Family-owned and operated home service businesses everywhere are looking for the right marketing company to help them grow. Angie Zeppieri from Hi-Lite Electric in Toronto sat down with one of our Client Operations Specialists, Cheryl Spriggs, to give us the scoop on how Service Direct has impacted their business and has kept them busy since they started.
A: Hi-Lite Electric is a proud, family-owned business that has been around for over 36 years. Some of the members of our family involved in the business include me, my husband Luchiano, and two of my sons, Matthew who is a licensed electrician, and Steven who is an electrician apprentice. Currently, we handle residential service and repair with three service trucks on the road.
A: I wear many hats at Hi-Lite. I am the Office Administrator and the Customer Care Representative, which means I take care of answering the phones and dispatching the calls to the electricians and handling all of the customers. I manage the marketing and make outbound calls to make sure our schedule is full each week. I also handle all of the bookkeeping and quickbooks. Our goal is to always have one person in the office while three people are on the road in the service trucks. Occasionally in the summer I get some help as well from one of my sons while they’re not teaching.
A: My husband, Luchiano, has always been an electrician. He started in the business 36 years ago, in 1982. When he started out, he was working in commercial on new construction within subdivisions. In 1994 we decided to be strictly residential service and repair and have stayed that way ever since.
A: Our customers are like our family. We follow the three Ws. Customer Wins First. Employee Wins Second. Employer Wins Third. If we can keep all three of these people happy, we’re on track! We were actually out on a call once with one of our repeat customers from over five years ago and he wanted us to meet his mother at some point. I went over there and had tea with her and got to know them a little more as well, that’s the type of relationships we love. I want to build personal relationships within our company where people are happy to call us.
A: We went through a transition with another company that was doing our Pay-Per-Click marketing and started creating our own website instead. During this time, we could tell we were hurting since we weren’t getting enough calls to keep our three trucks busy. When I was searching online one evening for a new marketing partner, I came across Service Direct and spoke with a representative that gave a good explanation your methods. Your company had us up and running within a few days!
Service Direct has impacted our business because a lot of our calls are coming through this platform. It is keeping our guys busy and this is the type of work we needed to be consistently on the road.
A: I like the transparency of the Pay-Per-Call marketing by listening to all the calls being recorded. One of my favorite features is keeping track of the revenue we have made so we can see our return on investment and know that our money spent on Service Direct is well spent. Another convenient feature is that we can pause if we’re too busy or booked up as well. We can also send in for review any leads that are not services we provide or wrong numbers, so we are not charged for those.
A: I find that people are submitting a lot more online requests. I find that millenials and new generations are not calling in as much and are submitting requests online, which is awesome. I’m learning to make sure I reply back to all of these requests since this is a new technology for us for new service orders.
A: Oh my gosh - Online Marketing is the new way and you DO need it! We used to advertise in the yellow pages and directories, but those are the dinosaur ages. Online is where you can be found.
A: Exactly what we have with you. A partner that is friendly, easy to reach and to communicate with, and willing to work with you. When I reached out to Service Direct, I was so excited! Sometimes your worst moments are when you come across the best thing that makes everything better.
A: Go for it! Do it! There are a lot of companies that are reluctant to spend money on online marketing. When you spend the money on online marketing, you get a lot in return. We get the most of our calls from our regular repeat customers and online marketing.
Thank you to Hi-Lite Electric for letting us sit down with them to get a look at their experience with utilizing Service Direct. For more information about Hi-Lite Electric, visit their website http://www.hi-liteelectricinc.ca/ .
**Disclaimer: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.**