I’ve been to see a home owner, and they ask me to quote for a house full of windows and doors. Happy days. I sit down at my laptop to start working out the prices, naturally wanting to get it done as soon as possible. So the last thing I need is to be held up because I don’t have enough product info or prices to be able to put my quote together.

If I do, I have to ring or email suppliers to ask the questions I need answers to. They might need to go away and find out themselves before they get back to me. That might be a short amount of time, maybe longer. During which I’m now held up because I’m waiting certain bits of information that I need to complete my price.

Its an installer’s nightmare. In today’s fast moving world where home owners want prices almost instantly, fabricators have to give installers absolutely every tool to installers to allow them to do their jobs as unhindered as possible.

Installer silence

For a fabricator, other than social or PR calls, you don’t want to be hearing from you installer all that often. For an installer, all you want to be doing is your sales job with the absolute minimum disruption. But it pays for both parts of the business relationship.

If an installer can be as efficient as possible in terms of sales and quotes, it gives them the best chance possible to win new business from home owners. If they are held up for any reason, it immediately becomes less likely that they will win that business. Speed is key. You don’t want your local competition to get in first and steal good contracts.

Its works for the fabricator too. If your installer customers are able to go about their work efficiently, quoting your products to home owners as speedily as possible, you’re going to get more sales in return. Fairly basic stuff you would assume.

When I cast my eye across the industry and quietly observe who is doing what, its clear that some fabricators really do understand the important of giving installers all the tools necessary to do their jobs as best as possible. Some are not. Some companies are really investing heavily in technology and cloud-based software which allows installers to easily quote whatever they need in minutes and produce their paperwork. Some are not.

Look at companies like TruFrame. They have heavily invested in online services including ordering, home owner lead generation, order tracking, instant pricing with their RemoteSatellite software. An installer would be able to quickly price a job for a home owner and then, assuming they win the job, order just as quickly. They don’t have to fill in paperwork, they don’t have to pick up the phone. All the information is there straight away, order placed ASAP, happy installer, happy TruFrame and happy home owner. Had the fabricator not given the installer those tools to make that happen, would their chances of winning the work been just as high? Probaly not. Installer misses out, so does the fabricator.

Solidor is another one. Whether it’s a lead generated by the installer or the manufacturer, you can enter the door details in less than a minute and it churns out a price for you. The installer can turn that into a quotes in minutes at their end, and get the quote to the customer in quick time, giving them a better chance of winning the order.

It sounds simple, and it is from the perspective of the installer. But for the fabricators, it means big investment, usually six figures, and choosing the right tech companies to make their vision a reality. Its a risk for the supplier. There is no guarantee that the investment will pay off. Which means they rely on choosing the right people with the right skills to make it happen. Hopefully for the likes of TruFrame and Solidor their investments have already paid dividends.

Invest in tech

The easiest solution to ensure installers have everything they could possibly need is to invest in technology. The could be high quality online pricing systems, knowledge centres accessed via websites, stock imagery to demonstrate to home owners, online ordering and tracking. Even online chat with suppliers so if they do need to ask a question, they can get a quick answer back and stay on-screen remaining focused on the job at hand.

The future for our industry lies heavily in technology. You can see how other sectors around us have embraced it and have found how profitability and efficiency have improved. Our industry has to do the same.

In areas we are already on that path. Websites are becoming information and resource centres, with online pricing and ordering capabilities. Social media is employed heavily as a way of quick communication between installer and supplier. Companies are building image libraries to help their installers sell their products to home owners.

A failure to adapt to new demands and ways of working will mean business is lost to competitors who can offer installers the whole package. The easier it is for installers to do their job the more likely they are to coalesce around companies who facilitate that. Companies who are slow to adapt will slowly fade away.

So, invest in technology and give installers every tool they need to be able to do their jobs as unhindered and simply as possible. The rewards will come naturally from there.

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