Your Phones are Costing You Customers

If your phones aren't converting, your marketing spend is going to waste — and you might not even know it.
In this episode, we sit down with Michelle from Pink Callers to tackle one of the most overlooked revenue leaks in home service businesses: call handling. Whether it's missed calls, slow follow-up, or a front office experience that leaves customers unimpressed, your phones could be quietly draining your booked jobs and bottom line every single day.

We break down the real connection between speed to lead, marketing ROI, and what it actually takes to turn a caller into a loyal customer — plus practical steps you can start implementing right now.

If you're running a home service company and ready to stop leaving money on the table, this one's for you.

Ready to tighten up your marketing strategy? Book a call with Lemon Seed Marketing at https://www.lemonseedmarketing.com/contact/
Want expert support on your phones? Connect with Michelle and the team at Pink Callers at https://www.pinkcallers.com/contact-us 

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From the Yellow Chair is powered by Lemon Seed, a marketing strategy and branding company for the trades. Lemon Seed specializes in rebrands, creating unique, comprehensive, organized marketing plans, social media, and graphic design. Learn more at www.LemonSeedMarketing.com

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We'll see you next time, Lemon Heads!

Transcript

Welcome And The CSR Problem

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's up, Lemon Heads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I am Crystal, and today we're getting behind the phones because listen, contractors, the biggest mistake that you are making is not paying attention and investing into those CSRs and how they are impacting your bottom line, your book rate, all the things. So when I knew I wanted to talk about it, I have to go with people that I know in my heart, follow the same philosophy. And honestly, today, if you're not ready for energy and excitement, you're on the wrong podcast. So I had to go with people that I know. So listen, grab a pen and paper, put me on in the background, do your dishes, do your working out, whatever you're gonna do, but let's zip some lemonade. All right, Michelle, Michelle Myers, one of my most favorite people. I also love to listen to how you talk about leadership. Thank you. One of my favorite things. But when I was thinking about CSRs and how I wish my contractors really understood what to do with their CSR team, their call centers, their dispatchers, their whole face behind the phones. You come to mind so many times because I know that we align on how important this position really is. And honestly, and unfortunately, how almost like undervalued it can be. So tell everybody why they should care what you have to say today, who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Oh,

Meet Michelle And Why CSRs Quit

SPEAKER_00 1:45

thank you, Crystal, for that wonderful introduction. First of all, I have to say about leadership, I am a lifelong student. So I don't have it locked and loaded at any stretch of the imagination, but I'm constantly looking at new tools and new strategies. I am a recovering control freak. I think many people know this about me. I have a little bit of a perfectionist bent, and I really work hard on uh not allowing that into my business to impact my people. So, but thank you so much. Uh, why would they care about listening to me? Let's see. I hire remote CSRs for companies just like our listeners all over the country. And what I hear the common refrain is I don't have time to manage them. I don't understand the culture of the call center. It's hard to motivate them when the general public can be difficult. It's even harder to motivate them when the technicians can be difficult, right? And so we put these folks in front of some of the more challenging audiences that we have as business owners, and then we wonder why they leave us for an extra dollar an hour and less calls in the day. So I want to solve this problem for business owners. I have a background in design, and I really think that CSRs are one of the biggest parts of the foundation of your business. And so I really see them as an integral part. And I want to talk about all things CSR today and maybe the crazy general public. We can throw that into.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

And how about wild technicians?

SPEAKER_00 3:16

I think what's oh yes, wild, wild technicians.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

So I love this. I love it. So, you know, truth of the matter is from a branding person and a strategic person, what happens to the customer journey when it hits that CSR is sometimes like so detrimental that it's hard to recover. Yeah, and so making sure that your CSR team really understands the customer journey. Now, somewhere there's contractors that are like, skip this episode, skip because they're like, oh, this is just a bunch of crap, like answer the phone, people don't want to, and it's a lie that we have told ourselves. It is if we do not think that the emotional side of customer service work is not important, and so that the customer journey, yeah, and a lot of business owners start out because they're great on the tools, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

