What offer can we provide?

Afternoon everyone We are a property maintenance company and would like to offer our customers a good deal. The problem we have is we don't know what to offer

The only one we can think of at the moment is offering half price bathroom suites from a certain range when fitted by us.

As part of our 'research' from you lot, we would be grateful for 'sensible' suggestions xx

Amanda, it depends what your goals are and who you are aiming at. If you need to boost short term sales to people who care most about price, then your idea is a good one. If you hope to win long term customers for whom quality and service are the most important issues, than it is less good.

You need to define the aims of the promotion before you can create it.

Totally agree with Lisa here, do not feel obliged to create a sales promotion if you do not have a goal or a defined set of customers you want to target.

Amanda, the points already made are all spot on. You need to assess what your reals plans are... your medium to long term plans ideally.

Whilst price slashing can get you quick business, its a cut-throat battle and one that invariably only the 'Big Boys' end up winning, as they'll have the financial muscle to under-cut you. So perhaps try and add value, instead of reduce prices. In fact what Belinda suggested is an excellent idea, as offering a guarantee of any kind always increases reponses to adverts. It also shows you have faith in your products and service.

Other things you could add are speed of service, "we'll get to you within x amount of hours" - something like that. Always think how you can add value over and above what others are offering.

Buy ultimately it all boils down to your customer; who they are, how much they can afford, what they expect - as you'll need to match your services to their needs. For example, going after more wealthy clients is a great way to eliminate price-sensitivity and in this current climate is a strategy that you may want to employ.

Depending on what your competition are like, maybe even a simple guarantee like "we'll turn up at the time we say we're going to turn up" would set you head and shoulders above your competitors.

Trevor

A free review of the property.

With a detailed quotation providing different options and prices

That you guarantee to complete at fixed prices within the time scales given if

Accepted by X date in the quote and accompanied by Y deposit to secure the booking.

If you go this route then you have to deliver on your promises.

Christopher: that sounds very much like the free winter/summer/whenever checks that a lot of garages run. Same thing, different industry (which is always a quick and easy way to generate ideas).

Recommend a friend with a free gift for the recommender and the friend would be another option.

Free downloadable report on your website "7 questions to ask your property maintenance company" with the questions gently loaded so that you can answer all of them with flying colours but your competitors will struggle.

I gues you've already contacted the local letting agents to see whether you can be one of their property maintenance team. Once you've done a few jobs where you do what you promised, when you promised, they'll be very likely to give you more business.

Trevor

How about a sort of insurance. charge a range of monthly fees for guaranteed 24 hour (or quicker for emergencies) response to XYZ types of property problems. ranging from basic issues to complete instals obviosuly with some caveats but place yourselves as the go to people for every type of issue good or bad, and consider targetting landlords and estate agents as joint venture potentials

Thanks for all the suggestions. You've given us some things to think about. Belinda hope your tap gets sorted soon xx

What about a touch-up service before people put their property on the market - it could make all the difference!

Gosh Amanda, it's difficult to add anything without knowing a lot more about your business and where you want to go with it.

Main principles are to give loads of value, target your customers really effectively so you know exactly who you are serving rather than trying to have a very general service. Where you can, think about lifetime customer value - do they come back, what's your 'back-end', do you offer ongoing plans so that you are not focused only on selling the 'first' sale.... could keep going! If you feel obliged to offer a special deal then it could be that your overal business model needs a bit of an overhaul, or you need to look at how effective your marketing is? Can you work with anyone in complementary businesses to generate more prospects? That's usually a really easy way to more customers.... Have lots of thoughts but reluctant to offer specific advice without knowing more.

Cathy

Free property check if they want to sell (you can tell them what needs doing, a bit of basic house doctoring)

Loyalty bonus - discount off their next job, or any referral.

As so many have said, it really depends on what you aim is in giving a special offer - generate cash now, build your database of prospects or build long term customers. Or indeed if you mean creating your general offering - your USP

Once you are clear on that, then you can start to look at ideas from other industries.

A common trend these days with any service that is occasional and paid for by the job, is to get customers onto some sort of regular subscription plan - boiler maintenance is a classic example, where the client pays every month to have the advantage of a prompt response and a certain amount of repairs covered at no extra charge. Mark Adams, The IT Guy does a similar thing with his £9.99 + VAT unlimited IT support. It's a great way of evening out your revenue stream as you get payments from your clients every month without necessarily having to deliver any service (these plans of course work on the hope that nothing will need fixing most of the time).

I definitely agree with Simon about marketing to the affluent as opposed to trying to compete on price.

If it's your USP rather than a special offer you are wanting to create, then think about what people complain about the most when having work done on their house. Turning up on time as already mentioned, cleaning up afterwards using your own industrial vacuum cleaner, working in school hours/evenings/weekends to suit the client, you providing the tea & biscuits instead of the client, giving clients free tickets for days out so they can have a nice time while you are working on their house - what would make your customers go 'Wow!' and have them telling their friends?

As a property investor, I'd really appreciate a one-stop shop service to deal with odd-jobs, emergencies, gas safety certificates etc. I manage most of my properties myself to maximise my revenue but it always seems to be at the most inconvenient moments that my tenants call with problems (e.g. when I'm getting on a plane to go on holiday). Having someone I can call (or even someone my tenants can call) who will just get it sorted would be fantastic.

Morning all. I think what we were looking for is a special offer. As a new start up we want to get out there and be seen. Get people going to our website (this is being re-done and hopefully be up and running in a few weeks) and given us the chance to quote. We have been very lucky at the moment and nearly every job we've done they have asked us back to do other things or have passed our details on to people they know. Word of mouth is fantastic for us but we want to expand more than that.

We guarantee all our work already and will make this more prominent in our marketing.

Michelle I like the idea of a one-stop shop for landlords. Having a few properties ourselves we didn't think of it as it's something we don't need - Steve just sorts it out. But great idea.

Thanks for all your ideas xx