The Home Renovation Business’ Guide to Professional Customer Service

In the world of customer service, contracting businesses commonly hear a few different complaints repeatedly. By providing professional customer service, you can prevent these common complaints from happening in the first place. Below we have listed four frequent customer service complaints and provided information about how to keep your customers happy in those areas.

1. Unprofessional Customer Communication

Communication with your clients should be fast, clear, concise, and polite. Customers expect their emails or phone calls to be responded to within a day. However, responding even faster than that is sure to “wow” them.

When communicating via email, refrain from using slang or improper grammar. You might think you’re making yourself sound casual, but it will come off as sloppy. For more information about writing professional emails, click here.

2. Materials Being Unavailable or Out of Stock

Some problems you might encounter will be out of your control, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be expected to solve them. When you can’t help but disappoint the customer because something they wanted is not available, use positive language.

For example, you might be tempted to say, “The light fixture you picked out has been discontinued, so you’ll have to pick a new one.” The positive version would be, “Since the lighting company stopped making that product, I have attached three similar options, and I’m going to cover 15% of its cost for the inconvenience.”

3. Unprofessional Customer Time Management

Schedule delays are particularly frustrating for home renovation clients because they often have to live in your construction zone until you finish. For an outside job, bad weather might be the reason for your delays. But there’s no excuse for not communicating to the customer that their scheduled completion date will change and why it’s changing.

If your schedule is delayed due to having an abundance of jobs at one time, your customer will definitely pick up on that. They will question why you took on too much work with not enough workers. It’s better to move their start date further out and finish the project on time.

4. Not Coming Back to Fix Mistakes

Don’t you hate when a restaurant server seems to disappear when it’s time to bring the check? Similarly, customers hate when a contractor disappears after completing a renovation project. Your employee might have forgotten to paint a trim piece or didn’t put enough outlets in the walls.

In any case, prioritize fixing those mistakes. The client might be waiting to write their review until they see if you will “cross your t’s and dot your i’s.” Make sure they have no reason to write a bad review.

Provide Professional Customer Financing

If you really want to make customers happy, partner with HFS Financial to provide contractor financing. Getting your customers a home renovation loan is as easy as one, two, three!

Step one: your client fills out the 60-second application.
Step two: our experts contact them with the best loan options to fit their needs.
Step three: their loan is financed upfront.