Happy customers create referrals and repeat projects. We sat down with Stephanie Harvey, our Head of Customer Success, to get her 3 key strategies for delighting your customers.
Below is a lightly edited version of the interview.
Hearth: Stephanie, thanks for joining us!
SH: Thanks for having me!
Hearth: First question — how long have you been working in customer success?
SH: I’ve been working in customer success for over 10 years, and I’ve been working here at Hearth in customer success for about 6 months now.
Hearth: And what’s your favorite part of working with our customers?
SH: There are a lot of things I love about working with our customers. I enjoy really getting to know our customers and what they need, and delivering what they ask for to make their business better. I love the problem solving aspect of it, and also just hearing the smile on their face when they get a customer funded and have success.
Hearth: That’s awesome. We want to be able to take your three expert tips for keeping our customers happy, and share them with our customers to use with their homeowners. So, let’s start with the first tip!
SH: A big tip is communication — keeping the lines of communication open with the customer so they know exactly what’s going on with their project, what needs to be done, where they are in the process, etc. A lot of that will translate into what our contractors want to bring to their own customers. Keeping those lines of communication open is very valuable, so the homeowner is never wondering, “When is this project going to be completed?”, or “What else might they have uncovered when starting this project on my home?”. It’s important to really make them a part of your process.
Hearth: Sounds like a great tip for positive customer service. What is your second tip for our customers?
SH: My second tip would be making yourself available to your customer. Your customer will have questions for you and will want to know things like: what materials will be used, what is your time frame estimate of the project, what are the hours, how many people will be working on this, etc. It goes a long way to make yourself available to the customer for any questions or needs — let them know they can call you or text you.
Hearth: Sounds great. Finally, specifically for Hearth customers, what is the the third tip that you’ve found to be successful?
SH: The third tip is making sure your homeowner knows what they might need in order to get pre-qualified or even qualified and funded through the Hearth platform. Not everybody has requested a loan in their lifetime, and this is new for a lot of your homeowners. To ease their concern and worries, you can let them know upfront, “Ok, to pre-qualify for the loan, you might need to put in your social security number. Once qualified, you might need to put in your banking information so the lending partner can actually get the funds into your bank account. You might need to have a document or two handy like your W-2 and proof of income.
So just being clear and letting them know exactly what things might be asked of them, what things might be needed as they’re going through the pre-qualification process really puts their mind at ease.
Hearth: Thank you for your time and tips, I’m sure these will be of a lot of help to our customers!
