Category: COVID-19

This is a very competitive time in business. There are few things more frustrating than losing customers to the competition. Your sales staff works hard to educate, quote accordingly, and book the job. Worse, is when the competitor swoops in and poaches the job.

Here are 5 tips to guarantee the customer you closed is yours to keep:

1. Leave a Lasting Impression
   Everyone likes to feel like they are important. Be authentic and demonstrate to the customer that you care, deeply, about their business and getting the job done right.
   
2. Create Value – Don’t Rely on Price Alone
   Unless you quote a job that is abnormally high or low, a customer will not be able to differentiate between you and your competitors. Great salespeople make a habit of building relationships, even on small jobs. They listen to the problem and provide custom solutions.
   
3. Guarantee your Work
   Safeguarding corporate and personal records is important to everyone who is hiring a shredding or RIM company. If you include a guarantee of your work, it helps to alleviate fear.
   
4. Provide Customers with a Custom Code after Booking
   Because of COVID-19, most sales are now done over the internet and telephone. In our industry, where many companies share similar names, customers have not written down the company who they booked their business with.
   
   Some savvy salespeople are giving customers a code after booking. Only this specific code will be your company reaching out to them to make changes to the schedule or pricing.
   
5. Provide Social Proof
   It’s okay to brag a little. Let your customers know that many companies in your area choose to do business with you. Providing testimonials puts everyone at ease.

Covid 19 sent office workers home by the millions to “office remotely” as they escaped the perils of the pandemic. The longer people work from home, the more certain that fewer and fewer will ever return to a normal office setting.   In fact, some early-adaptor companies are already giving up the idea of operating out of offices completely.  For example, Seattle-based REI is selling its brand new headquarter offices even before occupying them.  Most companies are planning on at least a part of their workforce never returning to the office and some returning, but only on a part-time basis.

Companies in finance, education, and health – to name a few categories are only now beginning to deal with what “remote officing” means for their compliance responsibilities under FSMA (Gramm-Leach-Bliley), FACTA, HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, etc.   None of these laws are suspended, while violating privacy rights, exposing confidential information to competitors, and data breaches are becoming exponentially more expensive. Plus stiff fines add additional risk.

Pre-Covid estimates of 5 to 6 million office buildings exist across the United States. Sixty to 70 million people are in the professional workforce.  It’s anybody’s guess how explosive the number of post-Covid locations will become that require shredding service but just 500 percent growth would be 25 million new locations.  Understandably life-threatening issues take precedence in the short run, but very soon people will begin dealing with the security implications of this massive shift.  “The shredding industry will reap a windfall…but only for those companies that are willing to change their strategic game plan.”

The early winds are already beginning to be felt. For several months now Shred Nations has referred vastly increasing numbers of residential customers to its partners.  Far more growth is expected due to the projected increase in the number of remote offices and their need for compliance and improved risk management.  Shred Nations also has noticed a diminished number of large purges.  We think this is also a part of the changing landscape the shredding industry must learn to accommodate.

Shred Nations’ shredding partners can expect:

• Receiving higher and higher volumes of residential shredding opportunities.
• Less price sensitivity since people are more willing to spend their company’s money than their own.
• Fewer large purge.
• Opportunities to convert single shredding transactions into company-wide programs.

It is hard to believe that industry giants will ignore this massive industry opportunity, but they would need to change their minimum charges that are rumored to be as high as $250. Certainly, it’s an ideal opportunity for independent shredding companies and the Shred Nations partner network which can react quickly and is known to be highly responsive to customer needs.  

Want to learn more about pre-sold customers or residential customers, please call Kelly Kobilan at (303) 962-5576