Promote Your Snow Removal Service Customer Portal Before You Need It

Late autumn is a quiet time for the lawn and snow removal service business. The leaves are down and grass is dormant. The phones are quiet and the plows in the shed. This is the time for a residential or commercial snow removal service to step up its customer service game, engaging with former customers, last year’s leads and your regulars.

While doing so, pay extra attention  to those customers who have not already taken advantage of your customer self-service portal.  Make sure they are informed of the benefits it offers, including control, transparency and convenience:

• The portal is open 24/7 – “Self-Service means At Your Convenience”
• Make service requests,  check on work order status and manage invoices without phone tag or email lag

Kick off the pre-season by contacting every customer or lead with an email or postcard. Now identify those who have not set up or used the portal. Starting with the most important accounts on the list, have your staff make phone calls offering portal setup assistance and demonstrations of features. Assure customers it will only take a few minutes to get on board.

Set a goal for your company. Depending on your customer base, it may be reasonable to aim for 75% of customers set up and using the portal by the first snow fall.

If you are tempted to put this off for another year, determine the value of the customer portal in terms of the benefit to your company. Estimate office minutes saved when a service request is submitted through the portal. Track savings in office staff time answering calls to verify progress of work orders and question details on invoices.  Consider the marketing value of the self-service option. You’ll be convinced that now is the time to act.

Do you have any tips for those onboarding customers to the portal? Tell our readers about your experience.