I’ve known Tom for a number of years and I’ve had him and the team complete work at my place. To say that Water Tight Canberra is not like most plumbers, or tradesman for that matter, is an understatement.
It doesn’t matter what industry it is, I see many examples of business spruiking certain things that they think the consumer wants to hear and which they think differentiates them. Things like passion, dedication, experts, focus on customer service, reliable, etc.
It’s weird because, as consumers, these days, they are not really differentiators, they are just what we expect a business to provide us. It’s a minimum.
There’s a lot of businesses talking the talk but not walking the walk.
That’s not Tom Martin and Water Tight Canberra.
Tom really is focused on not just doing a great job but also the customer service. The proof is in the pudding with amazing Google reviews and winning a National Telstra Business Award.
There is a lot all small businesses can learn from Tom and that’s why I invited him on the show.
I started out by noting that, for lay people, plumbing would seem a fairly straight forward business and we might find it hard to differentiate between one professional, experienced, and licensed plumber and another and so, I wanted to know what unique elements of his business, or industry as a whole, really need to be taken into account when executing his marketing.
Enjoy.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
As part of the service, I have had this episode transcribed. Transcribing, proofing, and editing a podcast episode is A LOT of work. That’s why I use a service called REV who provide professional freelance transcriptionists who are vetted for quality. While they offer a 99% accuracy guarantee, I do not proof-read their work extensively. Instead, I simply copy and paste below and, as such, please note that this is not be a verbatim transcript of the episode and I have trimmed things like the intro, close, and mid-show ad.
Tom:
Customer service has to be front and center. You wouldn’t have to go far to hear someone complain about a tradesman or an experience that they’ve had. I think that’s just a huge opportunity. There’s certainly reasons why the trades do get picked on with the customer service and there’s challenges that we face that other businesses don’t but if you concentrate on your customer service and you put that at the center of everything you do, I think you’re on the right track.
Daniel:
What do you find difficult about marketing a plumbing business?
Tom:
You need to find something interesting to talk about or to blog about. It’s a pretty unsexy topic when you’re talking about blocked rinds or burst pipes and that sort of thing and so finding those unique blog posts that are going to attract the right customers, be exactly what the customer is plugging into Google so that you appear when no one else does is a bit of a challenge, but when you get them, they absolutely golden.
Daniel:
So those blogs that you focused on trying to create headlines or topics that directly correlate to questions or services, people are plugging into Google so that you get an exact match and they think, that’s a business that knows what I need?
Tom:
Absolutely. An example we’ve got is a blog post on leaking showers. It’s a pretty boring topic, the old leaking shower, but if you’ve got a leaking shower, that’s exactly what you’re putting into Google and by us having a blog post, we’ve become the authority on the subject and customers tend to read the blog post, understand exactly what it is that we’re going to come and do and they book us in.
Tom:
One of the best ways we coming up with ideas for blog posts is actually when we notice a point in our business where a customer hasn’t had a perfect experience or didn’t actually realize what they were going to get by engaging us. For example, if we go out there to conduct a shower leak test and it ends up being a waterproofing problem, we aren’t the tradesmen that you need to repair that. We were having customers complaining that they had to pay us a fee to come out and test and and now they’ve got to pay a waterproofer to come in and re-waterproof. So by having the blog post fully explain the entire process, they know exactly what they were up for.
Marketing Nugget.
Daniel:
Creating content that directly responds to the issues that customers verbalize or directly answers questions that they have is a great way to generate topics consistently for your content. In fact, if you’re a blogger, like I used to be, I don’t blog anymore, but when I did, whenever I went to a meeting with a prospective client, I draw a column down the side of my notebook, and in that column, anytime somebody asked me a question, I’d write it down and then I’d obviously verbally answer the question in the meeting.
Daniel:
However, the reason I wrote it down was because post-meeting when I got back to my desk and when I needed to send a followup email, I’d include links to the blogs I’d written that answered the questions that they had specifically asked when we’re meeting face to face and if I didn’t have a blog that answered that question, I would quickly write one. The reason I did that was because you can bet your bottom dollar that if one person was asking that question about say, for example case studies, others would have the same question and probably checking Google for the answer and that could lead them to my site where my blog took a marketing through teaching approach and built trust with visitors.
