CRM for Roofers: Everything You Need To Know

You’ve probably heard a lot about CRMs — or Customer Relationship Management software — over the past few years… and for good reason. As the value of tech becomes more apparent for growing businesses, so does interest in using it. And it’s true! Software like CRMs can help improve customer experience, boost sales, and save you time and money. We all want to work efficiently, so it’s understandable that the interest in this software has boomed. Especially in roofing, where business owners are known for wearing all the hats, all at once. If roofing CRM software is new to you, then you’re in the right place.

You may not initially think that roofing customer relationship management software is essential for the roofing industry. But, once you understand what a CRM can really do, you’ll understand the hype around them.

In this blog, we’re exploring:

• What a CRM is and what it does
• How a CRM can help your roofing business
• What features to look for in CRM software
• How to choose a CRM software partner
• Questions to ask a potential software partner when considering a roofing CRM

If you already feel confident on what a CRM is, and if you’re ready to start booking demos, check out our complete list of CRM options for roofers HERE. If not… let’s get started!

What is a CRM?

This is the first big question we need to answer.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a type of software that helps you manage your customers and jobs in a single place. CRMs can vary depending on a businesses’ needs. They can range from very general CRMs that work for most businesses  — HubSpot or Salesforce — to industry specific ones like Jobber or Service Titan for construction. CRM’s are getting more and more niched down, though, and industry specific CRMs like Acculyns, Job Nimbus, and Roofr.

The most important thing to note is that the best CRM is the one that works for you.

CRM vs Roofing CRM

CRMs are not unique to the roofing business, but a roofing CRM is more unique.A general CRM will let you store and track all of your customer data. You will be able to integrate other softwares, track your job status, interpret data to learn about your business. These will save you time and help improve the efficiency of your work. Depending on the software, you will be able to fully customize these to fit your business needs.

CRMs have evolved over time, though, and now often include many of these features and more. These all-in-one tools are growing more and more popular because they make things super simple for users. CRMs have become this go-to all in one tool for sales based industries — roofing included.

What does a CRM system do?

A CRM can — and SHOULD — help you with:

• Lead tracking.
• Project management for your roofing jobs.
• Monitoring and tracking lead progression.
• Organizing and storing customer data and contact info.
• Providing some data, insights, or stats on your business performance.
• Monitoring sales team performance.
• So much more!

Think of a CRM as a tool to help you provide better, quicker, more personalized, and higher quality experience to your customers and potential customers.

The role of a roofing CRM in your business

Roofing, along with other construction and labor industries, has operated in a pen-and-paper world for a really long time. So what role does software like CRM have in the world of roofing?

It’s a bigger one than you’d think.

Roofing, among over construction and labor services, are adopting technology. The world is moving into the tech world, and we’re not going back. Roofers need to look into the tech tools available for them and begin learning them for the sole reason that if they don’t, they’ll become antiquated. Roofing software solutions are popping up everywhere, and they’re super valuable to help you grow your business.

A commonly known stat in the industry is that 80% of roofing companies close in 2 years, and 96% of them fail in the first 5. If you don’t want to be a statistic and plan on outlasting your competition, then you need to adopt tech.

The GOOD news is that there are a lot of benefits to using a CRM, so you’ll want to start using it anyway. Once you start learning more about how a CRM can help you, your business, and your customers, we’re sure you’ll agree.

5 benefits of using a roofing CRM for your business, customers, and employees

CRM software won't just save you time. Roofing CRMs can benefit both you, your business, employees, and customers in a number of ways. Here are the 5 top ways that a CRM can change your life.

1. Simplified customer management to save you time

Can you imagine knowing 100% of the time where your customer information is? And only needing one tool or login to see payment info, job details, communication history, and job status?

Feels impossible, right? Well, that’s the power of a CRM!

It becomes a centralized database where roofers can store and access all customer information in one place. This empowers you to get a complete view of your customers and provide personalized and efficient service whenever you’re reaching out to them. This also means that anyone on your team can find all the info about a customers, whether they deal with them often or not.

2. Improved sales efficiency

With a CRM, you can view, quickly, where in the sales process each of your customers are. Some of the really cool CRMs out there even let you see when and how often your estimates are viewed (an amazing feature of digital proposals!) so you can really personalize the sales process.

Selling roofs is also easier with a CRM because you can move faster. Speed to lead is KEY.