They're fantastic, and then they have a dream to own their own shop, and so they are learning and their brain is wired in a whole different way as the CSR. CSR is more customer care, empathy, listening, and details, whereas a business owner might be more tactile, visual, and in the tools, and you know, on the mechanics of what customer service is, they may see it in a whole different fashion than the call center. And so that disconnect often brings a lot of additional friction that's not necessary. Um, and so I tell business owners all day long, okay, we will manage these team members for you, we will train these team members for you. And should they quit on me, because they do, they do, they quit working at pink collars. I know this is a shock, but it does. If they quit on me, I will replace them at my cost. I have calculated just in my business in 2025, that it is between eight and ten thousand dollar investment to find, hire, train, and seat a CSR. So that's a really big number for a business, especially a small business. So you need to know that when that person does walk out or you don't give them the support or training they need, that's a ten thousand dollar mistake you've just made. And that's a massive one.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

It is so when they don't well it and again, it's it's one of those situations, it's a necessary evil, yeah. But no, and also it's okay to use a third-party lack pink collars when it's just not in your leadership

Outsourcing Call Handling Without Guilt

SPEAKER_01 5:46

quilt. What is it called? Like what is all your arrow? Quiver. Quiver, thank you. It's just not there, and it's not that you can't learn it, but I think some of the smartest things we can do as leaders is go, okay, not my strong point of hiring and training.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

But what are my tools? And I think culturally, business owners in the trades are more than happy to outsource the bookkeeping, the branding, the marketing. These things go out the door all day long. They're they have no problem saying no to that, but somehow they just want to just clutch on white knuckle to the call center, and sometimes just letting it go is the smartest thing you can do, and letting someone else take care of it.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yes, letting someone else take care of it. Sorry I interrupted you, but I'm so I'm so passionate about this because I'm like, hey, so this is this is hysterical to me. Contractors will say, Okay, we just need more leads. And I'm like, okay, so here's what we're gonna do. Let's start with outbound calling from your CSRs. Well, they can't outbound, they're extremely busy. Yeah, so I'm like, okay, no, so which one is it? Is your phone not ringing with leads or are your CSRs busy? When really the clarity, once that clarity layer is applied, yeah, they don't want to ask them to do anything other than answer the phone because they're not trained, they're not equipped. And honestly, it's hard. It's it's hard. And so CSRs are often, they're gonna catch every bad thing that anyone else has done, they're gonna catch the brunt of that. So they have to have thick skin. Your technicians are mad that they went ahead and dispatched them to one more job when y'all know I want to go home early today. Y'all are trying to kill me. It's hot, it's raining, whatever. And that CSR role has to be protected, yeah, the at the same rate. And and at the same time, that protection looks different for different businesses. So, because like you said, some of you as an operator are very attentive to you don't mind making the hard decisions, you can look up and not, you know, you're keeping your head down, but a lot of times can you look up and say, My call center, and listen, you have a call center even if you have one CSR. That's a call center. It is your call center that has that CSR in it, it needs all of the tools to be successful, including oversight. So if you could if you could outsource that program where you're just feeding your customer journey and your brand messaging over to one person who then executes on a different level, that's to me, that's golden, especially if I'm smaller.

The Waiter And Busser Lesson

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Can I go back to something you just said just a second ago about having a thick skin? I was on a sales call this morning and I told the gentleman this and his mind exploded. He just had like a moment. You could see like the sun opened and the clouds cleared. I said to him, CSRs, especially in a small business, often get tasked with doing not only the customer care, but the dispatch. I want you to think about when you go to a restaurant. When you sit down at a restaurant, a waiter comes up, they have a white shirt, they hand you the menu, they get you your bread, your drinks, your they talk to you about the specials. They are detail-oriented, they're they're kind, they're uh understanding of maybe you're there to celebrate something. They are performative in nature and very uh empathetic. That's what a waiter is. And then about halfway through the meal, you'll see somebody kind of flying through the dining room, picking up dirty plates and refilling water and just kind of scurrying around. You may not have interaction with that person, but that person comes back and forth from the kitchen in and out. That's the busboy. Now it takes both of those people to make a good experience, but the busboys back there, knowing that things are getting burned, plates are getting dropped, glasses aren't ready for the bar yet. And the waiter has to be considerate, concerned, and kind and keep it all under the vest in the front of the house. It's very performative, right? And so you do yourself a really big disservice when you make a CSR, a CSR, and a dispatcher. It's like making the waiter bus all the tables and drop off all the food. It's too many tasks and too many jobs for one person. And it's too many different emotional ways you have to be. You can't be super kind and wonderful to your customers when you just got yelled at by dispatch from dispatching a second job, a third job, right? And so it's really hard to know that the barn might be burning down over here with the technicians out on the road. And then you have to pivot and go, absolutely, we can be there today, knowing you just got from one of your guys. So to put them in that position, especially as a small company, is really unfair. What I tell people is if you want to bring in a service like ours, if you have somebody that's really good in dispatch and on the phones, make them fully dispatched. They know your guys, they know your service area, they know your business. Let us handle all the volume of calls so they can focus on diligently building that board every day for a profit. And that's really where a company like ours can come in.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

