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3 Essential Tools To Get You More Plumbing Leads Even When You’re Not In The Office

April 7, 2020 | Read: 6 minutes

How to get more plumbing leads, we hear you asking.

Do you buy them online or pay for a 3rd party review website?


Maybe you’re spending money on ads in the local magazine. There are many methods to get the best plumbing leads but generating them is only half of the battle.

While increased referrals and SEO tactics will help to get more people to your website, unless you know what to do with their attention, it will only amount to wasted dollars and effort. 

Let’s ask the first question again, but with a twist: how do you convert more plumbing leads and maximize the results of your lead generation efforts? You do it with these three essential tools:


selling for the trades; explore the ultimate sales strategy guide

A 24/7 lead capture strategy

Since we’ve agreed that a converted lead is a person who has scheduled an appointment with you, the next step is to take a look at the scheduling process. If a potential plumbing customer comes to your website, how do they go from needing a plumber (or simply being curious) to booking one of your technicians? Remember that they could change their mind at any point. People’s attention spans are fickle things these days. Therefore, the last thing you want to do is list an office phone number and leave it at that.

If you’ve followed our advice and made the number click-able, you’re already ahead but, assuming you don’t have 24/7 office staff, what happens when the plumbing lead arrives to your website in the middle of the night?

If no one’s there to pick up the phone, that (potentially) expensive lead can be written off. Sure, they might have left a message but the chances that they’ll answer your call the next day or even feel the same about needing a plumber (unless it was an emergency, in which case they’ve probably already found someone else).

Booking portal infographic

This means you’ll need a capture strategy that’s 24/7 and a booking portal provides exactly that. Regardless of where you are when the lead comes through on the website, the booking portal will allow them to send in a request for an appointment together with a description of the type of service they’re looking for.

Keep in mind that it’s not a good idea for a plumbing booking portal to work like a hotel booking portal, allowing customers to pick a day and time slot entirely on their own. It should be your admin staff who schedules a definitive appointment, as they know where the technician is coming from and heading next to, how long a service takes, etc. But the booking portal will convert the plumbing leads and store their information for you without ever needing a day off or a lunch break. 

A place to store these leads

Not all plumbing leads will become a sale. Sometimes, they only come to the website or call in order to get some information, perhaps for a future project. This is why another essential conversion tool for your plumbing business is having a place to store these still undecided leads. And by “place” we don’t mean a filing cabinet.

What we mean is a database that allows you to classify leads as potential sales and, preferably, send them a reminder in due time. We’ve written a guide on how to make more profit with an HVAC database but it applies to the plumbing industry or any other field service business too. 

The beauty of having a database when you start collecting more plumbing leads is that you can analyze and divide them according to what’s most relevant to your business. For example, loyal customers, newsletter subscribers, debtors, etc. Your admin staff will be able to work more on generating new strategies in order to maximise these leads’ value, while your customers will feel better understood. 

Convert jobs again and again

You should put just as much effort into how you treat your plumbing leads after they convert as you put in before they do. Some plumbing companies have more trouble than others with this and they lose out on thousands in earnings from loyalizing customers.

Statistically speaking, returning customers are up to 4 times cheaper to acquire and they spend more than new customers too. This means that you should spare no effort in keeping a customer engaged even if they’ve already paid their invoice and customer self-service software can help. 

The best place to start is by showing them that even if you’ve cashed out, you still care about their opinions and their experience of your service. An after-sales care portal can take the burden off of your admin and send automated feedback requests that work with your database to record positive or negative experiences then attached them to the individuals you’ve recorded.

This is also a great way to find out which customers were happier than others with their service and only then invite them to leave a public review on Google or a 3rd party review website

After sales care portal infographic

Keeping customers engaged and feeling like they’re being cared for is essential but this can take a toll on your admin, especially if your office team isn’t very large. As you get more and more plumbing leads, it will become impossible to remember to manually email or call everyone so a service reminder tool is also very useful.

You’ll enjoy reaping the benefits of a reliable source of recurring income, while your customers don’t have to worry about their installations breaking down in the middle of the night. 


Take action to get more plumbing leads!

All in all, converting plumbing leads is just as important as capturing them but just like a fisherman needs hooks, lines, and sinkers, a plumbing business needs the right tools to secure customers, too. But once you’ve got them, you need to make the most out of them. To find out more about boosting your sales revenue and efficiency, click below!

selling for the trades; explore the ultimate sales strategy guide

I'm here to bring you next-level strategies to the field service industry. When I'm not working on the best tips to grow your business, I'm on the lookout for sci-fi novels and cookie recipes.

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