Provider Guide - Give Back
Give Back
So you've used Service Central for a while, and you've been in the business long enough to realise that there is one major problem in the industry.
There is a massive imbalance between what you know and what your customer knows.
That's right, it's quite simple. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Why do they need your services anyway? Sure, it could be that they simply don't have time, but mostly it's about them not having the skills or the licence to do the work. And why are customers often suspicious of tradespeople? Because they don't understand.
It's such a common complaint at Service Central, and customers general inexperience and knowledge comes up in many different industries. For example, a bricklayer will complain that none of their customers know that to lay bricks you often need a trench as well as a concrete base poured. Builders will experience delays because customers don't know that they need to get permits, or customers don't know that not all builders can help with permits! Customers don't know that replacing a whole window doesn't need the services of a glazier, but replacing the glass does. The list goes on...
Here are some of the ways that you can help your customers, and help yourself at the same time!
1. Write articles, guides and tips for your customers
Writing down your experiences, advice and stories is a great way to share your knowledge with the public.
When you write and submit an article, we'll help you with any editing and publish your article on both our public site, as well as your online web profile. All your customers will see your article when you respond to jobs, and the public will see it when they are reading articles or browsing around the website.
There are no limits to what you can talk about. Some ideas are:
- Top 5 questions to answer when you want a new deck built
- The story of my most interesting job
- The challenges of my industry
- Common mistakes in choosing a tradesperson
- How my business works - who does what?
You can add pictures, videos even, anything really (obviously avoiding all offensive content).
To submit an article, or ask for help on your article, email direct to enquiries@servicecentral.com.au. Check out this article written by one of our registered businesses.
2. Suggest new categories
Categories are what we use to make sure that your business receives only the work that you are targeting. We're constantly refining and improving our category definition as part of our Quality Jobs Program. Sometimes, categories won't be specific enough, and so a new category will be needed. For example, some improvements we've made in the past are:
- We found a lot of dog walking requests in 'Handyman - Odd Jobs' so we created a whole new category for this. - Lots of people wanted existing insulation cleaned, so we added a new Insulation Category ie Insulation Cleaning. - Doggy doors can be placed into glass or wooden doors, but initially this category was only under 'Handyman' and not 'Glaziers' which meant that all the handymen who responded to the glass door ones had to apply for a rollback, and the customers were left with nothing but a visit or call from a friendly handyman.
If you'd like to contribute to our Quality Jobs Program and suggest a new addition or change to an existing category, send your idea to suggestions@servicecentral.com.au.
3. Suggest standard questions for jobs
Service Central has lots of job categories - over 120 major categories (eg Electrician) and over 1000 subcategories (eg Electricians - Powerpoints). Whenever a job is posted, the customer or call centre agent is prompted to answer some questions that relate directly to the category that they've chosen. So, for example, in the category Electricians - Powerpoints, we ask the question 'How many points are to be terminated or created?'. This gives your business more info about the job, and means that the people that respond to the job definitely want the job! Again, this improvement initiative is part of our Quality Jobs Program, and we are adding or changing 'Job specific questions' every week.
If there are questions you'd like answered on every job in a category or subcategory, make your suggestion to suggestions@servicecentral.com.au.