A study found that increasing your speed to lead to under one minute can increase your conversion rate by 391%. How, you may be wondering, do you increase it under 1 minute? A CRM can absolutely help! Automated emails, or other tech tools like Roofr’s Instant Estimator can go a LONG way to be the first contact.

3. Exceptional customer service that wins you more jobs

If your paperwork is organized, all your employees on the same page, and the back end of your business centralized in one tool, that all contributes to a smooth experience for your customer. With access to customer history and preferences, roofers can offer personalized recommendations and tailored solutions along the sales process. It also ensures that customers get the same level of attention and support no matter who picks up the phone when they call you.

This tool also CRM supports you in being proactive in customer support, allowing roofers to address any issues or concerns promptly. With automated email tools and communication tracking, you can really go above and beyond for your customers — without all the work.

We all know that references and word-of-mouth is everything for roofers. Providing a smooth service from the first time they reach out to you to job completion will only help you land more jobs in the future.

4. Makes you appealing when hiring

A study found that the #1 challenge for roofing companies right now is finding and retaining quality labor. While compensation and work conditions are some of the biggest factors in finding quality employees, the tech you use can make a big difference.

The next generation of roofers know that tech is the future. They use it every single day in their personal lives, so why should work be any different? Using a CRM and having tools in place to help your employees:

• Work efficiently
• Sell more roofs
• Make more money
• Become trained in modern business tools

All of these points will set you aside from other companies as the “place to work”. If you already use tech in other ways — for example, with satellite measurements — you should mention that when hiring, too. You may see a boost in your application numbers.

5. Better understanding of your business performance

A CRM provides valuable insights into customer data and analytics. You can analyze patterns, trends, and customer behavior to make informed business decisions. You can track individual sales team member performance and really narrow down into what works and doesn’t work for your customer. CRMs also provide insight into revenue, lead conversion, cost per lead, and other earning-focused values that help you feel in control of your budget.

Having data you can trust, in a place you can easily find, and presented in a readable way empowers you to use data to grow.

6 key features to look for in roofing business software and CRMs

Depending on your specific business goals, size, and needs, you may be looking for a unique set of features and tools. But, here are the 7 we absolutely recommend you look for in your software:

1. Job tracking

Your CRM should let you view your jobs as they progress down both the sales funnel, and then post-sale into job status and payment. This could look like a job board, a tag feature, or any other type of tracking.

Job tracking is important because it:

• Provides a quick, at-a-glance overview of your job status.
• Allows for tracking of average time spent in each status.
• Helps your team prioritize communication efforts.
• Empowers proactive efforts if one jobs seem to be bottle-necking in a specific place, or of leads are slowing down.

2. Reporting and analytics

As we mentioned above, reporting and analytics are what let you as a business understand how you are performing. Without reporting, any conclusions you draw about success (or failure) are without basis.

Choosing a CRM with reporting and analytics built in is key to simplify your life and save you time. Manually pulling data can take HOURS. You’re too busy for that! Make sure to look for a tool that has built in reporting and metrics, including:

• Jobs won
• Average days to complete a job
• Revenue lost from jobs lost
• Average speed to lead
• Lead source tracking
• Lead source performance
• Total active jobs
• Total pipeline value

BONUS TIP: When demoing a roofing CRM, make sure you get to actually see their reporting dashboard. Analytics need to be easy to find, understand, and draw conclusions from. Your CRM should make this easy.

3. Customer info storage

You should be able to add customer details into your CRM all in one place. Details should include:

• Name
• Contact info (email, phone number, etc)
• Address

Additional info on the customer could be their roof type, measurement info, and any jobs associated with that customer.

Never add customer info into a spreadsheet again.

4. Homeowner communication

Whether it’s emails, text messaging, sending invoices, tracking phone calls, your roofing CRM should help you communicate with your homeowners.

Good CRMs will have features to help you do this. GREAT CRMs will also have:

• Automation features so you can trigger email sends.
• Tracking so you can monitor when homeowners see proposals and how many times they open it.
• Template creation to make sending common emails easy.
• Separate categories for new leads, general communications, and proposals.

