Becoming the Construction Resource People Turn To
There is something to be said for becoming a resource that your customers and potential customers can call on for information and advice. Actually, this is becoming a fairly widely practiced activity that establishes your company as an expert in particular areas. By doing that it also ends up adding value to your construction product and services.
The idea is that if you can answer questions and provide valuable information as a courtesy, essentially be the resource, then people will respond by choosing your product or service. If the time involved in providing the assistance, and being the resource, is reasonable in relation to your operations then the rewards could be significant.
Your expertise lies in the services or products you offer, and in the skills of your people. A remodeler for example might send postcards to past and potential clients mentioning some of the ways to find new, useful space in existing homes, and make itself available to answer questions related to accomplishing these kinds of renovations. Through various mediums a general contractor might highlight its expertise at solving difficult site problems while letting it be known it has people on staff who can answer questions related to those problems.
Another way to approach this initiative is to impress upon all those in your company who deal directly with customers and potential customers to find ways to be the resource to those people. So the bookkeeper who takes the call regarding an outstanding account finds out the person has a scheduling issue and ends up, directly, or indirectly assisting the customer to resolve that scheduling issue.
In effect, each person becomes a value added proponent for the company. Once that is working you are adding expert value to your service or product and creating another way to differentiate yourself from the pack.
I just read your article on “Becoming the Construction Resource People Turn To” in the Construction Informer. I just had to write to tell you I thought it was a very good article and I completely agree with you!
We have long thought that it is the customer who is more important than the product and have made ourselves available for that very reason. Our expert building consultant is knowledgeable in so many different areas that he’s the one I always turn to and refer customers and potential customers to when they call about the innovative technology our company offers.
Without the customer, companies have no business so it is in the best interest of the company and it’s survival to treat each customer/potential customer with respect and give as much information, positive and constructive assistance as they can. Our company believes in sharing the knowledge and giving the customer time to think about what they’ve learned from us so when they come back, they’ll have a better understanding of what they want and what we can do for them.
Now I think I’m rambling, I just really wanted to tell you that I liked your thinking and appreciated your article.