Is Your Home Services Business Losing Leads Without You Knowing It?

Yes, high quality leads are the fuel that keeps your home services business humming along. They are essential to keeping your pipeline filled so you can achieve the goals you have for your number of estimates, completed jobs, revenue, and profit.

But, before you start investing in online advertising, SEO, email marketing, social media, and other digital marketing tactics that are proven to bring in more leads, ask yourself one important question:

What’s happening to the leads you’re already getting?

That’s right, maybe you’re already getting plenty of leads. Yet, rather than turning those leads into quotes, jobs, and revenue, they are simply falling through the cracks. Or, there are reasons why the homeowners don’t follow through so you never even see the leads.

This is called lead leakage.

Before you invest a lot of your marketing budget into a Google Ads campaign or a whole new website, we advise you to run reconnaissance on where you may be losing leads. Because the minute you find those lost leads, you’ll also find more quotes, more jobs, and more record-breaking months.

So, What Is Lead Leakage?

No matter what time of day you’re reading this, chances are you’ve already LOST a few leads today.

But, you probably already knew this because you no doubt got a text that reads: “Hey, I was going to choose your home services business, but I went with your cheaper competitor instead. Good luck.”

Oh wait, that’s right, your potential customers will NEVER share this info with you.

That means, you’re NEVER going to know about those lost leads.

Your sales people will never know.

Your potential customers will never tell you.

And you’ll still remain in the dark.

That’s lead leakage. It happens when potential customers enter your marketing and sales process but don’t make it all the way to becoming a booked job.

Perhaps you get a glimpse of their inquiry. Maybe you don’t. Either way, it’s a lost opportunity.

Think of your lead generation system like a series of doors.

When a homeowner sees your business on Google, that’s one door they open.

Then, they click on your website. That’s another opened door.

They browse your site, and realize your services and professionalism match their needs. That’s another door they entered.

Now for a major door: they fill out a form, call you, or send a message.

Then, someone from your team responds. Yes, that’s a door, too.

Finally, the homeowner books the job. Great! That’s a door that leads to a bump in revenue!

Now, just look at how many doors that homeowner had to open just to do business with you. If at any point any of those doors were difficult to open because they were confusing, slow, or simply broken, you just lost the lead. And possibly a profitable long-term customer.

So, think of your own home services business. How many doors become BARRIERS that stop potential customers dead in their tracks? How many leads are you leaking?

4 Ways You’re Leaking Leads

• Lead Leak #1: The Homeowner Who Found Your Competitor First

Imagine a homeowner faces a minor emergency that your company solves. Their air goes out, their sink isn’t draining, they get an HOA violation that their lawn must be maintained.

Their first step: jumping on Google and doing a quick search.

And your home services business appears near the top… but below several of your competitors.

If another company appears first, has better reviews, or has a stronger Google Business Profile presence, your competitor just made a better impression.

Without even knowing your services or your prices, they call your competitor.

That’s lead leakage at the visibility stage. And it begs the question:

How many potential customers are searching for your services every month but finding someone else first?

• Lead Leak #2: The Website Visitor Who Never Became A Lead

In this scenario, the homeowner does find you.

They land on your website, browse the homepage, and even shuffle through a few secondary pages.

But then, those doors that should lead them straight to booking a call become obstacles.

Maybe they can’t immediately figure out what you can do for them.

Perhaps your services are unclear.

Maybe there’s no phone number or it’s buried.

What if your contact form is broken? What if your website takes too long to load? What if they question your results because they see no reviews or testimonials?

They leave your site… never to return.

That lost opportunity may have been a $20k roof replacement, a $5k HVAC job, or a $15k remodeling project.

But you never know. All you see in your analytics is one visitor that looks like all the rest.

That’s a dangerous form of lead leakage because they were so close to booking a job. But the wrong door slammed in their faces… and they left.

• Lead Leak #3: The Missed Call That Became Your Competitor’s Job

In the previous scenarios, your prospect was still deciding which home services contractor could help them best. You’re going to win some of those and lose some of those.

But, this lead leakage places the opportunity right in your lap… and you squander it.

Every phone call to your home services business should sound like an old school cash register *CHA-CHING*. Yet, sometimes the phone doesn’t get answered.

Maybe your receptionist is helping another customer?

Perhaps the technicians are in the field?

Maybe it’s after hours, or you have an auto attendant answering instead of a live body?

It doesn’t matter your excuse. Because you may have just kissed a $10k job goodbye. In most cases, that homeowner simply calls the next company on their list.

And if that company answers, you just lost that opportunity.

In this scenario, the marketing you invested your time and money into absolutely WORKED! Yet, your team dropped the ball for the worst lead leakage offense.

• Lead Leak #4: When More Traffic Doesn’t Mean More Business

Marketing agencies want to make themselves look good. So, they find just the metrics that paint a rosy picture.

Your website traffic. Your social media engagement. Your opens and clicks on your email campaigns. Your improved SEO. Your clicks from Google Ads.

Don’t ever fall for that trick. You could have the most impressive digital analytics around. But, if all of that activity isn’t converting into calls, form fills, messages, booked jobs, and completed projects, what’s the point?

A marketing system can do a great job at establishing visibility. But, it’s turning that visibility into business that’s the REAL job of marketing and sales.

This marks another type of leaked leads because they never get in front of your sales team.

Where Is Your Home Services Business Leaking Leads?

Now that you know all the ways businesses can leak leads, it’s time to look in the mirror. After working with hundreds of home services business, we found their most common lead leakage in the following:

1. Visibility
   Are potential customers finding YOU or YOUR COMPETITORS when they’re actively looking for your services?
2. Website Conversion
   Upon landing on your website, do your images, navigation, and messaging make it clear what you do and easy to take the next steps?
3. Inquiries
   Are you successfully responding to and tracking all calls, chats, form fills, and other inquiries?
4. Speed to Lead
   How quickly does someone respond when a homeowner reaches out?
5. Follow-Up
   If the homeowner doesn’t immediately book an estimate or job, do you follow up consistently until they say “Yes” or “No”?
6. Booking
   How many legitimate opportunities turned into booked jobs?
7. Sales
   How many appointments turn into paying customers?

If any of these doors are difficult to open, your prospect is moving on to another company. However, if you take time to improve each of these potential lead leaks, you will invite more inquiries, more appointments, and more closed business.

Before Investing In More Marketing and More Leads, Fix Your Leaks

Over the years, we’ve helped several plumbers throughout New Jersey and Philadelphia make a lot of money. And, when they get called for an emergency pipe leak or sewer leak, they don’t rush over to the house and start working on clearing drains. They immediately repair the leak.

You’re the plumber now. Before investing another dollar in any marketing, your job is to fix your lead leaks.

Take an honest look at every door your prospect has to go through. Thoroughly examine each one and determine if there’s a lead leak.

Visibility → Website → Inquiry → Response → Follow-Up → Booking → Revenue

Need Help In Sourcing Your Lead Leaks?
Consider Us Your Master Plumber.

What if your website simply has a broken form?
Or if your Google rankings can be improved with some quick SEO tweaks?
Or if you simply need to start answering your phones live?

Sure, we have helped hundreds of local home services businesses to grow through better marketing. Of course, we’ve implemented successful Google Ads campaigns, email marketing, social media, website SEO, and more.

But, if we can help detect a devastating lead leak that’s been costing you multiple jobs a month and tens of thousands in new revenue, wouldn’t you want to explore that first? We can help.

Request your FREE Lead Generation Battle Plan and let us know you want our “Master Plumbers” to analyze your business to find the leaks.