There’s been one common theme I’ve been noticing in my recent conversations with shop owners: proactive sign servicing. Shops all over the country have begun to join the movement behind the popular trend. Some sign businesses now have teams that go out on weekly, or sometimes even daily, patrols to check their local installs to make sure everything is in good working order.
These survey teams then get ahead of possible problems on the customer’s end, like damaged lights, damaged channel letters, fading banners and more. While this requires some time and labor costs for your team, the customer service element of the operation results in a large net positive for these shops. It lets the end user customer know that your business cares and that you handle yourself professionally.
Big players in the industry like YESCO are now adding this service element to their teams’ responsibilities. YESCO even has its own in house-survey app that is utilized by all franchise members.
The market clearly needs this additional service, and it’s especially effective in areas that are affected by hurricane damage during this season that is now wrapping up. It also proves to be quite effective and necessary during the winters throughout the Great Plains, Midwest and East Coast.
The concept of preventative maintenance is obviously not groundbreaking, but adding a service like this to your shop’s repertoire increases your brand’s strength and puts the customer at ease. Also, it helps prevent income from slipping away from you.
For one reason or another, some customers may reach out to a different shop or a local handyman to help them repair a problem they experience with the signage you provided. That’s clearly not something you want to have happen, and this concept of sign surveillance and servicing helps prevent it.
So, what are some tangible steps to get this type of process started? First, you need to map out all of your drivable installations in the area surrounding your shop. Then, you could use an AI tool like Chat GPT to create an optimal driving route for your crew to go on when it’s time to do their weekly checks. You could even use it as some motivation to put a fresh new wrap advertising your shop on one of the work trucks or cars.
This way, when your team is patrolling your jobs looking for problems, they’re also out there doing some organic OOH marketing for the shop. You could even also ask the crew to take pictures of the installs along the route, or even document some poor signage on local businesses that you don’t work with, because they could always be in the market for some new signage.
If you have a plethora of installations sprawled out around your shop’s local area, it only makes sense to join the movement and implement a sign surveillance and maintenance plan. You can get a head of problems, find new customers and increase your shop’s branding presence in the area. What’s not to like?
