Well, it’s all gone a bit Pete Tong, hasn’t it?

The cost of food is up. My Friday night kebab costs more, and the tasty IPA I’m currently drinking is now £7.20. The diesel for my van is £1.92 per litre, and the minimum wage for my apprentice is more than last year. 

As for copper, flux, radiators, boilers, and ‘serviceable parts’, well… let’s not go there. 

Everybody will agree that £100 in your pocket this month is not the same as £100 a year ago. Undoubtedly, the answer should be to increase the prices for services to our customers.

The £10 per service increase we did two years ago has now been wiped out by the changes to Building Regulations Part L, and with all the recent price increases in every industry, we must consider increasing our prices again. 

But how? What will happen if we put another £10 onto every boiler service, or another £100 onto each boiler swap?

Increasing pricing periodically is not a bad thing. Your best and most loyal existing customers will expect and accept this from time to time. But, if you do this without any forward thinking, planning, and action, you will probably find that this added £10 per service or £100 per boiler swap might lose you more of the quotes for new customers than needed. 

Is losing customers always bad? 

We are always told we must keep customers happy, but what if 10% of your customers are holding your business back?

Time is money, and money is time. Given that we are all busy, wouldn’t losing a few existing customers help free us up to only work for those who don’t mind the price increase? You know, your best current customers and new customers that do not know your past costs? 

Increasing your prices and accepting a small purge may be the best. You might work less, however you could find yourself getting paid the same in less time, or find time to spend with loved ones, or even invest in your future business to focus on those customers that are happy to pay that 10% extra.

Stepping up your game 

If you don’t want to lose customers when raising prices, it’s worth considering what your business needs to do in order to keep them. An obvious route is by improving our product, service, and overall marketing.

Improving your product and the value attached is possible by understanding what we call perceived value. Understanding that your customers should be split into groups, with each customer group having common essential requirements that need addressing in your marketing to them. Give them additional value by offering the bells and whistles your competitors don’t. 

Here’s a couple of examples: ‘Free central heating thermography inspection’, or ‘Free 90 day cosy home help and support.’ Adding lines like this to your boiler quotations will add value if you also provide educational material explaining how this helps the customer.

Improving your customer service to your existing customers may not improve profits, but it will most certainly change how you are perceived by new customers when choosing who they will do business with. 

Last issue’s Boiler Business article covered the ‘customer journey’, so I will not go into much detail here. The 101 on improving your service is to take some time to map out your customer journey from start to finish and look at how you can enhance every contact you have with the customer.

Take control of your marketing

Investing in your marketing knowledge will be the best thing you can do to step up your game. Businesses that know the difference between marketing and advertising will invest in websites and improve their customer journey. The experience of those first few customer connections will build perceived value and help you charge more money while keeping expenditure down.

Those that don’t understand marketing may try expensive short term advertising. Although this works for the largest heating companies who have the budget to spend with well-built websites, and have the customer journey nailed, most small businesses don’t have these essentials, so they find little reward from advertising. 

To step up your game and take control of your marketing, head to theboilerbusiness.co.uk website for a free five-part masterclass.