Google Home Services and its Impact on Small and Medium Businesses
As we’ve been talking about for a while, Google is making a move into home services. This week we have a first look at how Google may be inserting itself into service delivery for customers who are using the search engine to find a vendor.
Google is testing Home Service Ads for users in San Francisco who are searching for plumbers, locksmiths, house cleaners and handyman services. Though these are largely residential services, the search results will also impact those of us who are searching for commercial contractors, too. The test is giving us some hints – and some concerns – about what the future may be for small businesses on the leading search engine.
A search engine results page for “Raleigh plumber” currently looks like this:
This probably looks familiar with Google AdWords text ads in the top sponsored positions in the main column, and down the right side of the page.
The map shows the location of local businesses that organically match the keyword search terms and the top three reviewed companies. It’s worth mentioning that there used to be seven of these highest reviewed companies, the display was recently reduced to three.
This is what the test page looks like when searching for “San Francisco plumber”:
The biggest change is that the map and the top organically placed companies are removed. In its place are three companies that are in the pay-to-play Google Home Service Ads program. These companies have:
- Paid for these placements. Google has not released any information about what this will cost or how it will be paid (percent of fees, fixed cost, or auction?)
- Paid Pinkerton to conduct background checks for all employees who are sent on-site. There is no information available on the Google nor Pinkerton websites about what this costs.
- Passed other screening conducted by Google for positive reviews, being insured and other criteria that aren’t described in great detail today.
- Source: Google’s website
Even the reviews listed in the Google Services Ad widget aren’t the same reviews that are part of current Google My Business pages. They are limited to only the customers who have contracted with that business by using Google Service Ads service.
There are a few good articles that explain how these ads work for users. Read them here and here, and watch a demo video in this article. The commenters on this Search Engine Land article seem to be small-medium business owners who voice some legitimate questions and concerns about how this change will affect the visibility of their businesses.
Marketing analysis
I’m a marketer, so I want to focus on the search engine marketing implications of Google Service Ads for service contractors.
Should you worry?
From a marketing perspective, yeah, I am afraid so. There’s plenty for an independent service contractor to worry about here about your visibility and the increasing cost to stand out among your competition. We’re all going to have to watch closely to see how the test goes, what additional information Google releases, what additional services or markets they expand into.
Did you just disappear?
Service companies have been playing by Google’s search engine optimization rules to earn a high rank on search engine result pages. They built their sites a certain way, they chose keyword phrases and placed them strategically, and they sought reviews from their customers. If you did all of those things, and did them well, you had a good chance of appearing as one of the big dots on the map and having your company be one of the three top companies.
On the test page, it appears that the only place where your SEO has an impact is in the organic search results in the main column of the page, below the Google Service Ads section. This space is much more competitive because your business is now competing for top billing with sites like Yelp, Angie’s List and national chains that have marketing resources that many SMBs can’t dream of competing with.
It appears that for businesses not participating in Google Service Ads, that it’s going to be more difficult or more expensive to be visible in the search engine.
Do reviews matter?
As I mentioned above, the Google Service Ads have their own review system. The reviews in the widget don’t include the reviews shared by customers who have purchased services through any other way than through Google.
Even in the organic search results, none of the reviews that are currently on the Google My Business page show on the search engine result page. It’s unclear where and how the information and reviews in your Google My Business page will be used in the main search engine results page.
Yeah, what about my business page?
Will Google My Business pages appear anywhere in results? How will they be accessed? Will they be populated on the map? As of this writing, the Map page for the “San Francisco plumber” search still places pins and review information from Google My Business pages. I hope this is the minimum of where those business page results are placed. Our research has not uncovered any information about the relevance of business pages in the future of Google search result pages.
Change is coming
This has all been a reminder that Google is a for-profit company that has made itself an indispensable part of marketing and how our customers find our services. Google is now looking for ways to leverage that power and convert it into profit by becoming part of the service delivery.
The Google we’ve thought of as a free utility where a small investment would improve your visibility and give you a leg-up on the competition is slipping away. There’s a lot we don’t know today about what SEO and SEM will become if the features of the Google Service Ads test are deployed nationwide. We’ll be watching and will keep you updated.
More about Google:
Google Wants your Service Business, Too
Is your website mobile friendly? Simple test to avoid Google penalties
I hate to leave you all with so much anxiety and uncertainty, so once again, here is my favorite dog gif from my blog post “Google Wants your Service Business, Too” about how Google has started eating your dog food.
Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com is licensed by CC BY 3.0
Customer Experience is More Important to your Service Business than Customer Service
Let’s play a word association game. When I say “customer service” what comes to mind?
For me, it’s a toll-free phone call, entering a bunch of information on the telephone keypad, then retelling it all to a human, once you get through to one.
Customer service is often limited to service delivery, or where you go when you need help to solve a problem. In our interactions with too many companies, customer service has become a 4-letter word.
Let’s carry on with the game. What comes to mind when I say “customer experience?” Is it less clear?
Customer experience spans the lifetime relationship between you and your customer. This assumes that a) you have a relationship; and b) that it’s an enduring one. Your customers’ overall perception of you is an aggregate of each interaction before, after, and between the service delivery.
Shaping a Great Customer Experience
Showing that you understand your customers, and that you’re listening to them, are key components of a good customer experience that keep them coming back to you again and again. Rich, online communications that add more touch points throughout the relationship give you the opportunity to:
- Exceed customer expectations
- Give customers information and control over their equipment and facility
- Listen and respond to customers, especially when they have negative feedback
Plan the Customer Experience
You have a set of defined processes around the service delivery, but do you have the same form around your day-to-day customer relationships?
- Set a schedule of pre-appointment communications. They’re a great opportunity to find out what concerns the customer has and what additional services you can provide.
- During the service call, show your skill and know-how. Use photos to show the customer what you’ve found onsite that increases their risk or is out of compliance. Even better, show them the after photos of it fixed.
- Follow up immediately after the sales call with a rich job record of exactly what was done, not just an invoice. Also schedule a second or third follow-up to check on customer satisfaction and possible other service follow-ups.
- Work reviews and references into your follow-up communications. Ask your customers for reviews on 3rd party sites like Google, Yahoo, Yelp, and your social networks on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
- Continue to stay in touch with customers between service calls with seasonal tips, compliance reminders and other advice from your experts that remind them that you’re the best service contractor for their business.
The Payoff
Once you have a strategy, and a process you can follow, adopt a customer-focused culture and make every member of your staff follow it for every customer, every day. The payoff to your business is increased customer satisfaction, longer relationships, and higher lifetime value of each customer.
Smartphone Buying Guide for Service Contractors, Part 2: iOS or Android?
As I ponder the differences between mobile device platforms, I wonder if this blog post is like dispensing parenting or political advice? Is this one area where we all have our preferences and nothing anybody else says will change our opinions about which is the best?
If that’s the case, carry on with your established allegiances. But if you’re looking for some advice from a software development company that creates applications for iOS and Android mobile platforms, we can help.
The Mobile View from 10,000’
iOS is the mobile operating system created by Apple to run on Apple devices like iPhones, iPods and iPads. This model gives Apple all of the control and decision-making power about how the hardware and software work.
Android is the mobile operating system created by Google that runs on a variety of smartphones from providers like Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony, Kyocera, and the list goes on. This model means that the operating system works slightly differently across different hardware vendor’s devices. For example, Samsung is a leading Android provider with an affordable suite of devices. However, Samsung applies more changes to the core Android operating system than other device makers. Software companies like ServiceTrade have to take these multiple configurations into account and spend more time developing and supporting Android-compatible applications to ensure that every user has a great experience.
Windows Phone is the mobile operating system created by Microsoft for Windows mobile devices like Lumina phones, Surface tablets, Dell Venues and HP Streams. There is a chicken and egg situation developing for Windows devices: A relatively low adoption rate means that application development by vendors other than Microsoft is uncommon. Whether it’s because of the low adoption or the shortage of high-quality applications, Windows devices aren’t keeping pace with Android and iOS, and are not your best bet. Notice that they didn’t make the title.
Comparing Approaches
As a consumer, you probably see the wider variety of Android devices a positive: More options to pick the right phone and tablet for your job and life. But for software companies like ServiceTrade, this presents a significant amount of additional time in development, testing and support.
With iOS and Apple devices, software development companies can focus on compatibility with a limited number of configurations. Software companies choose to support a certain number of older operating system versions and devices, which allows them to spend more of their R&D time in development of new features instead of tweaking the same feature to work on multiple operating system/device combinations.
With Android devices, software development companies develop features, then spend more time making sure that they work on the wide array of devices and operating system versions in the market. In most cases, if the R&D time is going into porting features, it’s not being spent creating new features. This can negatively impact the pace of innovation.