I love that. I love it because it is protection, it's peace of mind. And like, I don't know about you guys, but like peace of mind is expensive. Right. It costs you more than dollars, you know. Well, let's jump into a couple of these specific

Speed To Lead Data That Hurts

SPEAKER_01 11:08

questions. So let's talk about the connection between speed to lead and actual booked jobs. So again, right now I'll have clients that say things like, Well, my PPC and all none of it works. So then I'll, you know, at Lemon Seed, we dig in and we're like, Well, it actually is working and generating leads. You're not answering the phone, yeah. Yeah, and they're like, Well, my girls have to take breaks, and and I'm like, there's just it's a mindset, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yes, it is. So I think the data is probably the best part to talk about this with. So if you miss an inbound, well, okay, let's talk about booking rate. So, general booking rate in the industries that we serve, plumbing HVAC electrical across the three industries is between 35 and 45 percent. That is a general standard booking rate for those industries. When you miss that call, that 45% booking rate drops in half. So if you call them back in a minute, you can get about 40% of those people back on the schedule. If you wait for five minutes, it goes again down by half. So the minutes matter here, people. And that's the scariest part of this. It's under five, under one minute is half, under five minutes is 25%. If you call that customer back the next business day because your people are too busy, two to four percent of them will pick up the phone and get on the schedule. The numbers literally die right on the vine. So answering it the first time gives you a double the double chance of putting them on your board. Um, it doubles the success rate. So getting that person that very first time is critical. Um, and and that's where a company like ours can come in. Um, I think one of the other things that customer that um business owners sometimes overlook is that if they have some of these tracking lines or some of these other um lines that they've gotten from vendors, maybe Google My Business or any of those, you can actually mess up those really quickly by not answering them at first when you're first early into the relationship with that vendor. Um, if you're not answering, the algorithm will chew you up and spit you out, and your phones will stop ringing because the algorithm will say, man, this company doesn't really answer the calls we're sending them anyway, and we don't want to look like ding dong, so we have to cut them down. Um, and so that's really important. And then forwarding how you forward those calls is also very important. It's like a lily pad. You know, if you forward it to one phone number, like your main line, and then now your main line goes to the girl's cell phone because she works from home remotely. If it double dips across to two forwards, oftentimes that phone call will get lost in translation and it'll only ring one time. So these are all little things that you have to really understand about the telephonics of the leads coming in and how you're receiving them. And there's some mechanics in there you got to really be careful of.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, yes. You know, and I think there is power in educating the why things are happening. Yeah. So I remember when I was working at McWilliams, you know, we would I always try to make our team understand this is where we're doing things, they don't have to understand necessarily your strategic why, why you're choosing to do Yelp or whatever, or why you're doing a postcard, why you're doing anything that you're doing. But when they can understand, like this is where the leads are and this is where they're coming from, and this is how you execute on them, it helps them understand the importance of being quick and getting it booked and doing it all on plan and doing it, you know, doing it in a way that is reflective

First Impressions And Empathy Skills

SPEAKER_01 15:00

of the brand for sure. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, what do you think? Um, and I know we mentioned this, you know, I'm a big brand person, journey, customer journey person. So why do you think that first impression matters more than ever for CSRs?

