Mitchell Spector went to work for his father in 1976 and 10 years later left to open his own home improvement company focusing on siding and windows. Incremental adjustments to systems inside and a commitment to customer service excellence outside have enabled Woodbridge Home Exteriors to consistently generate more sales and keep more profit from what it sells.
• To meet the challenges of the downturn, Woodbridge shifted marketing from inbound media-driven leads to outbound canvassing (now 50%) and show/events leads. “Five years ago, media generated 75% of our leads. Today it’s maybe 20%,” Spector says.
• A well-mapped loop of customer service now includes a Customer Care Employee (a recently created position) who verifies client satisfaction via phone at the end of each job.
• Regular measurement of every step along the lead path — leads to issue, issue to demo, demo to sale — enables Woodbridge to hold down lead costs, while regular sales retraining slowly ups the close (demo to sale) rate. The company is currently closing on 40% of issued leads.
