Plumber? Here Is How To Get More Clients, Even At 11 PM

It is 11 PM. A pipe has burst in someone's kitchen and the water is already reaching the hallway.

At that moment he is not looking for the best plumber in town. He is not calling around for recommendations, not comparing prices, and not wondering who has fifteen years of experience.

He picks up his phone, types "plumber near me" and dials the first number. Busy. Dials the second. Nobody answers. The third one picks up on the second ring and is standing in that kitchen forty minutes later.

That third guy was not a better tradesman than you. He was simply found, and he answered his phone.

In the next 3 minutes I will show you where those calls are lost, and which two things you can fix this very week.

A Drowning Man Clutches At Straws

Some businesses give the customer time to choose. He searches, compares, asks friends, thinks about it for a week.

Plumbing is not one of them.

People call you when it is already too late. Water is spreading, the tap will not close, the heating died in the middle of winter. At that point nobody is choosing. They grab whatever comes to hand first.

In your market the customer does not pick the best. He picks the one within reach.

You might ask: so does my craft count for nothing? It counts, just a little later. Your craft is what keeps the client who already walked through your door. But before he gets to your door, he has to find you first and reach you first.

And those two steps are exactly where you lose the calls you will never even hear about.

1. Show Up On The Map, Or You Do Not Exist

At 11 PM your future client did not open Facebook and did not go looking for your website. He typed "plumber" into his phone and looked only at what came up on Google Maps.

If you are not there, then as far as he is concerned you do not exist. The painful part is that this spot costs nothing: a Google Business Profile is free and takes one evening to fill in.

Three details decide most of it.

First, the category. If you listed yourself as a construction company, you will not show up when somebody searches for a plumber. The category has to be the exact word your customer types.

Second, the opening hours. Google puts the businesses that are open right now in front. If you really do take night calls, your profile has to say so. And if you do not, do not claim that you do (one unanswered night call turns into one bad review the next morning).

Third, the reviews. Between two plumbers standing a kilometre apart, the customer picks the one with twelve reviews over the one with none. So send the review link on the spot, right after every finished job.

That profile is the one thing that puts your number within reach at the moment somebody reaches out.

2. Whoever Answers Gets The Job

Now the unfair part: you lose these calls because you are working.

Your hands are inside a pipe, it is loud, and the phone is ringing in your pocket. You cannot answer, and that is completely normal. The problem is that the man with water in his hallway will not wait for you. He will dial three other numbers within two minutes.

Answering a night call an hour later is the same as not answering it at all.

The fix is simple and you only do it once. Save one short message on your phone and send it, in your first free minute, to everyone you missed: "Hi, I'm on a job right now. I'll call you back in 20 minutes. If it's urgent, text me what happened and send a photo."

That one sentence does two jobs. First, the customer stops searching, because he now knows somebody saw him. Second, by the time you reach your van you already have the photo and you know what the problem is (and if it is not your kind of job, you have not driven across town for nothing).

The rest is just a habit: at the end of every job, check your missed calls and ring back immediately. A call returned in ten minutes is still your client. A call returned an hour later is somebody else's client.

Conclusion

In the plumbing market the job does not always go to the best. It goes to whoever is within reach at that minute.

A Google profile takes one evening. The phone habit takes one week. Both are done once, and then they work on their own, every night.

Your craft is what keeps a client. But before you can keep him, he has to reach you.

Talk soon,
Rati