How do restoration companies get referrals from insurance agents and plumbers?
Plumbers and insurance agents are often the first call after damage, so restoration companies get referrals by being easy to trust and easy to reach. A partner who gives out your name is lending you a little of their own reputation. They keep doing it when the people they send are answered quickly and treated well, and when they hear back that the job went the way you said it would.
Why are plumbers and insurance agents often the first call after water damage?
When a pipe bursts, the homeowner's first call is usually to get the water stopped, and that means a plumber. The plumber fixes the pipe, looks at the wet floor and the stained ceiling, and the homeowner asks the question that sends work your way: who should I call about all this?
Many homeowners also call their insurance agent early, because the agent is the person they already know at their insurance company. Whatever the agent tells them about their policy is between the two of them. The part that matters to a restoration company is that agents get asked the same question plumbers do, and the name they give is the company they trust to show up and treat their client well.
What does a referral partner need from a restoration company?
A plumber or an agent who gives out your name wants the call to go well, because a bad experience comes back to them. When a homeowner calls you at night on a plumber's recommendation and gets voicemail, the plumber hears about it the next time they see that customer. When the homeowner gets a person, a clear next step, and a crew that arrives when promised, the plumber hears that too.
So the first thing a partner needs is for you to be easy to reach, at any hour, every time. The second is for you to do what you said you would, so their client comes back to them happy. A restoration company that is great at the work and hard to reach will lose referrals to one that answers the phone, and the article on how fast a water damage company needs to answer goes into that side of it.
Why should a referral partner hear back after the job?
Three weeks ago a plumber passed your name to a homeowner, and he has not heard another word about it since. He does not know whether you answered, whether the job went well, or whether the homeowner ended up calling someone else. The next time a customer asks him who to call, he may give your name again, or he may give the name of the company that sent him a thank you last month.
A short thank you when a referral turns into a job tells the partner that you noticed, and a note that their client was taken care of tells them their reputation was safe with you. Neither needs to be long or formal, but it needs to happen every time, or the referral gets lost in your busy week and the partner is left wondering.
How does a restoration company stay in touch with referral partners between jobs?
Referral partners belong on a list of their own, kept the same way you keep a list of past customers, with each partner's name, their business, and the jobs they have sent you. That list lets you see who sends work and who has gone quiet, and it makes sure a partner hears from you a few times a year even when no job is in progress.
This is the same idea behind staying in touch with past customers, who also send restoration work to neighbors and family after a job goes well. The article on how to ask happy customers for referrals covers the customer side, and the repeat business page shows how referrals fit with reviews and reminders.
What a fix looks like
In a restoration company that has fixed this, the owner can open his partner list on a Friday and see which plumbers and agents have sent jobs this season and which have gone quiet. The plumber who sent Tuesday night's burst pipe hears from the owner within the week that the family was taken care of and the drying is on schedule. The agent who has not sent anything since spring gets a call before the relationship fades, and the next time one of her clients asks who to call, she has a recent reason to give your name.
The Home Service Guild Marketing Operations System sends an alert the moment a new call comes in, so a homeowner sent by a partner gets a quick reply, while the thank you to the partner stays a personal call or note from you.
Questions owners also ask
How does a restoration company get its first referral from a plumber?
Often it starts with one job that went well. When a plumber's customer tells them the restoration company answered at night and did what it said, that plumber now has a name to give the next time someone asks.
Should I keep track of which partner sent each job?
Yes. Without it you cannot thank the right person, and you cannot tell which relationships are sending you work and which have faded. Asking every new customer how they heard about you, and writing the answer down, is where that starts.
What should I do if a referred customer had a bad experience?
Call the partner yourself before they hear it from their client. Tell them what happened and what you are doing to make it right. A partner who hears it from you first is far more likely to keep sending work than one who is caught off guard.
