Have you noticed that young people avoid talking on the phone? Back in the days of the land line you had no choice but to speak to someone on the phone but all that has changed now and young people are starting to avoid making calls wherever possible.
What does this mean for your business? It means that the regular flow of phone calls from new customers wanting work done might gradually dry up as the older generation is replaced by one who prefer not to make calls. It means that you’ll need to adapt your website and other marketing materials to appeal to this new generation in order to keep the work rolling in.
It’s kind of ironic that so many of these younger people spend all day with their phone in their hand but don’t want to hear it ring. It seems that phones have evolved so much since the days of my Nokia 5110 that making calls is no longer their main purpose. Who’d have thought it?
You may not realise this but being a professional tradesman means that you likely get to practice speaking to new people all the time. Each job, each customer, and each enquiry brings with it new faces and new opportunities to get good at speaking to people, but people in other lines of work might not have such skills.
This situation will likely get worse as there are more and more ways to avoid speaking to real people these days. Doing your weekly shop? Use the self service checkout and avoid talking to anyone. Fancy a curry? Use an app and the only human contact will be a quick “thanks” when a bloke on a bike knocks on your door holding a Madras and garlic naan. It’s too easy to avoid talking to people these days so the millennials never get the chance to get good at it.
Writing an email is much less stressful for a millennial because they get to read and write the message in their own time instead of having to figure out all the details on the fly as it happens during a conversation. This wouldn’t be a problem for someone who knows exactly what work they want done but it might not be easy for a newbie such as a first time home owner.
Pushy sales people are another point of stress for millennials who don’t like picking up the phone, and these can be easily avoided by sending a message instead.
When the phone rings you have to stop what you’re doing and answer it, but when a message comes in you get to read it when you want and act on it when you want. Having been bought up in a world of texts, email, and chats instead of phone calls means that millennials often feel uneasy about unplanned interruptions such as the phone ringing and prefer to receive messages because they get to call the shots.
It’s worth providing for millennials (and anyone who doesn’t like speaking on the phone) when designing your building company website and you don’t have to move mountains to make a significant difference. Here are some tips you can use which should help you build a website that lands plenty of new leads for you, even if they don’t like picking up the phone.
For a millennial who doesn’t like talking on the phone, just calling a phone number and winging the rest of the conversation can be a bit stressful, so consider telling them what to expect when they call. Include the name of who they will speak to, what things will be discussed during the first call, and what the likely outcome or next steps will be.
Even if you have a business landline or 0800 number for your company, you might also like to offer a mobile number just so that millennials can text or whatsapp you their questions instead of making a call. Also consider mentioning on your contact page that people are free to text if they want.
Millennials who don’t like talking on the phone love online chat because it’s easy to do and feels very familiar. In case you didn’t know, all HardHat websites come with an online chat feature built in which you can use to get new building project leads without them needing to pick up the phone.
A common technique with contact forms is to force the visitor to enter their phone number before they get in touch with you but this might not be the best strategy when dealing with phone phobic millennials who prefer using email. You may find you get more enquiries if you make the phone number optional, and remember you can always ask for their number when you reply if you want.
Adding a simple question to your contact form of “how should we contact you?” and giving them some simple options such as “phone, whatsapp, email” will take seconds to be filled in and could make the difference between someone deciding to get a quote or not.
If you’ve been emailing or texting your client about a job and need to speak to them on the phone then try warning them first. A quick message to say “I’ll call you in 20-30 minutes” can be all it takes to avoid freaking them out.