LeafGuard by Home Solutions of Iowa prides itself on its down-home approach to customer service. “We’re middle America. A handshake and a first name still go a long way,” says Brent Butler, the firm’s marketing manager.
But behind that folksy exterior, there’s a decidedly high-tech approach to business. Just look at how the company expanded its offerings into all exterior remodeling: roofing, windows, siding, insulation and energy savings.
With 14 years in business and thousands of customers, LeafGuard took all its customer data, added GPS information, and from the combination produced heat maps to see everything from weather trends to past jobs. “There’s a lot of data that goes into it, but once you start looking it at visually, it starts to make sense,” Butler says. “We kind of geek out sometimes.”
Butler and company use their geek tech to create laser-focused neighborhood marketing. For example, the team looks at Google Earth views to see neighborhoods where trees are heavy, then targets a newsletter specific to that area. The messaging even includes an offer for references from customers in the same neighborhood. A similar approach is taken in response to severe weather.
“Instead of just throwing a broadcast message out, we’re really targeting our message to that neighborhood,” he says. “It personalizes it and breaks down the barriers. We tend to get better-quality leads this way.”
This past year, the company turned that high-tech, data-driven approach inward using the Salesforce customer relationship management software to help with scheduling and marketing costs. The results are impressive.
“We’ve found that [Salesforce] has been the No. 1 thing that has made our business very transparent through each department, and we’re communicating better as an organization,” Butler says. “Now we see what everyone is doing, and we get more enthusiastic about the projects coming in.”
