While springtime can offer a relaxing break from the fall and winter chimney sweeping madness, it can be difficult to adjust to the slower business associated with this time of year. Your customers won’t likely use their fireplace again until late fall, so to them, chimney work can be out of sight and out of mind. Without the pressure of looming cold months, your customers will probably focus on spring cleaning instead. Fortunately, chimney sweep software offers a solution that can help you gain visibility during the warmer months, maximize your profits, and generate leads to give your winter sales a run for their money.
1. Scheduling Chimney Sweep Jobs More Efficiently
Spreading out jobs on your schedule is a good way to ensure regular cash flow rather than small bursts of it. Irregular business during the warmer months can be tough for your wallet. It can be difficult to pay your employees and yourself when your business only has moments of spectacular highs and desolate lows. Scheduling software like Smart Service allows you to look at your schedule as a whole, giving you a chance to better space out your jobs. You can even schedule similar jobs or jobs in close physical proximity to each other on the same day to maximize your efficiency.
2. Email Marketing for Chimney Sweeps
When reaching out to customers and leads, it can be tough to reach the groups you want to target all at once. Putting together an email list by hand is difficult and painstaking. With new clients signing up and lists changing every day, it’s no wonder email marketing efforts for your chimney sweep business always get pushed to the backburner! The marketing features in Smart Service use your QuickBooks customer information to isolate emails by job type or other user-defined fields. That way you can target specific groups in springtime email campaigns! Reach out to customers that need repairs. The winter weather probably made it difficult to schedule a few specific repair jobs, but now spring is here! This is the perfect time (with ample sunshine and warmth) to get masonry jobs done. Springtime discounts can help boost sales in your offseason, but only if your customers know about them! People don’t like to get work done unless they absolutely have to get it done. This is why they typically do it right before the holidays, right when it gets cold. Discounts with a specific deadline provide an incentive to order chimney services earlier, giving customers the same sense of urgency that inspires sales when winter approaches. Letting your customers know about sales through email marketing is an easy and effective way to get the word out. Title the email with something fun like “Chim Chim Chu-hurry! This springtime special on chimney sweeping won’t last long!”
DID YOU KNOW?
You can create user-defined fields through Smart Service. Tags like “considering scheduled maintenance” or “considering masonry work” can help isolate groups of customers or leads for future targeted email marketing campaigns!
3. Optimized Routing Between Chimney Sweep Jobs
A large part of your chimney sweep business expenses go towards gas and mileage to get your team to and from jobs. This cost is inevitable when you run a field service business. However, optimizing your service routes allows your team to save time, preventing you from zigzagging all across town. Whether it’s cold or warm outside, you should let your schedule work for you. Since cutting down on costs is especially important during the slower months, saving time and money should be prioritized during the offseason. With Smart Service chimney sweep software, you can make your job routes more efficient in two ways. Use the color-coded schedule to to assign jobs in the same area to a particular day and chimney sweep. Then, take this one step further by creating an optimized driving route through Smart Routes, reducing drive time!
4. Generate Easy Chimney Sweeping Quotes
Offering free quotes is a good way to attract leads and seal deals during the chimney sweep offseason. You might normally charge for estimates when chimney services are in high demand, but foregoing this fee in the offseason can encourage new business on an otherwise slow stretch of schedule. Creating quotes in the office or on the job is easier than ever with Smart Service software for chimney sweeping. The softwareIt even incorporates the tax so that there’s no confusion when the bill comes. Smart Service integration with QuickBooks also allows for other nifty pricing options. Springtime discounts can easily be incorporated into quotes and invoices without anyone having to individually reprice every single item. Discounts can be messy and cumbersome, but with software you can easily incorporate them in your workflow to give spring the “spring” it needs.
Conclusion
While the chimney sweeping offseason can be difficult for even the most successful of businesses, Smart Service chimney sweeping software offers solutions to help combat the driest of seasons. This software solution can generate leads, maintain a steady flow of business, and save you money, keeping even your offseason going strong.
