issues and building trust.

When you first started your company, you probably were able to meet your customer’s needs with one or two CSRs. But as you begin the process of trying to scale up so you can grow and meet customer demands, you have found that handling more inquiries or providing solutions has begun to interfere with your other critical business processes.

Even if you don’t directly manage your service crew, you know that the whole reason you started your business was to provide the most up-to-date and innovative plumbing solutions for your clientele.

As a small business owner, you are responsible for overseeing all your company’s departments. This means that you must help plan training for your service techs, your CSRs and your business operations team. In addition, you have to ensure your team is recruiting and hiring the right people while also managing your service team’s logistics, overseeing your company’s bookkeeping, and making sure each team has updated equipment.

That’s a lot on your plate. 

Imagine if you could outsource some of those tasks to a team of professionals who are expertly trained, who are provided with the latest industry technology, and who can manage your calls or your bookkeeping with accuracy while meeting compliance standards.

Satisfied customers

If you’ve managed a home service company for any length of time, you know that it is far cheaper to provide long-term services to satisfied customers than it is to beef up the marketing budget to acquire new ones.

Research has shown that acquiring new customers can cost five to seven times more than simply retaining your current customer base (tinyurl.com/k539z8n3). Not only does it cost more to convert a qualified lead into a new customer, but it takes longer for new customers to actually contribute to your profit margin.

That is not to say that you don’t want new customers. If you’re trying to scale your business to sell, retire or pass down to a family member, you will want to continue to grow your customer base. 

This means that you will be able to effectively retain the customers who add to your profit margin while your sales team is driving new business.

Expert staff improves quality control

While it may only take a few days to train a CSR on how to take calls and manage customer inquiries, it takes anywhere from three to 18 months to have full mastery of customer service skills. And, while most accountants who have graduated from college understand bookkeeping, they will still need to be trained to understand industry compliance and regulations. 

But, by outsourcing your solutions, you’ll have access to the most well-trained CSRs and accountants available in your market without having to do much more than vet a professional team. By drawing on a global talent pool that hires the industry’s top talent, these teams can help you improve your customer experience while freeing you up to focus on your company’s core competencies.

Boosting your reputation

Highly-trained customer service reps and bookkeeping staff is critical to your company’s success. Research firms have found that 40% of customers stopped doing business with a company because of its poor customer service (tinyurl.com/mnmr7b5j).

On the other hand, if your company is known to have great customer service and an efficient accounting team, customers will pay more to do business with your company. In fact, more than 80% of customers say a positive backend experience makes them more likely to come back even if they have an opportunity to switch to a competitor (tinyurl.com/5n7dwp5y).

The home service industry can be challenging. Unless your business is located in a very small community, you are likely to have dozens of competitors in your local market.

It’s for this reason that your reputation must be stellar to have a chance of succeeding. Customers are more likely to choose a company with a positive reputation and more likely to stay with your company if you build trust with your clientele.

Company culture

Now that your reputation has improved in your service area and your staff has been freed up to focus on more strategic and creative work, you can finally focus on your business as a whole.

This means that you have the time to recognize employees for their hard work, provide more development opportunities and even create flexible work arrangements.

Studies also show that employers who can offer flexible hours, career development and wellness programs have an easier time retaining employees. When you outsource your customer service and back-end office staff, you’ll save money on salaries and other resources, freeing you up to offer more perks to your employees.

Showcasing your perks and low turnover also helps with your recruiting efforts. Since millennials and Gen Z are drawn to companies that have innovative company cultures, having the time to develop that culture helps bring in the next generation of skilled trade workers (tinyurl.com/2e3m5fxz).

Delivering enhanced customer service while giving you time to focus on your primary business operations is a great way to scale your business for the future. Get control of your time, improve your customer experience and improve your quality control by embracing new solutions in business management.

Lynn Wise is CEO and founder of Contractor in Charge, the top provider of start-to-finish 24-7 customer engagement, appointment booking, full-service bookkeeping and controller services for home service contractors.