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Well, I think we're in a noisy world. All of us get multiple spam calls on our cell phones every day. We get multiple notifications. My Slack just notified while I'm on here with you. I feel terrible. I didn't turn it off. So we're constantly getting bombarded as consumers, right? And so when we stop all of the noise and we pick up the phone and contact a vendor, and I'm doing it right now this week with a plumber. So I am sitting in the customer seat right now. When I contact my plumber, it's because I have made space in my brain from all of the chaos, the Costco list, the kids' pickups, the stuff, the graduation, all the things. And I'm focused now on getting this piece of work done and checked off my emotional list, right? My long list of stuff. And if he or she doesn't pick up the phone and doesn't have an alternate way quickly for me to reach out to them, you know, in less than a minute, text message or a form on the website, I lose track of that piece of work, unless it's an emergency, of course. And then I go on about my other things. And so when I do make space in my world to pick up, to pick up the phone and call a company, it's so wonderful to have clarity of voice, to have cheerful nature and just sort of a welcoming, like, hey, how's it going today? Thanks so much for calling. Because I have so much pressure and load in my own life. I'm trying to just get something accomplished. And so when we think about that as a CSR, that we're there to just solve a problem and get a technician to a door, that's really the only thing we have to consider. Are we solving the problem for the customer? Are we getting the technician to the door? Those are the two parts. Um, and how we do it in between is incredibly important, software, tools, and all the other stuff. But if we keep focused on those two things, solve problem, get technician to door, we can win. Um, because it really does just come down to those two things. And a little bit of psychology goes a long way. And we we have to be good as CSRs to pivot, to match people's tone, to match people's speed of talking, to understand that they're not frustrated with us, they're not mad at us, they're not mad at the company, they're just kind of cranky or they've had a bad day, or someone cut them off in traffic. We don't know. Um, but if we can continuously just say, absolutely, I get it, we're gonna solve that problem and we're gonna get that technician to you. That's all that a consumer wants to hear. Well, they need empathy, 100%, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:54

They need empathy, they need to understand that we're here for them, we're gonna solve their issues, and like that is that is the one of the quickest ways to gain their trust is to be like, I am so sorry that's going on. Um, and you know, when you have to tell, I mean, think about their customer facing, so they're the ones that have to deal with, oh, it's uh it's my dad, you know, he's on hospice and my ear won't work, and you're sitting there like I have no one to send.

unknown 18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

So they're like, you know, those are things that it sounds corny, but like they they go through all of those emotions. And so what we have to do is I think making empathy and that vein of talking that has to be in your training guide. That has you have to show that that's a priority for you as a company, um, for sure, to be able to just get enough in front of that CSR where they really understand it.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

And as important as training is, the only way it works is if you have time to verify it, right? I mean, and there's lots of great vendors out there that'll help you with that verification, whether it's an AI product

Coaching Loops That Prevent Burnout

SPEAKER_00 19:05

or humans will listen to the calls and score them and rank them. The only way your team gets better is by that feedback loop. So you've got to have somebody that's gonna build that into your solution. Um because that's how burnout occurs, and that's how that CSR walks out the door one day and takes another job for a dollar more an hour because they didn't get that consistent feedback. So they knew they were on the right track and all they interfaced with was the general public, and that's just only one sided, you know. If you I've been in seasons in my business where I haven't been able to be a good leader, right? Back to your very first comment. And I think all of us as business owners need to say, okay, it's time to actually find somebody that can solve this because I just don't have the capacity, and that's okay to say that, right? I don't have the capacity, and and I think that's the hard part about being in business is that you try to do all things for all people, and sometimes there's just stuff where you got to just raise the right flag, wait to raise the white flag and and call out to somebody that can help you. And there's some really great people out there doing call scoring and call management training and and all of that for your CSRs that can come to you or can can help you remotely. So there's lots of good tools out there.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, that's that's very, very, very true. Well, earlier when we were kind of prepping on this call, you had mentioned that

Outbound Campaigns Need A Strategy

SPEAKER_01 20:24

you had some really good data to talk through um with us. So, what was some of that data that you're excited to share?

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Well, I think probably just that speed delete. I mean, I think that it was interesting because you said one of your clients wanted outbounds to be done. They were like, nothing's happening in the inbounds, we got to do outbounds. And then you're like, okay, let's do outbounds. And then they're like, Yeah, our people are too busy. Um, we get calls for outbounds a lot, and there are lots of great vendors out there for doing outbounds. We can do them in a very specific way. Um, and I think this is very important because if you take the time to go out and see work and you don't win that work, maybe something happens on the job site, it just doesn't work out. And you need to go back and revisit those folks. There's a really big strategy out there that a lot of people are missing, and it's about putting calls and texts and emails all together in a campaign. I know we both work on Service Titan, Crystal. So if you work on Service Titan, there's some incredible campaigns that you can build around this. But what I'm finding is that if people will call me and say, hey, Michelle, I need outbounds done. I've got 2,000 people on a list or 10,000 or whatever, we'll be happy to take the work, but I won't take it unless there's a strategy behind it because outbounding alone, less than 10%. And that's with an entire strategy around it. So when you look at what happens when you miss a call versus what how how much it costs you to actually outbound that call that may not have closed or the one that you missed, the data. Tells us it's just so hard to recapture that customer, no matter how close you think they are. Um, whether it's a missed call or a unclosed work, it's really hard to get them back in the game. And so I tell customers all the time, just be super mindful that that very first interaction is really the best shot you have. And in a lot of cases, it's the only shot you have because they will just continue dialing until they get somebody.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

