Evening Estimate Appointments

I despise when people request a roof estimate and they need me to meet them after 5:00pm.Maybe I'm just being negative... How do you guys feel about them?

Sorry I late to this party and new to this site .....but I have been in several different careers in my life ...ag retail, software , now roofing business ... been doing sales my for 35 plus years and ..... not that I don't disagree with tarstrip it's an inconveivence factor that sucks ... If any advice I can give,  ...make it the easiest for them to give you money!!  that's my motto so I will do whatever i need to get to visit or call after normal business hours .... anyway good luck !

bump

Thanks for the feedback fellas.After 20 years I guess I suffer from burnout at times.

Many years ago I was hired to be a salesman for a cabinet refacing company. They had a late afternoon sales rally I went to, then I was supposed to go out on a sales call with another guy. Almost all their estimates were evening.

The rally started with the boss introducing me and then said something about how I wanted to be lazy like they all were, He said, they all wanted the pay of the hard worker, but only work 2 hours a day, but still got to drive the new Chrysler Cordoba they all had.

They had a routine for their sales that started with a joke with the homeowner about what a pain it was to have you there. I knew right away that job wasn't for me and left before the rally ended. Even rich, Corinthian leather isn't worth your dignity.

Nowadays, I just add repairs to the backlog, I rarely make a separate trip to estimate them.

I would probably guess that about 80% of my signed contracts were done between 7:00 and 9:00 pm or on a weekend.

I would usually do a meet and greet and measure up in my work clothes and work truck at lunch or on my way home and then schedule an evening or weekend time to drop off an estimate. I would always wait at least a couple of days to leave the impression that I was taking time to go over their project before giving a quote.

I would drop off the quote in a cleaned up condition and in my newer vehicle. All my quotes stated that I did not sub-contract and all work was performed by owner and crew.

In the last 15 year full time period my company operated I had about 80% of my contacts were from referral and my success rate was over 90% in signing up those referrals.

I can see where long distances are involved that this method would take too much time but my grazing radius was only about 15 miles.

Like lefty said, I also have done a lot of work for people I never met in person. All done by email and bank transfers.

Tarstrip; Despise is a strong word! They are a called "customers" and if we don't take care of them, someone else will. You just have to qualify them and also say "no thank you" and mean it if you don't want the work. We are the ones that have to set our limits, and also the amount of money we want/need to charge for our services. Just saying that you should try and not think of them as the enemy. In the long run it will be easier on you too!

I sell some of the repairs over the phone/email also. Ventilation jobs, replacing pipe boots, chimney caps, a few missing shingles, etc. A lot of times they take pictures and email them to me and then I can look up their address on googlemaps.com for a street view and an overhead shot to go along with the pics and their description.

Of course this is a lot different from a drive by since neither I nor the client have to go to the address for an estimate. It's too bad they can't all be done this way. Then all that would be required is to just go get the work done. lol

I will take evening appointments if they twist my arm and seem like a good client.

I've also done plenty of jobs based on email communications. The "go-by" close rate seems like it should be worse, but I'm not convinced it is. I might be able to review all leads and tell you, but it's not overwhelming.

I have done jobs for customers that everything was done by email. Some only phone contact.

I live in the country but work in the city. It's 28 miles to down town. In the winter i won't leave the house until 8 a.m. after the morning rush hour has ended and always try to leave the city by 4 pm before the evening rush hour starts. In the summer I leave the house by 6 a.m. before the morning rush hour and try to leave the city by 4 p.m same as in the winter.

I refuse to let anyone cause me to have to stay in the city after 4 p.m. As a trade off however, I reserve Saturdays for potential client's who can not or will not meet with me during the above listed hours. I'm not trying to be condescending but if they can't or won't do that either then as far as I'm concerned they can fix their own roof. :dry:

Same thing goes for any potential client that doesn't want to meet with me at all. I don't do drive by's. If it's not important enough to them to be there then it's not important enough for me to go there.

It was a pain when I did everything.

Closing rate is better with weekend and evening appointments. More work per job is sold on the weekend appointments. The customer does not get as many prices when they have a lifestyle that does not let them meet you during the day.