Turn Price Checks Into Service Calls

Placing advertising and getting phone calls is only half the battle, once a client calls, you still need to turn them into a service call. Many of the phone calls that a technician will receive are only “price checks” as clients make their way down the list. In this article, we’ll show you some ways to turn price checks into service calls.

Explain To Them That Price Equals Quality

If you have been following our advice from our past articles, you probably aren’t the cheapest technician in your area. Unfortunately many potential clients will based their decision on price and thus choosing the cheapest technician they can find.

You need to educate them that price isn’t all that matters when choosing a technician. Justify your cost by mentioning that you have been in business for X amount of years, are insured and mention anything else that gives you an edge over the competition (free pickup, certifications, no-fix-no-fee guarantee etc).

ZenMike from the Technibble forums has a great line to convert price checkers:

I tell them, “I’m not the cheapest so if that’s the only criteria for your decision you probably won’t do business with me. Is price the only thing you care about?” Usually they’ll say, “Well… no.” and then you can have a conversation.

Engage And Assure Them

One of my primary conversion tricks is to get them talking to me by explaining their problem in detail. This makes me more than not price to them and it opens up a dialogue. They may tell me that they are getting popups from a virus scanner called Antivirus2009 for example. I would assure them saying that I see these Antivirus2009 problems all the time which establishes me as someone who has experience with their problem. To finish it off, I ask for the job by saying “Would you like to book a time? I can get out there as early as…”. Since they are already on the phone, have already explained their problem and know when I can be onsite, they nearly always book in a time with me. It might be laziness on their part so they don’t have to keep calling around. Whatever it is, it works in my favor.

If They Still Don’t Bite

If they don’t want to use your services due to the price, you probably don’t want them as clients anyway. Cheap clients are generally the most troublesome because they expect more for less. Let them go to your competitor and the following things may happen:

• Your competitor has to waste time and resources holding the hand of a cheap client which slows them down
• The client eventually comes back to you and pay your higher price after they found out why your competitor was so cheap

Either way, it works to your benefit.