5. Material ordering

This is a feature that highlights the value of choosing a CRM built specifically for roofers. Some roofer-specific CRMs — like Roofr — are built with material ordering capabilities to truly streamline the workflows for businesses. With Roofr, for example, your satellite measurements pull a material list based on your preferred brands, and then you can automatically order materials through the CRM platform, directly from your measurement.

Material ordering abilities within your CRM make sure that your materials are:

• Ordered on time.
• Have proper waste factors built in.
• correct by eliminating the potential for human error.

It’s a features we encourage you to look for since it will save you time.

6. Invoicing and payments

There are a lot of third party tools like QuickBooks that plenty of roofers use for invoicing. But there’s an incredible number of benefits to consolidating your tech as much as possible. Choosing a CRM with built in invoicing and payment tools:

• Let you have one less tool you need to pay for.
• Eliminate the need for integrations or unstable connections.
• Simplify job tracking and follow up.
• Give you deeper tracking and monitoring abilities for payment.

Choosing the right CRM software partner for your roofing business

Choosing your software isn’t just about the tool. It’s also about the company you’re allowing to help you grow your business. With CRMs specifically, the growth and success of your business almost depends on who you partner with!

BE PICKY! Ask tough questions. Don’t just look at the product itself, but what are the sales people like? How do they respond to your questions and concerns? What do their customers have to say?

Here’s some points we encourage you to look at and ask for when choosing a CRM provider for your company:

Training

No one gets good at anything without training. Plus, it’s basically impossible to get yourself set up on a brand new software without help. Implementation, set up, and continual training are key to make sure that you get the most out of your software and are using it to its full potential.

Ask companies what kind of training and resources they have available to learn the CRM software.

Roofr, for example, gives all customers unlimited access to our Implementation and Customer Service teams at no extra cost. If you’re new to software, a company that has that type of offer could be a huge benefit.

Customer feedback

At some point, whatever software you choose, you’ll have feedback. What your software provider does with customer feedback is huge in determining if they’re really building their products with you in mind. In your demo, ask your sales rep what they do with customer feedback and see what they say.

Current customers

You may be able to find some customer stories on their website, but never hesitate to ask for contact info for some of their customers to speak with them directly. In roofing, we know how important referrals are. It’s okay to have the same expectation of your software provider.

If you want to get some opinions that don’t come from the company itself, lean on roofing facebook groups or online communities and ask for feedback from people using a specific CRM. More likely than not, you’ll have a few responses and they’d probably be willing to chat with you about their experience.

Future plans

The industry is constantly changing, and your software needs to be updating to keep up with it all. How often a CRM is updated and the plans a company has to improve its tools and add new features speaks to the level of commitment they have to providing the best tool possible to customers.

It’s the same expectation that homeowners have of you: You need to be on the lookout for the latest shingle material or roofing trend. Software companies are the same.

If they aren’t updating their CRM and they don’t have anything planning to add to or build on, then you can assume that your tool will be outdated in a year or two.

This matters SO MUCH because buying a CRM is a huge deal. You don’t want to do it every year or two because your software is outdated. You need a tool that you can grow with, that will continue to fit your needs, and is updating at the same rate the industry is.

10 question to ask a potential CRM software provider when choosing a roofing CRM

For every demo, these are the questions we insist that you ask:

1. What training and set up support do you offer for your customers? How much does it cost?
2. What process is in place at your company for customer feedback?
3. Who would be my point of contact if I have any questions or concerns if I choose your CRM?
4. How often do you update your CRM?
5. What features or tools are you planning on adding to your CRM?
6. How many users can I have on this tool? How much is it to add more?
7. Can I get the contact information for 2 or 3 of your current customers to speak with them?
8. Do other roofers use your CRM? Can you give me any examples of how their process works in your tools? Do you have customer case studies?
9. What type of security is in place for data protection for my customer’s info?
10. Do you have any promos / discounts if I purchase yearly or on a longer subscription?

Roofing CRM software: A business tool that can help you grow

Roofing CRMs are a buzz in the industry — but for good reason. This software not only helps you build a stronger business, but it can land you more jobs, help you attract quality employees, and ultimately determine the success of your business.

Don’t forget to put your own needs first when shopping for a CRM and to ask plenty of questions. We’re confident that with this guide, you can only only understand what a CRM is and how it can help you as a roofer, but also the importance of choosing the right software and the right software provider.

Want to learn a little more about roofing software tools as a whole? Check out our roofing software 101 blog here.

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