CalBear Construction Inc, founded in 2004, operates across the State of California offering kitchen and bath renovations featuring quality products, outstanding customer service and professional installation.
Appointment-setting is a numbers game. By adding texts to our calls, we’re getting more appointments and a stronger sales pipeline. I love that the automation of outgoing texts means there’s one less thing I need to think about!
calbearconstruction.com
CalBear Construction Inc, founded in 2004, operates across the State of California offering kitchen and bath renovations featuring quality products, outstanding customer service and professional installation.
Danielle Bourgeois manages the call center for CalBear Construction Inc. a full-service renovation firm operating across California. She and a colleague traffic all state-wide leads sourced from Modernize Home Services, other lead generators, and print ads.
They realized telephone-based handling of leads was constraining them, so they researched options for automated texting. In late summer 2022, they selected Connect from Modernize as their text messaging platform.
Danielle explained, “We wanted to be able to respond to leads quickly through texts. A lot of people don’t want a phone call, they just want to text. We occasionally did this through our office cell phone, but it was too slow.”
Danielle adapted quickly to the initial trial thanks to the ease of changing copy within Connect. With slight adjustments to the verbiage, CalBear quickly saw positive results. The key was using messages that evoked a response from the homeowner. Engagement rates more than doubled, from 15% to 32%, as a result of adjusting the workflow to begin interactions with questions that elicit an answer.
“We learned the power of conversations, with text openings like ’how can we help with your project?’ Conversational texts work much better than those that seem robotic, are too aggressive, or come across like a hard sell. And the engagement isn’t always a ’yes.’ Some prospects respond to let us know they’re not interested. That helps us promptly take them off our list and stop wasting their time and ours.”
The texting capability created an even further improvement on what was already strong speed to lead.
“I typically spend a moment checking a lead for reasonableness, then send leads to our call center team within a minute…never more than five minutes. Now, when we receive Modernize leads, the prospect is issued a text from us instantaneously.
CalBear has found that automated texting has helped them get a lot more responses, more quickly. Plus, the platform has helped them be more persistent with their leads, often times pursuing leads for several days. In the first few months, they had more than 100 appointments set through Connect, many of which would not have converted otherwise.
The Connect product and the people behind it have been a game-changer and have spurred CalBear to boost their lead-gen budget.
“In addition to the technology, the support from Modernize is first class. Other providers can take days responding to my inquiries. With Modernize I have the cell phone of my account manager, and they are always quickly on the spot to help make things work better.”
In addition to the technology, the support from Modernize is first class. Other providers can take days responding to my inquiries. With Modernize I have the cell phone of my account manager, and they are always quickly on the spot to help make things work better.
