Don’t Assume You’re Doing it Right—How to Measure if Your Field Service Branding is Working

2018-06-08

How serious are you about staying that one step ahead of your competition? Or—if your business is still new—how committed are you to making it work?
Some may find these questions ludicrous. Of course you want to make a success of it, right? Why else would you start? But despite the desire to succeed, only 20% of new businesses make it long term.
You see, talent, passion and dreams aren’t enough. Only those who seriously consider the requirements of starting a business will look past the pleasure of living your dream, towards the hard facts of what it takes to make it work.
Do you want to be part of the 20% that make it to the end? Then measurement must be a priority in your business plan as much as budgets and resources are.
And it’s no different when you’re running a field service company. When it’s time to measure how your brand is doing, these are the steps you must take.

Do People Refer You?
Do you tell your friends to use sub-par products or services? I didn’t think so. And neither will your customers.
Remember, a brand is not only about the colors your field agents wear. It’s about the values that you want associated with your brand. These could include:

• Quality
• Professionalism
• Timeous service
• Low rates
• Friendly service

You know how difficult it is to find businesses that live up to your expectations. What do people think of you?
These actionable values—showcased in how you deliver service—are what impresses people. And if you impress them enough, they’ll want their friends to enjoy these benefits too.
You can easily gauge your success by asking people how they heard about your brand. If many say it’s via the grapevine, you’re doing something right.

How Busy are Your Online Platforms?
Where do today’s customers spend their time these days? On social media. Perhaps your think no interaction is a good thing. At least no one is complaining about your services.
Unfortunately this is an archaic point of view, because if you’re not spoken TO or ABOUT, it means your brand isn’t really making an impact.

Do You Rank on Search Engines?
Here’s a technique you didn’t have a few years ago but now it’s the #1 way to measure the value of your brand in your local community.
You’ve probably heard about SEO and how you need to optimize your website. Yes it’s important, but nothing beats organic traffic to your site. Google and other search engines will notice that people love visiting your site and they’ll offer it to other online browsers too.
And what makes people visit your website? When your branding works and your local community searches for your information online.
What’s the first thing you do when someone suggests a new service provider to you? The best place to get contact details is on a website. Consumers will do the same with your field service business.
You can see this closely relates to word of mouth. If you see you’re popular online, people are talking about you and that’s what you want after a branding campaign.

What do Your Reviews Say?
Your website should showcase a review section. How often do you read these? Perhaps you ignore them for fear of what people have to say.
Face your fears.
People are brutally honest when they write reviews. Yes there will be insults too, but as much as people love voicing their discontent, they love giving compliments too.
Your reviews are where you find out the good and the bad about your company and whether your branding works:

• Consumers are impressed by visual stimuli. If your field agents’ outfits with your colors or logo on are striking, someone will comment on it. Customers love professionalism and neatness. If no one says anything, it’s time to rethink the design.
• What do customers mention most about your company? If your brand values don’t feature in the reviews, your field workers aren’t performing their jobs in line with the company’s brand and vision.
• Do some people say they’ll recommend you to friends? People are honest in reviews so this is another way of gauging whether you’re turning your clients into brand ambassadors too.

Ready to face the reality of what people think of your brand? When you monitor this over time you can see how aspects of your company improve. And if you see deterioration you’ll be able to act in time before something ruins your brand’s name.
Can you see why measurement is so important in business?

Use Online Tools
So it’s challenging to impress your customers in this modern world where consumers want everything on demand.
But the technology that comes with modern society also benefits businesses:

• Analyze how people reach your website. When they search for you specifically—you can gauge this by looking at which keywords your visitors use when searching—you know your brand is getting noticed. Google Trends and similar tools help you do this.
• With social listening tools—it sounds like spying, but it’s not—show you what people are talking about online. Firstly you’ll see if your name is known. Secondly you can gauge what people think of your brand.

Do a Survey
Of course, if you do still love old school ways of doing business, there’s no reason not to do a public survey. Do one online, or manually in your community or with your customers.
Find out if people notice your brand values and whether your field agents promoting the right aspects of your brand.

Here’s the most important take away from this article: This is not a once off activity. These measuring tactics should be part of your company’s calendar. Only be benchmarking and comparing results over time will you see if your brand is growing or whether it’s in trouble. Being proactive is the difference between your business sinking or thriving.