Virtual Selling and Digital Transformation in the Professional Home Improvement Sales Channel

How Digital Transformation can help you sell large-ticket home improvement jobs with little or no in-home access to homeowners

By David Pfeiffer and Ron Grancorvitz, Trifecta Group LLC.

Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation is already transforming the Professional Home Improvement marketplace for dealers, installers and manufacturers. The options to shop for local newspaper links here and improve the visibility complement it. By Digital Transformation, we mean that digital touchpoints (via Internet search, website and chat) are replacing interpersonal touch points such as phone calls and sales visits.

Home Improvement products sold for under $3000 have embraced digital touchpoints (e.g., ecommerce websites), while professionally installed home-improvement products that sell for over $10K or more have been experimenting with digital touchpoints (e.g., online kitchen visualizers). We also advise those who are new to real estate to take a look at these Turnkey rental properties from High Return Real Estate.

The professionally installed home-improvement products such as window replacement, doors, roofing (find this service here), siding, rain gutters replacement, bathrooms and kitchen remodeling have been moving in this direction for several years now with in-home presentation apps and other sales productivity enhancements. This article will discuss how the COVID-19 shut down has further accelerated this digital transformation of these sales processes and automation tools.

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The Good News

From “The Impacts of COVID-19 on DIYer and Pro Behavior” by the Home Improvement Research Institute

The stay-at-home orders have sharpened the focus on home improvement projects. People have been spending huge amounts of the time at home which would naturally provide them time to consider upgrading their living spaces.

According to the article “The Impacts of COVID-19 on DIYer and Pro Behavior” by the Home Improvement Research Institute, even professionally-installed product demand increased during the COVID-19 shutdown as illustrated below.

This represents real opportunities for DIY stores and home-improvement dealers, installers and manufacturers as America reopens.

The Challenge

The challenge for professional installers and dealers is the COVID-19 lockdown has halted in-home selling activities. While online selling is booming, many high-end projects were put on hold and sales companies stopped selling and install activities as illustrated to the right.

From “The Impacts of COVID-19 on DIYer and Pro Behavior” by the Home Improvement Research Institute

From “The Impacts of COVID-19 on DIYer and Pro Behavior” by the Home Improvement Research Institute

From the article “How to sell home improvement products online”, large ticket, installable home-improvement products like windows, doors, roofing, bathrooms and kitchens are not candidates for pure online selling.

While some might suggest that higher-end home improvement sellers should accelerate their online selling. A survey commissioned by the Home Improvement Research Institute asked buyers what types of products they are most-likely and least-likely to buy online.

The Opportunity

We believe that a significant opportunity exists for companies that use the reopening as an opportunity to pivot past other competitors via digital transformation. This is done by reimagining the sales process with new, well designed digital touch points.

Pre-COVID-19 Selling Process
The Pre-COVID selling process and using the seo services from https://web20ranker.com/private-network-links can be used for many physical touchpoints in their marketing and sales. This was a sound consideration given that many in the Boomer generation preferred a high-touch approach to the buying of large-ticket products. The younger generation do not have this preference as illustrated by the success of Carvana and Tesla digitally-driven buying processes.

As illustrated below, the typical selling process for professionally installed home improvement products is to seek out leads at home shows and call to set up in-home appointments to visit the home.

During a sales call, the salesperson would take rough measurements, show a presentation, configure the products, calculate pricing and sign contracts. This process would sometimes require multiple visits to the home. Once the contracts are signed, a measure tech might be sent to the home to confirm the measurements taken and then the product install would be scheduled and executed.

Post COVID-19 Selling Process for Professional Installers

While some dealers and installers have been experimenting with digitally driven systems, the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 shutdown has made digital touchpoints even more important.

Given the COVID-19 requirements for social distancing and quarantines, people will prefer digital touchpoints over physical ones wherever possible. While selling through digital touchpoints makes it more difficult to apply compliance techniques, the younger generation strongly dislikes these techniques anyway. They prefer self-service configurators and AR apps to help understand the value of home-improvement products. In other words, they want to sell themselves, so why not help them do this?

Illustrated below is a digitally driven sales process:

Note the main differences are the addition of an online configurator tool to help them visualize the effect the home improvement product would have on their home. Also, the Sales visit has been set up as a virtual meeting to minimize physical contact.

Change Components of Digital Transformation

Companies dedicated to digital transformation are focused on digital touch points that emphasize self-serve interactions that educate the customer and make it easier for the sales closing process. This can be achieved by enhancing digital assets in every department, specifically:

Marketing – a shift toward digital marketing to bring qualified leads to the various digital and sales touchpoints.
Website/App Experience – providing self guided experiences to educate and persuade prospects to move to the next touch point.
Pre-sales – supporting online communications channels (chat, downloads, etc.) for questions and setting up appointments
Sales – engaging prospects virtually or in-home to configure their projects. Sales incentive programs and apps.
Post Sale – coordination of measure and install activities
Post Install – make sure customer is satisfied and willing to tell others about their positive experience
Chief Marketing Officer – measure all touch points in the marketing and sales process. Monitor metrics that validate that the transformation is intentional and progressing.

This has the effect of changing the overall sales funnel as illustrated below:

Trend: Marketing transformation to support move toward customer self-serve discovery and solutions.

As illustrated above, digital transformation is a complex and collaborative process requiring coordination at many levels in the company. You will need to have advisors with experience with this process to create the company-wide engagement required to be successful. That is where Trifecta Group comes in.

The Trifecta Group Difference

There are many pieces to a virtual sales process for professionally installed home-improvement products. This set includes a series of automation apps outlined in the diagram below.

Sales Automation Products for Dealers, Installers, and Manufacturers

The Home-Improvement app portfolio page outlines the app built for replacement windows, siding, doors, and gutters company. The app supports all the In-home Sales Visit features.

Benefits of a more Digital Touchpoint Solution

Listed below are some benefits of the products and services of a digital-centric solution.

Stage	Service / Products
Digital Marketing	SEO, PPC, Ads with CRM integrations. Websites and Mobile Apps, Graphic Design
Online Configurator	Visualizer, presentations and Call-to-Action (Apps and Websites)
Virtual Appointment	CRM integrations
Virtual / Physical Sales Visit	Sales apps / websites with support for Presentations Product Configuration Pricing calculations, discount and framing Digital Contracts Integration with CRM . ERPs for paperless systems
Measure	After Sale Communication app / Measure app
Install	Contract sign-off

Assisting You with your Digital Transformation

If you are just getting started or wish to make your digital transformation intentional, the following steps are recommended to create a roadmap for your Digital Transformation process.

Our Digital Transformation Engagement Approach.

For those that are interested in our Digital transformation Process, here are the general steps.

Discovery of your current business process
Proposed digital transformation goals
Implementation approach proposal
Project plan proposal
Implementation
Support

Ready for Digital Transformation?

In this article, we discussed how the COVID-19 shut down has accelerated the need for digital transformation via updated sales processes and automation tools.

Digital Transformation is bearing down on the professional home-improvement products industry, replacing physical touchpoints such as phone calls and sales visits digital touchpoints via an Internet search, website, and chat app communications.

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Email me at: david@davidmpfeiffer.com