In the field service industry, the buyer holds all the cards when it comes to deciding who provides their services. Abundant options in this industry mean finding loyal customers tends to be easier said than done. With 40% of small business revenue being driven by repeat sales, it’s no wonder that this type of customer is so essential to maintaining and growing your business. Luckily, in today’s technology-driven world, staying connected with these customers and ensuring they have a positive experience has never been easier. Here are four key ways you can harness the power of technology to drive returning clients to your business.

1) Keep Track of your Customers With CRM

The first step to creating a returning customer is being able to stay in touch with them and remind them of the previous positive experience they had with your service. Without keeping organized and up-to-date records of your previous contacts, they will almost assuredly slip through the cracks. The use of customer relationship management software, or CRM, is your one-stop shop for storing client data. Using CRM technology allows you to record important information such as date of service, name of company, type of services provided, and more. This data can then be exported and used to personalize your marketing outreach efforts later. As the records grow for each customer, you’re creating an invaluable history of the relationship. The CRM record can become the “source of truth” on each customer’s interactions, including marketing outreach, customer service incidents, and more. This also ensures that your hard-earned customer knowledge won’t walk out the door when staff turnover happens.

2) Provide a Positive Experience With FSM

No matter how much effort you put into your past client outreach, without providing quality service, none of them will ever be inclined to return to you. Field Service Management software (FSM) can make organizing your service tasks a breeze. This technology provides all kinds of information in real-time, information like:

  • When a worker arrives at the site
  • Site address/route management
  • How long the job took to complete
  • Service package and quote building capabilities
  • Billing options

Having all of this information in one place ensures your company is always on schedule and prepared no matter how big or small the job may be. FSM software can help with common time-intensive tasks like scheduling, estimating HVAC or plumbing quotations, routing, and more! By using an FSM product such as WorkWave, your clients will remember how smoothly the job went with your company and be sure to hire you again.

3) Test Your Customer Experience with Surveys

Customer surveys are the best way to get honest feedback from your clients. These surveys can provide two functions that will help generate repeat sales. These surveys can provide a list of clients who have expressed interest in working with you again. And they can tell you how to improve in order to regain their business. The information collected in these surveys is a great resource to refer to when you begin to reach out to these clients.

4) Use Email Marketing

Now that you’ve gathered client data, you can put it to good use by creating and personalizing marketing email campaigns. Using email marketing software is a great way to quickly and efficiently send hundreds of personalized emails to potential returning customers. By integrating with, then pulling contact info from your CRM system, you can personalize each email with the customer’s name, remind them of what you worked on for them, and much more. This not only serves as a way to get their attention but it also reminds them of the value they received with past engagements, along with letting them know that you value them as a patron of your services. Customers who feel valued are much more likely to use your services again.

Combining the Four Systems

Each of the systems outlined above is powerful on its own. But, when combined with the others mentioned, your efficiency and overall reach of your past customers grow considerably. With the cost of finding new customers being six to seven times higher than drawing in repeat business, the ROI makes investing in software solutions well worth it for your business.

And with the amount of time your field service software can save you, you may just have more time to find new customers too!

Author

Mackenzie Jones is a writer and project coordinator at TechnologyAdvice. She is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, currently living in Nashville. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.