Adding Value for Clients – How does it work?
Landing a bid takes more than just showcasing your work; we know you take pride in the quality of your work, but so do plenty of other competing contractors. The problem is that many of them are not adding value for clients. This means that the quality of your work alone may not be enough to land a bid. Sure, you can post high resolution photos of your previous projects on your website, instagram, email advertisements, etc, but that may not be enough of a differential to distinguish you from your competition if they’re also using these marketing strategies (if you don’t already use these marketing tactics, we highly suggest checking out our blog on how to build your online presence in construction).
Clients want value, hence, the best way to land a bid is to add value to their project that goes beyond just providing a beautiful home. High quality work should always be the number one priority, but considering that they will be working with you for months, even years on end, it’s important to provide value in ways that distinguishes you from competition, and makes you the obvious choice to work with. Here are some tips on how to add value above and beyond what your competition will offer.
Provide Effortless Communication
Homeowners expect clear, transparent communication throughout the entirety of their project, as poor communication leads to the majority of issues on site. Delays, change orders, inefficient scheduling and unclear expectations are all microcosms of the larger issue of maintaining effective communication on site. A perfect example of disorganized, decentralized communication snowballing into a larger issue is the management of selections within a project.
A custom home can have hundreds, sometimes even thousands of selections for the homeowner to make before you can start building. From appliances to trim to handles to doors, the homeowner must select all of these for you to begin building. Communicating all of these selections to you and keeping them organized is an incredibly difficult task, and becomes exponentially more difficult to manage when change orders are made.
Being able to provide a location for both you and your clients to manage selections alone provides tremendous value to both you and your clients; this alone will minimize delays, setbacks and general disorganization during the building process. Instead of having to manage all selections through pen, paper, texts and emails, imagine being able to manage all selections in one location, broken down by room. Through contractor-client communication software, all selections are stored in one app, making the old school method of pen and paper tracking obsolete, improving efficiency on site, and adding value for clients by making the process of managing their build exponentially simpler.
Create Relationships with Your Clients
Humans are social creatures, which means building a relationship with your client is paramount to adding value that goes above and beyond just completing their project. Effective communication is just one way to create a superior client experience, as poor communication can diminish trust, making your clients experience subpar.
Keeping them in the loop on timelines, expectations and any issues is a great way to build a trusting relationship with your client. A simple phone call, text or ping in your communication software can go a long way to alleviate the running minds of a stressed out client. Certain types of technology in construction can greatly improve communication between you and your client simply by making expectations and timelines clear to them, once again alleviating their stressed minds. A trusting relationship is a high form of value you can add to your client’s experience, leading to more repeat business and new leads.
Focus on Saving Time and Money
At the end of the day, clients want to save as much time and money on their project as possible. Everybody has at least heard of a building horror story- or experienced one themself- that resulted in projects extending far past the initial timeline and budget. Every party involved in the build wants to avoid that as much as possible, meaning that being able to provide solutions to these common issues is incredibly important on adding value for clients.
Utilizing project management tools is an easy way to eliminate these issues; using such a service and offering potential clients a premium on being able to access the softwares is certainly something that logical clients will take advantage of. By having clients pay a premium to use a software you’ve already purchased, you can get your clients to cover the subscription cost of using these softwares, while still adding tremendous value to them, and also landing yourself more bids. This pretty much makes the cost of using such softwares free to you, while also landing more business. Clients are happy with effective management and communication, you get less headaches from frustrated clients, land more business and pay little to nothing by having your clients pay a premium; everybody wins.
Pillar: Specializing in Client Communication and Project Management
By utilizing Pillar, you can easily manage selections, client communication and projects easier than ever. We’re easy to use; so easy to use, you probably don’t even need a demo to be shown how it works, all while still being able to manage selections and communication just as efficiently as our competitors. We hope you’ve learned how adding value for clients work. Come visit our website to learn more, or request a demo for an easy 30 minute demonstration of how it works with our founders.
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