Reminding clients the day before the booking is due for collection can reduce your no show cancellations.

If a client does not appear for an appointment, that costs a business money. It’s a missed opportunity for the organization unless a punitive “no-show” policy is put into place. An SMS is a polite, unobtrusive way of delivering this reminder.

For Companies that hire services or even equipment a no show is simply lost revenue.

Most hire and rental companies even if the hire or rent equipment are effectively selling time.  If that time is lost, it can be regained.  For example, if a client hires or rents a service from 10am to 12 pm and doesn’t show, then revenue for that time slot is lost.  Unless a walk in customer appears there and then or another customer can be brought forward.

Even rental of equipment is impacted.  If a client confirms a booking of a equipment for the day and then doesn’t show the sale for that day is arguably lost.

Therefore taking simple cost effective measures to reduce booking cancellations is worthwhile.

People Quicker to Respond to Text’s

It is not just the cost saving that drives SMS effectiveness it is people’s attitudes to text.  Research by USA Telecommunications Company Sprint has shown that people respond quicker to text’s than voice mails.

all age groups are more likely to respond to a text message more quickly than a voice message. Predictably, among adults under 30 years of age, 78 percent say they respond immediately or within minutes to a text message. Even 54 percent of 55- to 64-year-olds said they respond to a text

Integrate SMS in WorkFlow

For hire and rental companies, SMS is integrated into HireEzy. Simply opne the client booking, click SMS, icon, type in the text you want to send and transmit.  The SMS message is then automatically recorded against your customer record.

SMS is an effective tool in that  for a few cents, can reduce lost booking revenue of multiple dollars.

Using SMS with HireEzy is easy.

SMS credits are available from us, at discount rates.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

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• Vlingo Research: 94% of Teens Use Mobile Phone to Text (debaird.net)

An independent report from a USA consulting company has now valdiated that statement.

Extract From Constuction Hire: AN INDEPENDENT research report by Tech-Clarity has found that hire equipment owners and dealers need to have centralised, efficient software systems if they are to be competitive in the market.

Tech-Clarity’s report shows businesses that integrate service requirements into their managing software are more effective than those that don’t. read more go click here

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

Such associations can often provide useful business advise to Rental and  Hire businesses, especially in times like these.

Amercian Rental Association

Canadian Rental Association

New Zealand Hire and Rental Association

Australia Hire and Rental Association

United Kingdom Construction Rental

European Rental Association

South Africa Contractor & Plant Hire Association

If you know of any more please let us know and we will add them to the list

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

The target segment to consider focusing your attention on is families in the mortgage belt or suburbs. There are three key factors that drive this analysis:

Vulnerability to Unemployment Risks

The OECD has forecast that the most vulnerable labour groups are the oldest, youngest and unskilled. As a generalisation the mortage belt is generally made up of middle aged couples with either technical, trade or professional skills. Hence based on the most recent OECD forecasts, these are the least likely to face unemployment risks.

Interest Rates

Interest rates for mortgages across the board have fallen sharply over the last year. Some estimates show that this has meant that mortgage belt families have been able to free up a few hundred dollars per month. This saving to them is also being complimented by tax cuts in a number of countries.

Trend Towards Home Based Entertainment

There is a societal trend towards home based entertaining, rather than off premise entertainment. This trend has been accelerated by the recent global financial crisis.The home entertainment market is a target segment for party hire and rental companies. Another factor influencing the trend towards home entertainment.  Whilst interest rates are coming down, so are house prices.  So the overall sense of perceived wealth is declining, therefore home entertainment is seen as a low cost alternative to socialising.

A final point consideration in the potential growth of the home entertainment market is time.  During the boom years, perceived wealth amongst home owners increased rapidly but at the cost of perceived time to spend with family and friends.  Despite the increasing prosperity people seemed to work longer hours, unable to “find” the time to spend with family and friends.  As we move into new economic conditions, how people make and spend their time will be worth watching.  It may well create a new market opportunity for hire and rental companies.

Taking advantage of this segment is discussed in more detail in an earlier post Party Hire and Rental Companies could benefit from downturn.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration.

How to Use Social Media Tools

Marketing Problem

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Marketing via Twitter

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Marketing via Facebook

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Marketing via YouTube

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[intlink id="481" type="post"]Big List on How to Use Social Media[/intlink]

Marketing via WordPress

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Let’s take a simple example of a Party Rental or Hire Company.

A customer has come in to hire a Spit Roast for the weekend, value say $75.00

Items that may also be of use to the same client, could be serving platters,  carving knives, a condiment holders, an electric meat warming tray etc.

The spit roast hire price, with gas may be have been $75 for the weekend.  But offering the related items may increase the hire price well over $100, an increase of 33%, which would be nice if it could be achieved across all orders.  The 33% figure is taken from anecdotal evidence received from our customers.

So here are some suggestions on how to do it!

Start from the Customers Perspective:

Customers when they are looking to hire or rent something from you have an idea for an event, party or task that they going to have or do.   The vast majority of sales staff merely respond to the customers specific item requests.

Good practise is to aks the client what are they planning to do?

Engage them in a conversation find out what they want to do, it is just a conversation it doesnt hurt.  Once the you or your sales staff have determined what the customers event, idea or task is, then you can begin to suggest other items.

Approached in a conversational tone the customer doesnt feel threatened by a hard sell.  For example:

Sales Rep:  Oh so your having a Spit Roast  for your son’s graduation at you place on the weekend.  That is great, how many people are you expecting.

