Summary
“I was wondering if you could tell me how much your carpet cleaning service cost?”
How do you answer this question?
Giving a quote is about so much more than the price – never just give the price straight off. At Digitool, we work with cleaning businesses to help them get their phone ringing and help them convert those calls. We hear cleaners getting asked this question again and again and have learnt what makes a quote convert into a sale. In this lesson, we’ll teach you the trick to giving out winning quotes.
How to Give Quotes that Convert
A lot of research has been done into how customers make decisions. This is really helpful to us as we can understand the decision-making process, and see how we can influence it. Here are the main five steps that researchers agree on:
- 1 Problem recognition – the customer realises they need they carpet cleaning.
- 2 Information search – the customer researches online, or asks their friends how they can get their carpet cleaned. They find out the prices of different options.
- 3 Consider the alternatives – the customer decides whether to with you or a competitor.
- 4 Purchase Decision – the customer decides who and what to purchase.
- 5 Post-purchase Evaluation – the customer weighs up if they made the right decision and what they will do next time.
The first three steps are where you need to try and influence your customer. Although you will likely be speaking to your customer in Step 2, the “information search” stage, you can use your quote to address the other stages and win their custom.
Let’s look at how we can tackle each stage:
Step 1: Problem Recognition – Find out exactly why they are having their carpets cleaned and address it directly in your quote.
If they’ve not already told you, ask the customer why they need your help. You could say something like:
“Sure thing, I’ll just need a few more details from you so I can give you an estimate. First, can I ask why you are having the carpets cleaned? Has there been a spill or is it maintenance cleaning?”
Then, your customer will tell you what challenges they’re facing. So, you can then reference their answer in your quote to show that you can solve their problem:
“Ok, great, thanks for your help. We’ll be able to get your dog’s urine stain out of the carpet, removing bacteria right at the base of the carpet fibres and use a pet-safe chemical to keep him safe.”
Step 2: Information search – Explain why they should choose professional carpet cleaning as the solution to this problem.
There are different options available to solve to your customers when cleaning their carpets. They could choose to hire a rug doctor, or even buy some carpet cleaning foam from the supermarket. They will likely know this and be weighing up the options. Educate your customer – without giving them a spiel – on why they should go for professional carpet cleaning. It could be as simple as demonstrating the expertise that comes with the service with a quick one-liner:
“We will test your carpet to find out the exact chemicals we can use on the fibres to make sure there’s no damage to the colour for you.”
Step 3: Consider the alternatives – Explain why they should pick your company, rather than your competitors.
Treat every customer as if they have quotes from your competitors, too. You should seek to differentiate your cleaning business from others even in your quote. Think about which of your USPs are appropriate to use when talking about price. It could be that you have a satisfaction guarantee, are a member of an association like the NCCA or are top rated. Think about which quote you’d choose out of these
“It’s £60 per room.”
or
“We’ll clean each room for £60 and you’ll be protected by our satisfaction guarantee to make sure you are 100% happy with our work.”
Your next quote…
Try this technique out next time someone asks for the price of your service. We recommend always keeping some kind of tally or record of your calls so you can track what is working and not working. Let us know how you get on!
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