in the clients mind

[John Dirks Jr]

Consider a typical person searching for a home inspector. In their mind they have a few things they want to know about inspections and inspectors.

What do you think the top 3 things that a person wants to find out when they search for an inspector?

[RobC]

There is only one thing they want to know

What's in it for me!

[Mark P]

Cost?

What the inspection Entails?

Inspectors Experience?

Scheduling Availability

[Terence McCann]

1st. Price

2nd. Cost

3rd. How much?

To be honest very few ever ask for qualifications.

[Richard Moore]

Scheduling Availability

Scheduling Availability

Scheduling Availability

It wasn't always that way, but I'd guess that over 80% of the calls I now get start with...

I need an inspection done by... or

I'd like to schedule an inspection... or

Are you available to do an inspection on... etc, etc.

The vast majority of my clients had already decided they wanted to use me before the first contact so I don't find myself having to go through the other stuff very much...which is good...I hate selling myself. I often have to bring up the fee myself at the end of the booking.

I rarely end up booking an inspection when the first question is cost. I know I'm supposed to go into some spiel about how great I am, etc, etc, but I normally just point them to my website and tell them that there's more info there. It's not an approach I'd recommend if you want to grab as many inspections as possible, but it works for me. I married well! []

[SonOfSwamp]

Ditto Richard. My co-inspector and I were always hired before anybody called to book an inspection.

Best I could tell, the folks who wanted us to do their inspection had just one criterion: I want those guys.

FWIW, we bypassed RE referrals by running a perpetual ad in the local alternative newsweekly; and, 50,000 papers were printed each week with the ad and my little column.

WJ

[Brandon Whitmore]

I rarely get asked up front what my fee is. Sometimes the price never comes up, and I forget to tell the caller what the fee is. Recently, scheduling has been the main question, but it seems to fluctuate. My typical caller just says " I was referred by so and so, and need to have an inspection"

To answer the question, the top 3 things people want to know are:

1) what do we look at

2)When can we do the job

3)How soon can they get the report.

#1 million: What are my qualifications (they rely on referrals it seems....)

I sometimes get callers who ask me if I will just do a partial major systems inspection of a home in order to save some bucks. My answer is NO, because I have found that finding small issues leads me to finding much larger ones. I don't think I've lost a job after explaining that to them.......