This is why ServiceTrade’s iOS users see new features more frequently than ServiceTrade’s Android users. We strive to keep the user experiences as similar as possible, but the reality is that our iOS development team is able achieve more in less time.
Pros and Cons
Like politics and parenting, if you Google anything related to why one option is the best, you’ll find an infinite number of opinions in either direction. From our perspective, these are the most important pros and cons for a service contractor:
iOS:
Pros: Easy to use, lots of high-quality applications
Con: Cost
Android:
Pros: Many device options to choose from, wider range of price points
Con: Apps more likely to have usability issues on less common devices
Putting a Stake in the Ground
Today, ServiceTrade’s users are 40% Android and 60% iOS. The competitive pricing of Android options is very attractive for a business owner with a fleet of trucks and techs. The stability and user experience of Apple devices make them easy for almost any user to pick up and become productive with almost immediately.
At the end of the day, what matters most is that you have a mobile solution in the field that is giving techs the information they need, and collecting on-site information that enables amazing customer service. And you can get that with both Android and iOS smartphones.
Three steps to choose between iOS and Android devices:
- Look into pricing.
- Compare application stores for the tools that you need.
- Work with a sales rep who will let you test both types of devices before making a purchasing decision.
If Apple iOS smartphones are in your budget, they’re a safe choice for a great user experience. If they’re not, choose between the widely available Samsung Android devices.
Reread:
Coming up next:
Smartphone Buying Guide for Service Contractors, Part 1: Rugged vs. Consumer Devices
So-called “rugged” smartphones are appealing to service contractors because field technicians work in environments that aren’t always electronics-friendly. As we’ve found in our own testing and heard from our customers, that durability comes at a price in performance and usability.
The Deal with Rugged Devices
The housing is the main selling feature of a rugged device. The manufacturer’s research and development time and effort is spent making the device durable and shock-resistant in lieu of performance. Rugged devices often have displays with a low pixel count, poor camera quality, slower response times and bloated operating systems that take valuable storage space to run.
Here are two reviews of rugged devices that explain some performance shortcomings:
Kyocera Torque
CAT B15Q
The Deal with Consumer Devices
Mobile devices like those from Samsung and Apple are more commonly available and supported. The huge user bases for Android (Samsung devices) and iOS (Apple devices) mobile operating systems means that core issues are less frequent, or quickly fixed when they occur because of the large number of users impacted.
Because of the relative instability of the operating system on rugged devices, it’s more difficult for those devices to run many third-party applications without crashes, hangups or other frustrating issues for users. Because consumer devices have more users, application developers like ServiceTrade tend to develop more features and conduct more testing for these mainstream devices.
Compare these two commercial device reviews with the two rugged device reviews above:
Samsung Galaxy S6
Apple iPhone 6
Our Recommendation: Choose a Good Device and Buy a Good Case
Because of the speed and performance, ample storage space, impressive camera features and application availability, the more common “consumer devices” from Samsung and Apple are our recommendation for service contractors.
My personal recommendation for a durable, user-friendly case is the Spigen Neo Hybrid, a dual-material case with a pliable shock-absorbing surround and a hard polycarbonate bumper.
Coming up next:
Customer Service is a Marketing Strategy
We’ve been talking about the connections between customer service and its impact on the growth of service contracting businesses.
We’re not the only ones who see this critical connection. Read this excellent blog post titled “Customer Service is a Marketing Strategy” by Ben Landers, the President of Blue Corona. In the conclusion, Ben says:
“The goal of marketing is to position your company as the right solution for your target audience. Marketing is supposed to engage your target audience and pique their interest so that your sales team can convert those who are qualified into customers. Nothing can compete with remarkable service to achieve these goals, nothing.” Read the blog post.
We’ve all had experiences like Ben’s when our expectations weren’t met, or we were frustrated by poor communication. Ben’s post uses Nordstrom as an example of a company that consistently gets it right and has a very happy customer base.
For a service contractor, each interaction is a marketing opportunity. Whether it’s office staff taking a new service call or a tech speaking with a customer, each interaction strengthens – or weakens – the relationship your customers have with your brand. Perpetual Service results in perpetual marketing.
Today we will leave you with this question: Do your customers sing your praises as strongly as Nordstrom’s?
Even if you’re providing a maintenance or mandatory service that won’t get your customers as excited as a fantastic pair of shoes, (service contractors love great shoes, right?) there’s no reason for the customer experience you provide to be anything but excellent. Find tips for using technology to improve your customer service in the book The Digital Wrap: Get out of the truck and go online to own your customers.
