5 Ways to Win an Estate Agent Service Contract
August 27, 2018 | Read: 7 minutes
Winning an estate agent contract is a great way for your plumbing and heating business to get regular income.
However, estate agencies aren’t going to hand over service or gas safety certificate contracts to just any business…
Estate agencies are looking for reliable service businesses that can provide them with a high level of care.
So, how can you win an estate agent contract and stay ahead of the competition?
Let’s explore five tips to help you win more estate agent contracts. We’ll also highlight how you can manage customer agreements with service contract management software!
How Can I Win More Estate Agent Contracts?
Here are our top tips on winning an estate agent contract; click to jump ahead to the section that matters most to you:
- Come prepared. Learn all you can about the estate agent.
- Stand out. Have a proposal that both looks and sounds fantastic.
- Set your prices. Figure out what you’ll want to charge.
- Solve problems. Take preventative measures to reduce & limit delays.
- Dress to impress. A uniform can make a difference.
1. Come prepared
Before approaching any estate agent, it’s critical that you’re prepared.
That means ensuring you’ve done your research on who you’re pitching to, including:
- Is it an independent estate agent or a franchise?
- Who currently manages their service work?
- Whether they’re looking for a new provider?
While being prepared won’t guarantee you’ll win the business, it will definitely help. At the very least, it stops you from wasting your time, and lets you focus on new business that you can actually win.
For example, if you’re a small company with a few engineers, there’s no point in targeting a large estate agency. Target small or medium-sized agencies, and work to build a relationship with them. You can grow from there.
2. Create a Standout Proposal
Create a proposal and bring it with you to your meetings. You should also make sure you have a quality PDF copy that you can email to prospects as well.
Here’s what to include:
Professional design
If you don’t have graphic design skills, spring for a professional designer. You can find quality, affordable designers at 99Designs, or hire a local graphic design student.
Professional copy
If you’re not a pro marketing writer, hire one. Beware of hiring writers from “content farms”, where it can be more challenging to determine quality.
Quality paper
Touch is important and, simple as it sounds, the way the paper feels when you handle it can convey a lot about your professionalism.
The same goes for digitised copies of documents: make sure images and text aren’t pixelated or poorly laid out.
A great design will help you to make a bigger impact on the customer, too.
Contact details
Be sure your key contact details are on the brochure.
Business name, physical address, website address, email address, phone number, even your social media accounts (but only if you’re active on them).
A call to action
Make sure there’s a call to action telling your contact what the next steps are. A call to action could be to:
- Schedule a meeting
- Check out your website
- Download an information pack
An estate agent is unlikely to move forward with your service if you’re not encouraging them to do so.
Your Unique Selling Point
What’s your unique selling proposition (or USP)—the thing that makes you stand out over your competition?
It might be speed, the most skilled engineers in the business, or excellent customer service.
3. Prepare your Pricing
A major problem with small businesses bidding for estate agent contracts is that they lose track of the costs—which often means they end up completing jobs at a loss.
There’s no point in winning business if you don’t make a profit. So before you start discussing prices, do your homework and go into the meeting prepared.
Supply a list of guideline prices on a sliding scale. For example:
- 1-20 services/domestic gas safety certificates @ £65.00 + VAT
- 21-50 services/domestic gas safety certificates @ £60.00 + VAT
- 51-150 services/domestic gas safety certificates @ £55.00 + VAT
This is only an example—it’s incredibly important that you’ve worked out what your costs really are before setting out your pricing.
Take into account things like labour, travel, vehicle costs, administration costs, recalls and so on.
Figure out how much you should charge and get your pricing guidelines written down so when you turn up to negotiate you look like you know what you’re doing.
Give these to your contacts at the estate agent on a company-branded document so the estate agent knows you’re serious.
Be willing to walk away if the estate agent asks you to work for less than you set out in your pricing guidelines. It’s not worth it to work hard but earn no profit.
4. Show That You Can Solve problems
Estate agents are people just like you and like everyone else, they have problems; so figure out what those problems are and how you can solve them.
We’re not talking about merely completing jobs, but additional services you can offer to help you stand out.
Here are a few ideas:
Send email reminders when DGSCs are due
While many estate agents will inform you when a Domestic Gas Safety Certificate (DGSC) is due, it’s always worth highlighting when a check is due, with a service reminder.
This way, if they forget they know you’ve got it covered, which helps build trust and shows that your business is capable of keeping organised.
Offer to track keys
Keeping track of keys to access tenant properties is vital, as estate agents don’t want lost keys anymore than you do.
Offer to keep track of all those keys with a sign-out and sign-in process; that demonstrates that you have procedures for keeping keys safe.
Confirm all your DGSCs will be digital
If you’re not creating digital DGSCs, you should be. It’s a big turn-off if you’re still posting paper gas safety certificates because it creates extra work for the estate agent.
As part of your presentation pack, provide an example of your digital DGSC for them to look at. If you’re using job management software, like Commusoft, you might also want to showcase a variety of custom forms you can create, too.
This can be a great way to show off how professional your paperwork is going to look and helps prove that you can be trusted.
Provide digital job reports after every visit
Reporting on performance is a big part of what’ll help you secure and maintain contracts. It helps, then, to show off the types of reports you can build, what you’re monitoring, and how.
Job reporting software can help you here, but in assessing the contract and speaking to your client, you’ll be able to craft reports that are useful t everyone.
5. Dress to Impress
Don’t turn up in your dirty work clothes…turn up dressed to win an estate agent contract.
You don’t have to don a suit, but simply dress like you’re from a professional, reliable business. A pair of dark jeans and a plain polo shirt are perfect.
Win Estate Agent Contracts with Commusoft
If you are looking to win an estate agent contract, it’s not enough to just do a good job; you’ll want to stand out from the crowd.
The above are just a few examples of how to do that. For even more help, we’ve created a few comprehensive guide you might like to explore!
Whether you’re getting to grips with home service contracts, or looking for more information about managing commercial maintenance contracts, we’ve got you covered.
Additionally, you can explore all about Commusoft and how we can help you to take control of your service contract management with software, too!
