For many RV service pros who launch an RV business as their first entrepreneurial endeavor, one of the biggest surprises is how much time everything takes. Even if this isn’t your first time being self-employed or you’re already running a successful RV business, there are things that you do everyday that take up tons of time.
When you first had the idea or when you started your business, you probably envisioned that you’d be out in the field, providing RV inspections, RV consultations (RV walkthroughs) or mobile RV repairs. What you probably didn’t anticipate was just how many hours each day you’d spend fielding customer inquiries, answering emails, researching and ordering RV parts, or trying to juggle your marketing — the list goes on and on. Turns out, running a business is a whole lotta admin responsibilities and cuts into the time you spend actually performing the hands-on work for the services you provide.
Luckily, there are a few tricks and tips that you can utilize to make better use of the time you do have. Here’s what we’ve learned from starting and running two successful businesses over the last few years.
Maximize Your Online Presence to Streamline Your RV Business and Handle Customer Inquiries Effortlessly
Customers likely find you in a variety of ways — via online locators (and directories), social media, referrals, Google searches, Yelp reviews, you name it. But once they discover you and decide they might need your help, where do they go?
When they call, message or email you in order to get more info about your business or a quote, responding to customer inquiries can gobble up valuable minutes in your day.
So how do you maximize your minutes? Streamline your RV business to make those minutes more efficient by simplifying your communication with your potential customers.
Whether it’s before or after the initial point of contact, make sure customers are visiting your website or a custom company listing page. To do that, include the link in emails or text messages and make sure your website or company listing page link is included in your Google business profile.
Leverage your company listing page or website and make it work for you. Ensure it’s packed with information and the answers to your business’s FAQs.
When a potential customer arrives at your website, company listing page or social media channel, they should IMMEDIATELY see:
Where you’re currently located
Who YOU are as a person
What your business is about and exactly what products or services you offer
What types of RVs you service (Don’t forget to include the types of components, too)
Why they should work with you
How they can get a quote or book a service or appointment
The more your web presence can provide all of this information to potential customers, the more likely that you’re fielding more serious inquiries from qualified customers that want exactly what you offer.
Think you don’t have time, skills, or money to build a website? Maybe you want another avenue that drives traffic straight to your website or social media channels? My RV Resource makes creating a custom company listing page (aka landing page) for your RV business simple, easy and stress-free. Check it out!
Use Forms to Reduce Errors and Streamline Your RV Business Communication
If you’ve ever gone back and forth with a potential customer, trying to get the right info you need to provide a quote, then you know what a headache that can be. They send an email missing half the relevant details, or they leave a garbled voicemail and then don’t answer when you try to call them back — it goes on and on in a loop of time-consuming frustration.
Minimize this by implementing quote forms and booking forms that require potential customers to include all the info you need which is automatically sent straight to your inbox. Then, when you're ready to provide that quote or get back in touch with them, you have everything you need, in writing, to easily reference and respond accordingly.
Whether you have a website or not, every My RV Resource company listing page includes a quote form for potential customers to contact you. It sends a copy of the info straight to your inbox and provides yet another point of contact for potential business which means that you get more inquiries!
Canned (Saved) Responses Mean Less Time Spent on Emails and Messages
You probably receive the same questions from potential and existing customers over and over again. “What’s the timeline for getting this work done?” “Do you provide X, Y, Z?” “How can I pay my invoice?”
And, since you receive the same questions over and over again, you likely respond with more or less the same answers every time — so why are you spending minutes or even hours of your day typing out that same response over and over again?
Take one afternoon and create a series of canned, generic responses to questions like these and then save them to cloud storage so you can access them quickly on your phone and on your computer. Then, every time moving forward, when you need to answer these types of questions, you can just tap a few buttons or copy and paste your response.
By implementing this process alone, you can effortlessly respond to requests, even while you’re onsite inspecting or repairing an RV. The faster you respond, the more likely the customer is to hire your company or, if it’s not the right fit, be directed to someone who can. Simply doing this boosts customer satisfaction, improves your customer experience and can lead to 5-star reviews. When you can’t help them for whatever reason, simply giving them another option is helpful and we refer to this as “the nicest no ever.”
(You can even use the handy Text Expander app to save the same responses over various devices, making it even easier to add the responses you need to an email or message with just a few keystrokes.)
Just remember — if your response includes a link, like a link to your FAQs on your website or your quote form, then you should hide that link behind a “click here” statement. This is the case across all of your communication with potential customers. Naked links in emails and email signatures increase the likelihood of your email being sent to your customers’ spam folders.
Get Help From The Pros to Streamline Your RV Business Marketing Efforts
Are you trying to put together some social media marketing during your downtime after work or struggling to understand Google Ads? Have you created a “brand” for your business? Maybe you intend to hire a social media manager but you need to generate some revenue to budget for all that.
An important part of marketing is consistency so you must understand that marketing is a job all on its own. Considering all the other things you are trying to prioritize, it’s completely understandable that this part of running an RV business often falls through the cracks. However, as any small business owner will tell you, marketing is key to finding new customers.
Marketing is an extremely nuanced part of your business and can get pricey really fast. You can fumble around trying to learn how to advertise using Pay Per Click (PPC) and you can throw a Facebook or Instagram post up every now and then. But if you’re not being consistent, you might as well throw that money and time out the window. Luckily, marketing is something that My RV Resource can help with!
Over the years, we’ve seen how marketing efforts and getting a brand out in front of more customers can really make or break a new RV business. However, it’s also something that a lot of entrepreneurs in the RV service industry struggle with. That’s why we include marketing services in every single My RV Resource Featured VIP membership subscription plan.
Don’t Waste Time on the Business Aspects of Business
Yes, running a successful RV service-related business will require some level of admin work. That said, the admin work, marketing, and customer communications shouldn’t overtake your life.
Use our tested tips and tricks above to cut down on daily, time-consuming tasks and spend your extra time focused on what you love — providing excellent service to passionate RV enthusiasts as you grow your RV service business.
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Maximize Your Online Presence to Streamline Your RV Business and Handle Customer Inquiries Effortlessly
Use Forms to Reduce Errors and Streamline Your RV Business Communication
Canned (Saved) Responses Mean Less Time Spent on Emails and Messages
Get Help From The Pros to Streamline Your RV Business Marketing Efforts
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