As plumbing companies face increasing competition and customer expectations, it is important for plumbing companies that want to continue growing to look to market research for information about growing the business.
Using experience as your sole source won’t help you compete effectively; use market research to gather information that will enable you to make informed choices and create a more robust, resilient plumbing business.
The work of researching the market allows plumbing businesses, through market research consulting, to develop a sense of how their customers behave, what is in demand locally, and how competitive they will be in the marketplace. By utilizing market data instead of conjecture, a plumbing company will have the tools and resources to develop well-informed strategies to grow and expand.
Understanding Customer Needs and Service Demand
Plumbing businesses can receive varying amounts of money and have different levels of demand. The services plumbing companies provide include emergency repairs, upgrade existing plumbing systems, and perform scheduled preventative maintenance. Understanding the need for preventive maintenance could create a larger potential client based on their market research.
By evaluating the reasons why a customer contacts a plumbing business, tracking the history of services delivered to each customer, and understanding plumbing trends in the area, plumbing companies are able to become more efficient and effective in their business. Therefore, plumbing companies can have improved efficiency in their staffing and scheduling and also have more effective use of their available resources.
Improving Local Market Awareness
Since the plumbing business is dependent on demand from the local area, research into the local market can show areas with the highest demand for plumbing services, potential areas for future development, and how weather changes throughout the various seasons can affect service requests.
Through market research, plumbing businesses can identify the best potential marketing locations and increase their service area. Through consulting services, market research provides plumbing businesses with local data as a basis for making informed decisions about future growth, allowing them to optimise their resources.
Refining Pricing and Service Packages
The pricing issue for the plumbing industry is one of transparency and fairness; while customers want to know what they are paying for and how their price compares to other local businesses, plumbing companies need to charge enough to be profitable.
Customer Research on plumbing services have provided consumers with expectations of cost along with guidance on where to find out what those prices were in the area. Based on this research, companies are creating service/package price structures that reflect these expectations and allow for continued company growth. Service/package pricing will eliminate pricing-related barriers and build trust from the first contact.
Strengthening Marketing and Lead Generation
Plumbing Companies can identify what customers want to know when looking for a plumber, how they respond to messages, and where they find and follow-up with the best leads. As a result, plumbing companies, based upon their research, can invest their marketing dollars in places that will produce the most valuable inquiries and reduce the number of low-intent leads.
Through data analysis, plumbing companies can better target their messaging and respond to the concerns of potential customers, including response times, licensing, and service guarantees.
Enhancing Customer Experience and Retention
Most growth comes from keeping existing customers happy since keeping current customers is usually less expensive than acquiring new customers and will generate a predictable revenue stream. Market research identifies the factors influencing customer satisfaction, loyalty and repeat business.
Customer feedback allows businesses to discover things they can do better; improve their communication, follow-up services or better schedule their time. Taking action on this customer feedback will improve customer relationships and increase the chances of obtaining referrals. Referrals are very valuable to local service businesses.
Final Thoughts
There are many aspects to growing a plumbing business that go beyond just the technical side of things and one of those aspects is doing market research. By understanding your customers better through market research, you can determine appropriate pricing for your plumbing services, improve your marketing efforts and create an advantage in the competitive plumbing marketplace.
Market research consulting helps plumbing businesses make informed decisions that will enable them to grow sustainably and succeed in the long term.
Discussion about this post