Daniel:
Because the lay person probably wouldn’t know a lot about blocked or leaking showers, so they don’t know if one plumber is going to tell them the same thing. They don’t know if the whole wall needs to come out or you can do testing without it or whether it’s going to take half an hour, I’m going to be without a shower for 14 days. Overcoming some of those things and talking to them about them probably puts them at ease so that they feel comfortable calling you, right?
Tom:
Yeah, that’s right. Using the shower example, a lot of people don’t do it in a correct process. If you re waterproof over the top of your tiles and it turns out you’ve actually got a leaking pipe in the wall, you’re actually going to open the wall, fix the pipe, redo the wall, and then have to reseal the shower anyway so you’ve completely wasted your first resealing. So by explaining it out in a thought out process, the customer knows what we’re doing. We come in, we do it, they’re satisfied and that’s good.
Daniel:
Tom. I know that service is a big focus for you. However, a lot of businesses say that they’re committed to service. So sometimes it doesn’t really feel like that much of a differentiator. I’m keen to hear about anything special that you and the team do either before a job or during a job or after a job that really does create good customer service, because it’s important, because that then flows into great word of mouth, Google reviews, testimonials and those sorts of things?
Tom:
Sure. We really do think about it in all three of those steps, the before, during and after. Before the job, we’ve spent quite a bit of money on our website and making it really easy and smooth for customers to book including using a program called Service Mate, which has really good automated booking features. It’s simple, quick and easy for a customer to book, which is what they want.
Tom:
We also have additional administration staff who can actually take phone calls quickly. You’re not put on hold, we’re not calling you back, we will get that booked in straight away. Then we follow up with booking reminders and that sort of thing, so you know when we’re coming out. On that as well, we provide a lot of information on our website of exactly what and how we do business, so that customers know our pricing. They know all of that information before we actually turn up.
Tom:
So they don’t think that we’re going to turn up and charge them half of what we will. We try and eliminate bill shock by doing that. During the job we spend a lot of time and effort making sure that the products that we keep on board in our trucks are good quality products that you’re not going to have warranty issues with. Most plumbing jobs, you’re paying a fairly significant price for the plumbing labor and a smaller portion of the bill is the actual material. If that material fails, you’ve got a really big expense to actually get that replaced even though it might only be a $10 part.
Tom:
Part of that is, is following up. We’ve had a valve that we’ve been installing for about six years and we installed several a week and we’ve just realized now that the recent batch that we’ve had have been failing, and we’ve actually been going through and having to pull them out and put in a different brand because we know that these other ones are going to fall and cause us issues.
Daniel:
So you’re getting ahead of that issue for the customer?
Tom:
Exactly. So we were going out, we’re replacing them and we’ve already negotiated with our supplier who’s returning them, and swapping them over for a different brand. Also, we go above and beyond what I think most customers expect by wearing boot covers over our boots. We put rubber mats down on the floor before we actually start work and put our tools on that, we clean up after ourselves. We really do try and make sure that the customer’s had an exceptional experience.
Tom:
Then after the job, we wrap up with payment on the same day so it’s not hanging out and the client doesn’t know what’s going on, and we follow up with them as well and make sure that they’ve had a great experience and ask them for feedback and that sort of thing.
Daniel:
Excellent, and I know that Google reviews are super important to you in Watertight Canberra and as I said earlier, especially when lay people might not know how else to pick a plumber. I don’t know what makes a good plumber. I know I have to call you, Tom but anyway, if I didn’t know you, I don’t necessarily know what makes a great plumber. I might find it hard to make a decision. You have, when I checked last checked 127 Google reviews with an average of a 4.7 star rating. How long has it taken you to get to that level?
Tom:
We started focusing on reviews in about 2010 which is when we launched the business. I was lucky enough, I did a marketing course at CIT and my marketing teacher really emphasized the importance of getting that public awareness. Back then, I think for the next five years, for over six years, we were the only plumbers, when you put in plumber Canberra, we would appear and we had stars and reviews underneath our name and no one else did. I can’t even begin to think how many jobs we must’ve got just because none of our competitors had any stars whatsoever. Unfortunately quite a few of them have now cottoned on and some of them have managed to get an awful lot of reviews in a short period of time.
