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Checkatrade

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I had a ring round of people using cat last night one was binning them after a yr, the other had joined recently and wasnt getting anything, and another name from much further afield couldnt fault them, just get your page right was Mikes advice. So having a chat with some more tonight. Asking customers was interesting as all the ones so far use wom!, only one considered using the net, so in this area things seem to be the devil you know and the internet isnt king, but this is Devon 🙂 Ps thanks Mike for taking your time up last night.
 
lame plumber said:
Asking customers was interesting as all the ones so far use wom!
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Isn't this self-fulfilling though Jon?

If your customer-acquistion strategy has been strongly based on personal recommend and word-of-mouth, then its not surprising that when you ask your existing customers, they report this preference.

On the other hand, if Mike Jackson surveyed his customers, they would mostly mention Check-a-trade, since that has been the focus of his marketing.

You will both tend to have the customers who prefer to engage tradesmen via the particular route that you have chosen. Its dangerous to assume from this data that their neighbours would feel the same way. Your sample may be skewed.
 
skewed on my own customer base for sure, but i was a bit worried that guys in the sticks 40 miles away didn't rate the company. Mike noted that your front page is important to attract customers, don't just be saying your brilliant, personalize it to their level of thinking, have a read of Mikes if you want to get a perspective on this, I believe he is spot on there.
 
smtplumbing said:
how did it go simon Did you get colin

kris if you want colins number ( membership consultant) let me know
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Aye it was Colin. Went well, signed up and full steam ahead. Started to piece together my profile. To get the max out of it I think you need to be proactive.
 
They said it would take a couple of weeks to be fully up and running, but I can hand out feedback cards straight away.
 
simon did you mention me. lol can i just i can say its paid off for me customer had just paid deposit for a boiler install so its win win for me.my problem is i need to boost my feedback cards abit more.

Gas man rob i message you
 
I have mixed feelings about all of these third parties. It is a self fulfilling prophesy that the Internet will be the ultimate and therefore only port of call for customers. If like us you are in your 50's then the old doing good business locally with solid support and getting word of mouth recommendation you can survive without giving in wholesale to these sites. Younger and you will have to adapt to the new ways and even more get ahead of them. As a relatively unsophisticated bunch we will have to use SEO whizz kids and the like to get business leads in the future. What should give us all comfort whether still fighting and slightly knackered or thrusting and full of testoplumbitone ( made up term ) is that no government policy for the last few decades has actually supported proper plumbing or any real trade. Our actual "competition" from decent plumbers is very small. The sooner we realise this the better we will all do.
 
smtplumbing said:
simon did you mention me. lol can i just i can say its paid off for me customer had just paid deposit for a boiler install so its win win for me.my problem is i need to boost my feedback cards abit more.

Gas man rob i message you
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Certainly did Steve.
 
They told me Tuesday that it would take uoto 2 weeks to get everything set up. Ive handed out 4 feedback cards today. The first one has been back on the phone to tell me im not fully set up on line yet as he hsd tried to complete it on line.
 
Went well. Didnt come across as a hard sell, listened to my questions and what i had to say and the money back gaurantee was the icing on the cake.

It is something though that you cant just pay and forget. You will need to be pro active in completing your profile and getting the feedback cards handed out.
 
simon you can only hand the cards out and they must be send back to checkatrade. once your fully online then they can fill the form online
 
just call your manager and they send them out(plain) i got mine once i was online with my details on them
 
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