So I mean, yes, and I I I appreciate that. That's it's such a different vantage point that I think contractors don't they don't look at it right. Yeah, they just they fail to see those points. So, okay, let's let's do a little rapid fire last little question here.

Metrics That Keep You Profitable

SPEAKER_01 22:52

I'm curious of what metrics do you want, do you think a contractor should measure when it comes to their call center? Like just give me the top two, three, four that you like to use. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Obviously, close rate is very important, but that comes with an understanding of what is a lead versus what is not a lead. Um, and so it's very important that your team understand that a lead is a new customer that is coming into your business for new work, right? And that should be classified correctly, whether you're using Service Titan or another platform, your team needs to understand what a lead is because a lead to a business owner is that's somebody that's new that I'm paying for. That's somebody that I'm marketing to, that's somebody that I'm branding for, that's somebody that I'm doing outreach or going to trade shows. This is somebody that doesn't know about me yet, but I'm gonna go out there and capture capture their attention. And so having your team understand what a lead is versus what an existing customer is, massively important. And then what your average ticket is. You need to understand how you're measuring up to your competitors out there. Um, and you need to understand how to stay on top of your pricing and increase your pricing as as needed. I think that's also sometimes really hard for people that have started their own business. They're like, oh, well, we've always done it this way, and this is the way we do it, and we know our people, our community, you know, right? Yes. And so I think taking advice from others and understanding what your average ticket is in comparison to the people in your service area, and then listening to people like you guys, Crystal, um, to make those hard decisions and increase your pricing is such a smart and important thing. So um, close rate, classifying calls correctly, and then um understanding your average ticket. I think those are the three that will really keep you uh off of the ledge and on the beach of your business, you know, which is where we all want to be. And I think that those are the important ones for me.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

I love that. I love it, and I agree with it wholeheartedly. Like those are great options of what people can do. So here's how I want to end

Protect CSRs And Plug Profit Leaks

SPEAKER_01 25:09

today's call. I want to end by saying CSRs are important and more important than you probably think they are, contractor. Like they are your first line of defense, they are a product of their environment when it's a supportive and encouraged environment. Protect them from as much as you can and give them a stable workplace, but also have clear expectations, invest in coaching, invest in understanding how your call team, your call center is impacting your profit leakage, your call booking rates, you know, what it empathize, but also encourage and give expectations to those, to your CSRs, because I think it's a power move. Um, it is when you invest in that position, you don't realize what you're missing until you really plug in. So, Michelle, if someone wants to reach out to you about working with pink collars or anything like that, what's the best way to get in contact with you?

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Absolutely. They can go to our website. It is new and improved and AI searchable, thanks to our friends at uh CI web group. They did some really cool stuff to my website, made it wild. Um, so I am in love with that. You can reach me at Michelle. I will give you my personal email, Michelle at Pink Collars, pink like the color, and then callers, C-A-L-L-E-R-S.com. Um, and just check out any of our socials. We are thrilled to be a part of this group and and a part of these trades industries. I just think it's been so fun. Um, we moved from sort of green industry trades over to the skilled trades, and it's been a lot of fun this last five years. So we're happy to be.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Well, y'all, y'all do amazing things, highly recommend. We um always have when we refer over, people are always happy with pink colors. So, Michelle, thank you so much for joining me today. So, and and people that are listening, thank you so much for listening to another episode of From the Yellow Chair.

How To Reach Pink Collars

SPEAKER_01 27:06

If you love what you've heard, please share this episode with a friend who may be struggling with their CSRs. Go like us on all of our social media channels. And last but not least, leave us a review when you can. So, thank you so much. We will catch you next time.