Helping contractors build better businesses has been GuildQuality’s mission since the very beginning (15 years ago).

While much of our membership accomplishes this by retrieving candid feedback from their clients on or after a job, an increasing number of Guildmembers are expanding their surveying program to include those who have yet to sign on the dotted line. While providing key insights on sales processes, and helping our members to stay in contact with potential customers, prospect surveying allows businesses to digest a completely different brand of valuable feedback. By delivering clear and executable opportunities for increasing employee performance, as well as the chance to close more deals, the return in surveying your prospects is massive.

“Often those prospects who appear lost are not. On average, our members who conduct ‘rehash’ surveying are surprised to discover that 40-45% of leads assumed cold are still considering them,” shares Laura Summerlin, Director of Member Success at GuildQuality.

Window World, a long time Guildmember, began surveying their prospects and have witnessed a strong impact. “I get great feedback from my sales consultants,” says Katherine Kenney, Marketing Director for Window World’s four locations in Atlanta, Huntsville, Central Alabama, & The Shoals.

“I send [prospect surveys] to our ‘dead’ leads that are older than 90 days. It allows [the sales team] to know the status of their prospect and if they are still interested. This is also a great way to improve the customer experience in their home – people are more open when there is a third party involved.”

Beyond staying in communication with prospects, there are also plenty of opportunities to use prospect surveying as a coaching tool. Katherine explains, “[Being able to] address certain issues with certain people has been one of the most beneficial aspects of prospect surveying for our business. When we first started doing it, I sat down with our sales team and gave a plan for what they needed to do based on the responses. They always appreciate the feedback, especially when they are able to make a sale from it!”

Of course, a significant consideration for any business decision will be the return on investment. Improving internal processes is a big win, but what about other real tangibles such as closing more business?

“I know we have closed a few deals already, so the ROI is there,” says Katherine. “Our sales team has reached out to me after getting surveys back and said ‘Thanks so much, this is awesome – [deal] closed!’. Even if a job is small, it pays off.”

To expand on this, our COO Mark Miles shared, “If you survey 100 leads, get a 30% response rate, and find that 1/3 are still considering you, then you have 10 leads to rehash. That’s a lot. If you close 1-2 of them, given an average project value of $2K (just in example), you’d have a 10x ROI every month.”

If you’re searching for a way to revamp your sales process, or want to measure just how much business you’re losing from potential clients that go radio silent, adding prospect surveying to your current GuildQuality program can be a real boom for your business. And to make things easy, we’ll even create a separate account for your prospect feedback, to keep it separate from your customer testimonials and the public eye – free of charge!

Questions on how to get started? Email us at support@guildquality.com – we’re always happy to help!