Client:  About 30 people

Sales Rep:  Wow that is a lot, have you got tables and chairs, cutlery and plates etc?

Client:  Not sure

Sales Rep:  We have a lot of clients who have Spit Roasts parties like you are having, so we put together this Spit Roast package based.  It includes all the common items people were renting from us but we have bundled it in to a specially priced package.

This approach to offer a promotional package, is actually about turning the vast range of choices a customer has into a product offer.  Whilst people talk about liking choice in truth most don’t.  Giving them a “product” that suits there needs eliminates the need for them to think and the risk to them.

In relation to risk, consider the pyschology of a client.  In the above example if the father comes in to hire a spit roast for the Son’s 21st.   His selection of what is needed is based on his planning, so if he gets it wrong they chances of being “stirred up” by his friends and family are quite high.  However if he selects your “productised offer”, then he has in reduced the risk of him being a source of jokes at the event or task.  In effect you are doing him a favour!

Creating a Promotional Package

So how to create a promotional “product”.

HireEzy (the world’s most innovative hire software and rental software)  provides both the analysis tools and in-built marketing tools to both determine what should go in a package and the production of a high graphic brochure (digital or print).

Creating these packages is incredibly easy, but the value they can provide to your business can be exceptional.

Generate Leads

If you do produce a promotional pack, then why not send it out to your previous clients.  Use the inbuilt customer data base to send out emails with the brochure attached to your clients.  Make sure you include an opt out option for them on the email.  These tools for in-built in HireEzy are exceptionally easy to use and the results some clients have obtained have been impressive.

Web Crossing Selling

Research shows that over 50 % of new leads come from the web.  But most hire and rental companies have very limited sales presence on line.  Even fewer have an ability to cross sell or up sell to on-line customers.

HireEzy includes a fully integrated on-line site that allows customers to place booking requests directly into your system.  Not only does this substantially reduce your costs it also includes in-built workflow solutions that enable you to up-sell or cross sell more to such customers.

Summary

The aim of cross selling or up selling is to increase the revenue per client.  As discussed achieving 33% increases in revenue per sale are common.

Achieving this increase requires a combination of good staff training and a supporting hire software or rental software system, such as HireEzy.  The key point is that Sales Staff up selling or cross selling can be assisted by the use of HireEzy.  The result is that you can achieve substantial improvements in sales per customer.  For more information for to www.makinglifeezy.com.au

Home Entertainment Market

One such opportunity is the apparent growth of the home entertainment market.  At first glance this may appear to be of little interest, but further investigation suggests it could be worth consideration.

Rising wealth over the last decade from both increasing property values and incomes led to an increase in away from home entertainment.  People went to clubs, venues and events to celebrate, relax and enjoy.   Not so anymore, people are staying home and inviting friends around.

This trend to home based entertainment has generated some interesting Corporate and Industry responses.  The USA spirits industry provides an example of how you too could consider accessing this market.

”The fact that people can transfer some of their entertaining to the home provides us with a certain amount of insulation from the economic downturn,” said David Ozgo, chief economist for the Distilled Spirits Council. “It’s not that our business declines, our rate of growth slows.”

To access this market change Spirits companies are chasing the home-entertaining consumer with a vigor, finding ways to aid their customers to re-produce their favorite cocktails they previously drank when they went out.

Accessing the home entertaining market means more than just creating awareness of your products.  It means painting a vision to your target market of what they could do!  Here are some examples:

“Bring Back the 70’s” – Invite your friends and family around for a Barbeque, dance to Juke Box in the backyard under the party lights. Let us help you bring back the fun – XYZ party-hire

“Entertaining at Home Theme Packs”  – Make your next home entertainment event the best night of your life with our “Entertaining at home theme packages”.  Themes for every occasion!

Marketing such packages could include a combination of letterbox drops, newspaper advertisements, television advertisements.  However by far the cheapest remains digital marketing such as on your website and emails to your customers.  Even consider using social media and other digital marketing ideas.  Articles below explain how to use Social Media and Digital marketing.

HireEzy, hire business management software, has the tools to enable you to do your own emails campaigns to your clients.  With the full web option, you can even update your own website yourself, saving time and money.  It also improves your web site ranking the more frequently you change your web site information.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration.

For more information www.makinglifeezy.com.au

How to Use Social Media Tools

Marketing Problem

[intlink id="246" type="post"]Hire Rental Advertising Considerations[/intlink]
[intlink id="572" type="post"]Why Traditional Marketing Fails[/intlink]
[intlink id="875" type="post"]Yellow Pages Versus SEO[/intlink]

Creating a Digital Marketing Platform

[intlink id="254" type="post"]Creating a Digital Marketing Foundation[/intlink]
[intlink id="294" type="post"]Hire Rental Web Lead Statistics[/intlink]

Marketing via Twitter

[intlink id="592" type="post"]How Rental Hire Company can use Twitter[/intlink]
[intlink id="607" type="post"]Business Reason to Use Twitter[/intlink]

Marketing via Facebook

[intlink id="990" type="post"]Using Facebook for Business[/intlink]
[intlink id="781" type="post"]They worried about Social Media in the 1930′s[/intlink]

Marketing via YouTube

[intlink id="507" type="post"]How Rental and Hire Companies can use YouTube[/intlink]
[intlink id="481" type="post"]Big List on How to Use Social Media[/intlink]

Marketing via WordPress

[intlink id="641" type="post"]Why Blogs are Effective for Small Business[/intlink]
[intlink id="762" type="post"]Why Small Businesses Should blog[/intlink]