by Lorraine Ball

In recent months, consumers all over the country have participated in a crash course: How to do life without leaving the couch.

 

While telecommuting, online ordering, and 2-day-delivery have been the norm for some people, the coronavirus pandemic quickly pushed Americans of all ages to navigate a new online and virtual reality. That reality will stay with us long after COVID-19 subsides.

 

In today’s world, the casual in-store visitor who responds,“I’m just looking” to a friendly salesperson’s offer for help no longer exists. I’m not here to say that “just looking” doesn’t happen. It does. Now, “just looking” happens at home where your customer has adapted to doing everything else – on the couch.

 

What does this mean for HVAC companies? There is a massive opportunity to win over casual visitors who are “just looking” by making it easier for them to connect with you through your online brand.

 

We’ve seen many of our clients in other home service industries optimizing their website to start more sales conversations with casual visitors, and you can too!

 

To get started, make sure you are ready to welcome visitors to your website with a positive first impression. Remember, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You already know how to provide excellent service. Now it is about finding a way to provide that same level of service in a more digitally interactive way.

 

Here are three places in your sales process where you can implement more interactive customer experiences online.

 

The Welcome 

When a customer is in need of service, they typically search online for businesses near them which provide that service. While searching, customers quickly click through websites, hoping back to Google as they evaluate who they’d like to contact.

 

What if there was a way to interrupt the quick search cycle and keep customers from leaving your site and choosing a competitor?

 

Online tools not only can prompt the visitor to engage with your brand right away, they can help welcome visitors and provide a more personalized and interactive experience keeping the shoppers on your site for longer.

 

We’ve been experimenting with artificial intelligence tools which connect with visitors and answer basic questions and the results have been astounding.

We added a friendly pop-up on the site of a flooring contractor and in just the first month, we’ve seen time on site jump from around 1.5 minutes to 6.35 minutes.  That is almost five minute more browsing time.

 

Landing the first conversation

 

You likely already provide a contact form or phone number for customers to call in a HVAC emergency. What about everyone else? How are you helping customers who are just browsing?

 

With A.I. technology, you can turn casual site visitors into potential leads and revenue for your business. By offering additional ways for your website visitors to get help, you’ll generate more qualified conversations with customers and appointments for your team.

 

For that same flooring contractor we increased their schedule appointment requests by 40%.

 

Follow-up:

After an initial conversation, it is important to send your customers some kind of follow-up. It can be a simple “thanks for looking into our services” or a personalized message with requested information.

 

A.I. technology makes it easier to send follow-ups with your site visitors. By offering more ways to engage on the website, your technology simultaneously collects data from visitors such as contact preferences, products or services of interest, and their buying time frame. This will make it easier for your team to strike up a conversation and work leads into sales.

 

The concept of A.I. technology is still new to the HVAC industry. The good news is A.I. doesn’t have to change everything. If you don’t offer e-commerce now, using A.I. doesn’t mean you have to start. Adding A.I. technology to your website is simply an opportunity to get more visitors up off of their couch, connected to a member of your team and buying from you

 

Interested in learning more?  Give me a call. .