Stand Out From the Crowd by Transforming Your Customer Experience
What’s the secret to standing out from the competition? Our partners at SumoQuote may just have the answer hiding in your customer experience. We sat down with their CEO, Ryan Shantz, to explore how their quoting tool can integrate with your tech stack to help you close more deals and create an exceptional experience for your customers.
Ingage: Let’s kick us off by giving folks some background on yourself and SumoQuote and how you work in the Home Improvement industry.
Ryan Shantz: SumoQuote is one of the top quoting tools on the market for home improvement professionals and was born from our own experience in the roofing industry. Going back about 20 years, I started installing roofs then found myself working on the sales team at that roofing company and eventually, opening my own roofing business. Over the next few years, I went to school for my MBA and entered the textile industry. But it wasn’t long until I was back in the home improvement space, this time with a wealth of knowledge on customer experience and technology, which I brought to SumoQuote.
Our platform enables contractors and their sales people to build winning quotes in minutes that can accelerate business growth. It allows them to generate detailed, visually appealing, quotes and contracts that help businesses stand out from their competition. You can easily add inspection photos, upgrade options and even insurance information all in one place. Our customization abilities are key to tipping the scales in your business’ favor by making it easier for not only the homeowner to understand their quote, but simpler for the salesperson to do their job.
Ingage: Talk us through how contractors get started with SumoQuote and what kind of results they can expect from working with you.
Ryan: We aim to make the onboarding process as simple as possible by working closely with each business to upload their content and customize it to fit their needs. Whether that’s adding multiple types of financing options, insurance quotes or selling good-better-best, the SumoQuote platform is built to adapt. Once everything is set up, it takes an average of 4 minutes to build the quote in the home and customize it to that homeowner, which completely transforms the sales process.
When we look at the numbers, I can share that with my own roofing company, retail contracts had a 66% increase in close rates which equates to millions of dollars in more retail work for the business. For our standard contractors, we’re seeing an average of $2,078 in additional revenue per project. This is a direct result of having upgrades built into the SumoQuote tool which creates a natural path to adding revenue with every customer.
Ingage: Can you give us more detail on how SumoQuote helps contractors stand out from the competition?
Ryan: When we think about the standard home improvement salesperson going into a home, we’re usually met with the visual of someone in a branded golf shirt, driving a nice truck and giving the same spiel as the person before them. Unfortunately, competing on price or product just isn’t enough anymore to stand out from everyone else. But where you can diversify is with your quoting tool.
Most salespeople are going into the home ready to drop numbers into an excel sheet and walk away, but that doesn’t work for today’s customers. They need to be able to visualize their purchase to help them understand cost and tie value to each project. The visual components of SumoQuote gives every contractor the opportunity to provide this new standard of excellence to homeowners that they won’t see from anyone else. Plus, because people process images far better than words - or excel sheets - they’re more likely to accept upgrades or package options which boosts your bottom line.
Ingage: We love the visual aspect of SumoQuote, is that why you wanted to partner with Ingage?
Ryan: Ingage’s visual component absolutely made our partnership a no-brainer. Ingage helps customers visually understand their options and then SumoQuote comes in to help them customize. It makes for a really seamless experience using powerful tools that tell your company story and customize each customer journey.
Ingage: What should sales leaders know about adding new tools like SumoQuote to their tech stack?
Ryan: Anytime you’re looking at a new technology for your business, you need to consider the ROI. With SumoQuote, it’s easy to see because we instantly bring a lift to sales. Outside of ROI, you also want to consider tools that integrate with each other so that you can scale as your business grows. For example, we integrate with Ingage, Job Nimbus, Leap, Company Cam and more so that leaders can easily structure their tech stack in a way that makes their lives easier.
Ingage: Looking ahead, what’s something leaders should be focusing on in the industry?
Ryan: From what I’ve seen, the best thing to focus on right now is your customer experience. For years, leaders of Fortune100 companies have been saying their number one focus is the customer experience and it shows in how they’ve been able to grow. When it comes to contractors and the home improvement industry, the focus hasn’t really been there which means now is the perfect time to start creating a higher-quality experience for customers that can truly set you apart from the competition. That’s why tools like SumoQuote and Ingage are vital to your business because together, we transform that customer experience and make it easier for you to close deals while making customers happy.
About SumoQuote
SumoQuote is a sales software that enables contractors to build winning quotes in minutes that accelerate business growth. It’s designed, developed and supported in Canada. SumoQuote customers have the ability to build stunning quotes with robust brand and customization features. They are built lightning fast with a process that’s simple and repetitive — and once a process is built it can be standardized across entire sales teams.
Solar — coming soon to SumoQuote’s offerings, is the only sales tool on the market designed to quote roofing and solar in one place. Solar, an add-on to any SumoQuote Subscription, enables users to offer solar on every job, include any solar design from a design tool of their choice and show their customer’s the full pay-off of solar. Book a SumoQuote demo or start a free trial today!