How Door-Mart Garage Doors Connects with Customers and Leads Faster Using Business SMS

Door-Mart Garage Doors repair person in the field after using business SMS to communicate with customers

Home repair services rely on fast communication, and when something goes wrong with a customer’s garage door, they want immediate assistance. Customers normally go from requesting a quote to booking a repair service within 24 hours. To beat the competition, repair companies have to follow up with inbound leads immediately and provide speedy estimates. All the while, they have to balance their team working between the field, the office, and their own homes.

Door-Mart LogoDoor-Mart Garage Doors is a garage door installation and repair company that serves most of California. They discovered business SMS as a way to allow customers to send photos via text, which sped up the quoting process and helped them provide in-the-moment updates on when they’re arriving or if they’re running behind.

But doing this on a few shared company cell phones opened up a new set of challenges, so Door-Mart Administrator Joshua Simington searched for a business SMS solution that would bring all of their communications into one place. He found Heymarket.

Challenge: Enabling Instant Communications and Feedback

With all their messaging history limited to two shared phones, the Door-Mart team were “literally throwing” phones across the office to help customers, Simington said. They found themselves typing out the same responses over and over again, or pasting from their iPhone notes. Without a reliable way to view their conversation history or streamline frequent replies, the Door-Mart team was falling behind on delivering the immediate responses their customers wanted, hindering the overall service they could provide.

Meanwhile, Door-Mart was struggling with getting customers to leave online reviews at a time when reviews were becoming crucial for local businesses. Door-Mart had hundreds of happy customers, but their email review requests had a low reply rate, leaving their online presence skewed toward the few customers who had a negative experience.

The slow communications proved even worse for their lead follow-ups. Door-Mart gets a healthy pool of leads from HomeAdvisor and other home services aggregators, but found that leads ended up booking with other companies because they hadn’t called back fast enough. They needed a way to immediately reach inbound leads and keep in touch in case they needed their services down the line.

Door-Mart truck viewed from garage door
Door-Mart van and team member viewed through a garage door they repaired.

Solution: How Business SMS Maximizes Customer Engagement

Integrated message and call history. The Door-Mart team manages calls, texts and internal team notes all in one place. Every time a phone call comes in, a private comment gets created so there is a running thread for everything that has happened in each customers’ conversation. All of this information syncs directly with their CRM system. This way, different team members can drop in and help the same customer without any disruption.

SMS templates. Door-Mart created a library of sms templates that covers their full range of frequent replies. Their team can adapt them for any situation and use custom fields to personalize their communications.

Automated campaigns. The team uses automations to follow up with customers to secure in-the-moment reviews. They built an SMS campaign that they set to automatically trigger seven days after they invoiced a customer (which is logged in their CRM), sending a message asking for a review of their service. Customers can now see the review requests and give immediate feedback no matter where they are.

Callingly integration. To speed up their lead response times, Door-Mart integrated Heymarket with Callingly so they can instantly call customers as soon as new lead information comes in. (They also now get HomeAdvisor lead information synced directly to their CRM system and Heymarket.) After they connect with customers on the call, they automatically send texts to confirm they’re booked.

When they don’t connect on the first call, Door-Mart uses drip campaigns to keep connecting with leads over the following week. As more time goes on, each text gets increasingly funnier, using gifs to grab leads’ attention. Beyond comic relief, the drip campaigns give leads different reply options to show whether they need their service, helping Door-Mart understand if they should follow up at a later date.


Business SMS gif reminder with Adele singing Hello
Door-Mart’s reminder gif with the text: “🎶Hello from the other side…I must have called a thousand times…🎶 On a more serious note, we are under the impression that you have a broken garage door that needs our help. Are you still interested in our services? If not, please let me know so I can stop blasting Adele. (Door-Mart Garage Doors – 1-800-829-9833).”

The gifs also provide brand awareness: In California’s crowded garage door repair market, even being known as the company who sends gifs ups their chances of being next time leads need a repair.

Results: The Impact of Integrated Business SMS

Door-Mart has used Heymarket for three years, and it’s now deeply ingrained in their daily business operations. They’ve seen improvements in all of their focus areas:

Streamlined customer service. By centralizing their texting, calling and CRM information in Heymarket, the Door-Mart team saves on time while delivering a seamless customer experience. By responding to customers instantly, they can ensure they’re delivering the best service they can.

“The journey has come a long way from a cell phone that was being passed around the office to having one uniform communication center.”
—Joshua Simington, Administrator, Door-Mart Garage Doors

Increased positive reviews. Since they started prompting customers via text, Door-Mart has seen an influx of reviews on Google and Yelp. Now, 98% of their online reviews are positive, compared to a previous majority of negative reviews. Where they averaged 2.5 star reviews before, they’re now seeing 3.5-5 stars. And one of customers’ favorite things to say in reviews is, “they kept me up to date by text message.”

Connect with more leads. With their Heymarket and Callingly integration, Door-Mart is now connecting and following up with more leads than they were before setting up the integration. By sending images and giving estimates via text, they’ve also shortened the amount of time between connecting with leads and securing their business.

Increase safety. During Covid, providing SMS quotes has decreased the amount of time they spend in customers’ homes. No longer having to share physical phones has been crucial for the team’s safety and productivity as they work remotely. Even as Covid eases, they’ll keep using those practices.

“I can’t imagine a different tool nowadays, other than Heymarket, that would allow us to conduct business the way we do today.”
—Joshua Simington, Administrator, Door-Mart Garage Doors

What’s Next: Door-Mart and Business SMS

Door-Mart already sees streamlined communications with information shared between Heymarket and their CRM. They recently switched to a new CRM system, and are using the integration to target how they market specific products to customers. Heymarket’s segmented lists are key to creating this personalized experience.

And they’re constantly refining their drip campaigns, using A/B testing to choose the best gif to connect with leads — which often starts with giggles that turn into sales and brand awareness.

As Door-Mart discovered, a business SMS platform can:

  • Streamline customer service. With an SMS CRM integration, teams can have a single view for all customer information and respond to customers faster than ever before.
  • Increase reviews. Texting has a 98% open rate, so it’s an optimal way to capture customer feedback and increase survey responses.
  • Connect with more leads. People love texting, and leads are much more likely to respond via text. With a Heymarket and Callingly integration, you can take that to the next level by automatically texting customers after your call.

 

Want to try Heymarket for home services? Schedule a demo with our team.

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