Daniel:
It’s a lot of reviews for your type of business. A plumber where people would just expect you turn up, you do the transaction and go. As you said, when you type in plumber Canberra, I typed in plumber Canberra, there are obviously other listings now in the map section and the others have only about between 49 and 75 stars, the top ones, which is actually pretty respectable, not as great as 127 with you. But what do you do to get customers to take the time and actually go online and review a plumber?
Tom:
That’s an absolute challenge. I’ll be completely honest. When you look at that, there’s 127 reviews there. You think about how many customers we’ve serviced over the last 10 years and it’s probably a fairly small portion of them. We always send out a review request with the invoice so it’s asking customers to log on and actually leave us a review and letting them know how important it is to us. I know myself, I always try and leave businesses reviews, but every now and then, I’ll realize I’ve been working with someone for a really long period of time. I love what they do and yet I haven’t actually taken the time to do it. So I know how difficult it is.
Daniel:
I’m guilty of that.
Tom:
It’s certainly an extremely valuable thing for your business, whether it’s helping you stand out or even just giving you protection. Unfortunately you do get customers that will use reviews or their opportunity of leaving you a negative review. You’ll always have customers that will use that against you and try and get a discount even if they are completely satisfied with the job.
Daniel:
Well, I was going to ask about that because 4.7 isn’t perfect. It’s amazing but it’s not perfect. It isn’t a five and in fact, to be honest, people think something’s fishy if there’s only perfect reviews, so 4.7 is actually about the perfect number that we find for hitting that sweet spot with your customers when they see that. But that does mean as you mentioned that some people haven’t given you a five. Has there been any really bad reviews and you say, how do you handle it?
Tom:
I think I haven’t reviewed our bad reviews for quite a while, but we always take it as an opportunity to reply to the customer. I’m very confident that in every one of those bad reviews, we have done exceptionally well at the job and or we’ve tried our absolute hardest, so it gives us an opportunity to explain publicly on the levels that we will go to to try and satisfy our customer. Most of the time you will see that. It actually works in your favor I think because customers can see your reasonable.
Daniel:
Absolutely.
Tom:
I think there’s one where we did drop the ball. I think I was on paternity leave for six weeks and the customer hadn’t had a reply or something like that. We got on there and we said exactly that. It’s an exceptional circumstance, you can say it’s not going to happen regularly and that our reply accompanied with the good star reviews we’ve got, I think actually works in our favor.
Daniel:
Yeah, I think it people that you care. Do your new inquiries ever mentioned the number of reviews or your rating when they first make contact with you? I suppose what I’m getting at is how important are the Google reviews to your business?
Tom:
Oh, huge. Hugely important. Yeah, because we have built our business around having a good online reputation, we find that most of the customers coming to us, they’ve done their research, they’ve chosen to work with us and they want to work with us. They’ve seen other customers experiences and they’ve decided that that’s what I want. I think it means we don’t compete on price as much as what we would if we didn’t have that reputation before we were even turning up to the job. Also because the customer’s chosen us, it just keeps the whole job running smoothly and it just works a lot easier.
Marketing Nugget.
Daniel:
As you can tell from listening to Tom, Google reviews can be very powerful. However, many businesses attempted to try and bend the rules or muddy the waters. They want to do things like review their own business or write negative reviews about their competitors or pretend to be somebody that they are not, don’t do that. Why? Well, not only is it unethical, but Google has loads of ways to track your identity through your Google accounts and your IP addresses. Whether you’re at work or home or you’re out and about, on a computer, a tablet, laptop or you’re on your phone.
Daniel:
I can assure you bad behavior that violates their terms of conditions will backfire and could seriously harm your own businesses Google rankings. You also can’t offer money in exchange for reviews. Google’s exact words are quote, “Don’t offer or accept money in exchange for reviews.” End quote.
