Canvassing is becoming ever more important. This year the three six-person teams working Virginia Beach, Yorktown, and Richmond will produce nearly $2 million worth of business. Two years ago the program barely existed. The marketing effort ties into, and helps build, Melani Bros. branding. Canvassing crews, says canvassing manager Ed Antle, must wear company shirts along with khaki pants and a plastic ID around their necks. The goal? Two leads an hour.
Because it’s been doing business for nearly 25 years and because of its visibility and the heavy community marketing effort involving a dozen well-known charities, Melani Bros. has become enough of a brand name in Southeast Virginia that it can count on its reputation to get people to its Web site, which now generates more than $1 million a year in sales.
Of course none of that would matter much, or last very long, if the company delivered less than a positive customer experience. To make sure it does, Melani Bros. uses surveys, where sales, admin, and installer performance typically rate at the 9+ level.
“Overall, customer satisfaction is our strongest marketing tool,” Ron points out.
Recently the company launched a campaign to have the entire organization generating referrals, offering reps and installers alike $150 for any lead that becomes a demo, and 1.5% of any job that actually sells. Since it now offers a menu of products, rather than just sunrooms, repeat and referral will drive more and more of the business as time goes on. The way to attain it, the Melanis believe, is to get everyone in the company involved in generating referrals. “The culture of the company has been all about ‘make market,’” Menendez says. “When we looked at it, the referral business is a very profitable business. So we needed to bring that idea to all the designers and installers.”
CHAT ME UP
This spring Melani Bros. ratcheted up the interactivity level on its Web site by adding a chat room. During business hours, visitors to www.melanibros.com will be able to e-mail a customer service rep with questions about products, warranties, installation, and more. That type of interactivity is common on Web sites in some industries — software, for instance — but is rare to nonexistent in home improvement.
The chat function will boost leads generated through the site, turn inquiries into hot leads, enhance customer retention by enabling new clients to get their questions answered immediately, and boost customer service levels. Web designer Ross Stoutenborough (above, right) says the company will be able to push Web pages through to potential prospects as a way to answer questions about products and installation. Long term, he says the effort will increase Melani Bros. Web leads by 50%.
At the moment, the company Web site produces about 5% of Melani Bros. leads, though “if we got more than 15% of all our leads off the Web site, it would be fine with me,” notes vice president of marketing Rick Menendez.
BREAD AND BUTTER
Sunrooms made Melani Bros. a household name in the home improvement industry, but at a certain point the company’s owners recognized the need to expand the menu. For one thing, it would provide an opportunity to cross-market to past customers. For another, getting sunrooms installed was becoming ever more difficult, due to permitting issues. “In 1991, it took us 30 minutes to get a permit,” says co-owner Ron Melani. “Now it takes four days.” Local municipalities, he says — the company deals with about 50 — “have concluded that this is a bona fide room addition.” The solution? Melani Bros. hired a building inspector to oversee sunroom production.
Whatever the difficulties, Melani Bros. has no intention of abandoning the product that made it what it is today. Last year the company installed $9 million worth of sunrooms out of a 1,200-square-foot warehouse.
“Doing sunrooms is a tough discipline,” Ron says. When Melani Bros. has service issues, it’s usually sunrooms that are involved. “What keeps you in it,” he says, “is that you gotta sell a lot of windows to get to one hundred grand.” Three sun-room sales will get you there a lot quicker.
That brings up the other difficulty sunroom dealers face: rescission. Studies show that the rescission rate for a home improvement product goes up along with its price. Nationwide, an estimated 50% of sunroom contracts end up getting canceled because of rescission, credit rejects, or can’t-build issues. “We build [a 15% rescission rate] into our numbers, as part of the business model,” notes Ray Melani. But at the beginning of the year the company found a way to cut its rescission rate by having Megan Melani phone every customer the day after signing to explain company procedures and identify herself as point person should customers have questions or concerns. Company managers credit that practice with increasing retention (of all products sold) from 58% to 65%.
SELL CONFIDENCE
When Zack Reddick (left) worked in the telemarketing department at Melani Bros., he didn’t have a car. On Friday afternoons he often caught a ride with one of the company’s sales reps to deposit his paycheck at the bank.
“There I’d be with my $800 check, and him with his $8,000 check.”
That made an impression.
He learned to sell, Reddick says, by riding with and watching fellow sales rep Elana Chase. “I patterned myself after her. Most of my learning was out in the field.”
Today, two years later, Reddick is one of Melani Bros.’ top window closers. He brings back a contract three out of every five times he sits for an appointment.
The most important thing? “Always go in optimistic. Your confidence will go further than anything you could say about the company or the product. And have fun.”
What helps, besides the selling system, is the Melani Bros. name, the quality of the product, the guarantees and the commitment to long-term service. All need to be there, because, as Ray Melani is quick to point out, the company’s products and services aren’t inexpensive.
