Reputation management with Marketing Pro earns Nova Basements more jobs

Mike Flores of Nova Basement Systems recently had a call from a customer who needed some major work on her two-story home.

First, though, the entire first floor had to be torn up to replace rotted crawl space. Which meant the house needed structural work in addition to new floors, in addition to the new kitchen and bathroom already planned.

“All the structural work, new flooring, just that part alone is going to be about $40,000,” said Flores, one of three owners and General Manager of Nova. “And that doesn’t include the remodel she plans upstairs.”

The woman had researched Nova. She found 122 Google reviews. She told Flores she kept scrolling to try to find the bad ones, and she couldn’t.

Nova attributes its ratings to its decision to use Marketing Pro when it joined ServiceTitan. Its focus is on Marketing Pro-Reputation, which sends customers a text message requesting a review of a job. The text comes from the same number the business uses to call customers, tightening the loop between company and customer.

A good review starts the business cycle again, because potential customers see the review, trust the company and turn to the business for work.

Marketing Pro also lets companies log into multiple review sites and manage them all from one dashboard. Reputation captures all reviews, and provides a linkable blog on best practices for responding to bad reviews.

In the spring of 2021, Nova had 19 Google reviews and averaged 3.4 stars. As of August 2022, and after just more than one year with Marketing Pro, the business has 122 reviews and a 4.7-star average.

Reviews alone will not carry a company. A review is based on quality of work and the way the company treats a customer. To go from an average of 3.4 to an average of 4.7 means Nova was receiving a lot of five-star ratings in just more than a year, which meant it was doing a lot right. But the ease of getting the customer to post a review and the ability to respond to them via Marketing Pro are what help turn quality work into more work. (Nova also takes advantage of follow-up emails via Marketing Pro, and saw open rates of 52.2%, 75% and 57.9% for the three efforts.)

Mark Strauss, Nova’s Communications Director, is also the owner of Strauss Training, which stresses creating relationships with customers in generating business and building a client base His approach says, “We’re in the fear-treating business.” Honest and real communication help bridge gaps and avoid potential issues. Communication builds relationships, and Nova provides that. Marketing Pro-reputation turns the successes in communication into a viewable review that spreads good news and generates more business.

Back to the woman who needed the structural work. She saw one common thread in the five-star reviews that led her to hire Nova: the words “great communication.”

“She said to us, ‘To be quite honest, you find these contractors -- they're fly by night,’” Flores said. “‘Contractors,’ she said, ‘no offense, are the worst at communication.’”

When she saw the positives about communication in Nova’s review, she decided they were the ones to call.

The addition of Marketing Pro was “one of the biggest reasons she chose us,” Flores said.

That is just one example of the way ServiceTitan brings different elements of a business together to generate success.

“Had I not had Marketing Pro to be able to have people tell us how great we are at communication, what's the likelihood she would have gotten multiple bids?” Flores said. “What's the likelihood that I get the sale? So all of that came from the investment and from putting the time and energy into building that out so that way, when those requests go out for people, that they respond to it. I mean, that's been huge for us.”

“Marketing Pro provides a very streamlined way for people to share their experience,” Strauss said. “That's where the software, the marketing, the language, the sales, the business, the growth, the morale -- they all meet.”