Daniel:
Further, while Google’s rules don’t explicitly state it, you shouldn’t offer discounts, gifts, or some other type of rewards for reviews. Google has taken action against businesses that have gone down that path. The best requests that you can make to your customers is an honest one. At the end of the day, you should not have any problems if you encourage your customers and clients to provide you with honest reviews using their own Google accounts from their own computers. I know for me, the opportunity to help someone, especially someone who has done an amazing job for me, is much more rewarding than a little bit of money or a discount or some sort of giveaway.
Daniel:
Big News and Congratulations for you on the team in 2019 because you won the 2019 National Telstra Business Awards in the category of Small and Succeeding. There were a record number of nominations received in 2019, so becoming a Telstra 2019 National Winner is an amazing achievement and you’re from the hometown of Canberra, which is even better. I know a lot of businesses talk about how the process of entering awards like this really helps them look at their business differently, and even with renewed energy as they critically analyze and have to log those things that they do for people day in, day out. Was that the same for you? Did you find it a good process to go through as opposed to just the outcome of winning?
Tom:
Absolutely. The outcome of winning was the absolute cream on top, but for those that don’t know, you basically get nominated for an award or you can self-nominate which we actually did. Then you move on and you do a deep dive into your business and that that goes into your HR, your finance, your marketing, your advertising, your environmental impact and basically every aspect of your business. It asks you a whole lot of key questions on what it is exactly you are doing.
Tom:
It just helps you reflect on your business and say, well, what are we doing in this area? Should we be doing more? It helps you recognize that you’re already doing 90% of what you want to be writing. So you go, okay, well, I’m going to implement this other 10% and then we’re doing it and then I’m going to write about it.
Tom:
We had quite a few systems in place or that were almost in place. One was a Google dashboard reporting system that automatically links to a whole lot of different programs. I’d spent hours and hours and hours working on this. It was 90% complete, and because I really wanted to write about it and put it into my application, I actually spent the 10%, I have time, I finished it off and I now use it daily. It’s a really good deep reflection on your business. I’d like to go through and answer the questions at least every second year or something like that, I think.
Tom:
Certainly just going through the process helped our business immensely and we’ve pushed further and yeah, it’s been great.
Daniel:
Amazing. Now businesses also like to leverage winning awards into their marketing and rightly so, of course. How have you done that?
Tom:
The most powerful thing for us is actually having it on our website and with our quotes and that sort of thing and even just in our signature block. Just that recognition to the clients that you’re dealing with a professional organization, that we are an award winning business, we are great at what we do and we’ve gone through that process. So again, it’s just building customer trust with that sort of thing. We’ve had a few marketing opportunities for it where we’ve managed to get on TV and the radio and that sort of thing and podcasts as well, which creates more awareness for the business. But certainly just building trust with the clients.
Daniel:
We’ve spoken about lots of positive things that you do in your business. Has there been a piece of marketing over the years that you’ve tried that just didn’t work, it just crashed, it just bombed?
Tom:
I reckon 90% of businesses have probably fallen for this same trap. When I first went into business in 2010 and I certainly didn’t have much money in the bank. I signed up with a company that guaranteed me page one Google within three months or you get your money back in, I can’t remember, it might have been $3,000 or something. I thought, “Oh well these guys are guaranteeing they’re going to give me my money back, what have I got to lose?” So I paid the money and of course like all of those companies, it was a complete and utter falsehood.
Tom:
I took them through the legal proceedings and turned out they were an overseas company that had a mailing address in Sydney, but there’s no actual assets. You couldn’t send the sheriff around to take assets. I ended up having a judge just say to me, “Sorry, mate. They haven’t turned up again and by the way, I really think you just leave it.”
Daniel:
We sorry to hear that, but it’s good advice, because anybody who’s guaranteeing anything in marketing probably in hindsight, doesn’t know what they’re talking about. If a hundred plumbers in Canberra all signed up for that, it’s impossible to get them all on the front page of Google, but it’s good advice for people, particularly when they’re starting out.
Daniel:
Tom Martin, owner at Watertight Canberra and National Telstra Business Award Winner. Thanks for coming on the show and sharing your businesses marketing experiences.
Tom:
No worries at all. Daniel. Thanks for having me.