Whether you’re buying our disaster mitigation, restoration, or home services leads or generating your own leads, you need to know how to convert those jobs. In order to help you close more calls, we asked our good friend Lisa Lavender to share some of her called handling wisdom with us.

As Chief Operating Officer and Co-owner of both Restoration Technical Institute and Berks, Fire, Water Restorations,

You probably use several different marketing channels to generate leads, but do you really know if they are successful? Connecting contractors with customers is our business, so we understand the value of every phone call. With our new call tracking system, you can now track the performance of your marketing and advertising campaigns.

As a business owner, you can choose to pass on jobs at your discretion. However, turning down too many jobs can negatively affect your business. Obviously, you don’t get paid when turning away calls, but it could also result in negative referrals, like “Don’t bother calling Rudy’s Restoration, he always passes on jobs.” If you’re using our lead generation system, you could be billed for turning away calls if they fit the right conditions.

Search engine optimization – better know as SEO – is one of the hottest marketing buzzwords in the last decade. Despite its popularity, SEO is still a mystery for many people, including a lot of contractors. While SEO is a complex topic, our high-level overview will help contractors learn how they can use SEO to increase leads and get more jobs.

Success is based on building good relationships with your customers. Your technicians are the instrument, but also the face of your company. While they likely take a practical approach to restoration and cleanup, they also need good communication and customer service skills to interact with your customers. Developing a restoration training plan is the easiest way to develop their skills.

Water damage restoration is almost entirely customer service. While that does mean performing quality work, it also means communicating effectively with your customers. Your customers are less likely to have an issue with your work if you have good communication skills.

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As you already know, water damage and disaster mitigation is unpredictable. Our goal is to provide every one of our lead generation partners with as many viable leads as possible.

To ensure you get as many leads as possible, we send automated SMS text message about calls in counties that surround your current service area. The text message includes the name of the county and cost per valid lead.

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One the of hardest parts of water damage restoration is keeping your business busy. While pipes do burst and storms do cause flooding, disasters are nearly impossible to predict. Taking plumber leads will help keep your crews busy between restoration jobs.

While plumbing jobs may not be as lucrative as water damage jobs, they tend to have a higher volume of calls. Homeowners are more likely to need a garbage disposal installed or a drain snaked than a dry out.

Plumbing jobs do require specific tools and skills, but they also lead to more customers. Taking a plumbing leads are likely to lead to more water damage restoration jobs. Plus, your plumbing customers will leave reviews and give referrals too.

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Storm chasing has become popular with disaster mitigation contractors. Considering that the 2017 hurricane season was one of the costliest on record, it makes sense that so many restoration contractors consider following the path of devastation.

While chasing storms may pose some challenges, it can be extremely lucrative work. Whether you’re experienced at storm chasing or looking to take advantage of this year’s storm season, here are some tips to ensure you are successful.

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Google recently made changes to their review policy and submissions guidelines and they now prohibit the practice of review-gating. As such, we are releasing an update to our review acquisition system Acquirly in order to comply with Google’s policy changes.

What is Review-Gating and Why is Google Making the Change?

Review-Gating is a practice used by many review generation systems including Acuirly that asks customers about their experience before prompting them to leave a review. Google made changes to their terms of service because they feel that review-gating prevents reviews from being entirely honest and fair.

Google’s new policy requires customers to have an equal opportunity to leave a review, regardless of whether they had a positive or negative experience. We expect Facebook, HomeAdvisor, and the Better Business Bureau will release similar requirements in the near future.