I Secret Shopped 20+ Roofers. Are YOU Making These 7 Mistakes?

Roofing, this is— how can I help you?

I sat down and played secret shopper to call roofing companies, and I spotted these 7 mistakes that are costing them appointments. I made this video because leads are more expensive now than ever before. So if you are bleeding opportunities because your phone answering service or personnel aren't converting those into set appointments, well, this video is going to help you convert more leads without spending a single penny. My name is Adam Bensman. Welcome or welcome back. I'm so excited to jump into this video. This is the kind of real-time feedback that we give each other inside the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance, and seldom do I share this outside the group. And this is one of those rare occasions because I had permission up front. Now let's rock and roll right into mistake number 1 and see if you can spot it.

Roofing, this is [MASKED]. How can I help you?

Hey, [MASKED], how you doing? Uh, my name is Adam and I'm calling to see if I can get some help with a roof estimate.

Yes, I can help set up an appointment for that. And what is your last name, Adam?

Uh, Plant. P-L-A-N-T.

And a phone number for you?

All right. You notice that? Yeah. Cold, sterile, low energy introductions. Now you know that if someone picks up the phone and calls your office, according to some market research that Marcus Sheridan had shared, 80% of the buying decision has already been made because someone already either got a referral from you, they found you online, they read your reviews, they vetted you against competitors. So with 80% of the buying decision already made, that initial The impression that you create, whether it's a robotic automatic voice from a phone, an IVR system, or whether it's a low-energy person, "Thanks for calling. How can I help you?" That will either validate their decision, which is 80% made, or say, "You know what? You should call the next person." So what you wanna do is when you secret shop your own company, ask yourself when you close your eyes, am I creating a world-class experience in getting prospects excited and feeling like they made the right choice by calling my company? If not, there's your chance to fix it. Mistake number 2.

"The best phone number to reach you at?" Yes, it is. "You want to put down any other phone number?" You know, nope.

This will be fine. It's my cell phone.

"Okay, perfect. No problem. And what is the home address?" Perfect.

"And how did you hear about us?" You know, I was jumping online and just googling and You guys came up and had good reviews online.

Absolutely. I love to hear it.

Asking the question, how did you hear about us? This is wild. It's amazing how many people make this mistake. And I know, although I opened up the introduction saying I called this handful of roofing companies, since these recordings were done in 2024, almost 2 years ago, I have since done cold calling live in our members-only events. And I continue to see these mistakes and people ask, How did you hear about us? Well, guess what? It doesn't matter, and it's not gonna help the sales process along. As I shared before with mistake number 1, 80% of the buying decision is already made. So at this point, you need to ask this question instead: Hey, why did you choose to call blank? And fill in the blank for your roofing company. Why? Because what you're looking for is for a homeowner to validate their decision and say, I chose you because my uncle referred you. You did my neighbor's roof. I saw your 5-star reviews. You've been in the neighborhood. And they are validating their decision, and it's an opportunity for your intake team to, to reward them and confirm that they made a great choice. All that matters is after they become a customer, you can find out how they found out about you, but don't miss this easy opportunity. Number 3, Area code's— [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] It is, and that's in Englewood.

Is it a tile or a shingle roof?

Uh, shingle roof.

Okay, so what kind of estimate are we looking for? Do we need a repair, replace?

Yeah, uh, replacement. My insurance company said they're going to drop us if we don't get the roof done.

Oops, well, that's not good. That's not nice of them.

No, no, it's not.

All right, let me see when I can get out there for you. Give me just a minute here. So that's Charlotte County?

Uh, yes.

Okay, all right, let's see what we've got here. It actually looks like I could get him out there tomorrow between 11:30 and 12:30 if that would work for you.

Yeah, that'd be great.

And do you have an email that I can send an appointment confirmation to?

Uh, yes.

Okay. And can I ask how you heard about us?

Yeah, you know, I, uh, I was referred. Someone I know knows and said they give you guys a buzz.

Oh, okay. All right. Well, Adam Bensman will be out there tomorrow and he can answer any questions you may have when he's out there as well, okay?

Perfect. Hey, thank you very much. Not qualifying your leads. Now, it's so important for your intake team which is essentially inside sales to gather as much information as possible to do what's known as setting the table for your sales team. So, they can show up to not only give a an amazing customer service experience, making people feel heard and understood, but it will increase your team's close rate. And I'll give you a few examples of best ways to qualify your leads. And for whatever it's worth, well, let's just get into it. Number 1 is to simply ask the question, "What's the problem with the roof?" And some people are like, "Oh, I don't wanna ask that." Yeah, you can. If they say there's no problem, immediately you know that this might be a replacement due to age. Maybe the homeowner got a drop letter from their insurance. So it's really important to ask that question. What's the problem with the roof? Number 2 is to ask qualifying questions about where they're at in the process by asking, hey, where are you guys at in the process? Is this their first estimate, their third estimate? If this is insurance, an insurance claim, or if they're electively replacing their roof, if they're interested in affordable financing options, and asking the question just about your home. Is this a home that you're planning on staying in for a couple years, or is this your forever house? Because by having all of that information up front, you will be prepared for your sales team out of the gate to know, are we offering maybe a premium roofing system, uh, Class 4 impact-resistant shingle, metal roofing system, and whether or not they want to be hearing about financing, which you should be offering to everybody. But it'd be great if the sales team knew that up front. I go into all this and more in a training that's available to members of the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance, and it's called the Inbound Leads Phone Sales Strategy with a full script covering a lot of this. But let's continue with the next mistake. Mistake number 4: phone number, area code is actually Wisconsin number.

And if I check, you have an email so I can send that estimate to you when we're done. And what kind of roof does the house want to have on it?

Uh, shingle. Whatever your regular old shingles are.

Is this going to be out of pocket or is it going to be insurance related?

Um, I'm, I mean, I'm not sure quite yet. I would, I would probably guess out of pocket.

Okay. Um, does tomorrow work for someone to come check it out?

Uh, yeah, I work from home. So what, what times do you—

11 work?

Uh, yeah, 11 will work.

And what's just going on with the roof, by chance?

You know, it's, it's just, it's old. It's near that point in time. I know we've had a bunch of hailstorms come through over the years. Um, it's time to get done. And if there's something— if, if there's damage and the insurance will cover it, I'd love to know that. Otherwise, I know we just gotta, we just gotta go through with it.

Okay. And then one more question. How about, how'd you hear about us?

You know, I was doing just some Google searching and you guys came up and saw your reviews and all that.

Okay, perfect. Okay, yeah, I can get you in tomorrow at 11 for someone to come check it out for you.

Awesome. Is not discussing financing on the calls. As Chris Scoville with Improveify says— and by the way, Chris brings so much value to the roofing industry. He doesn't know I'm giving him the shout out right now, but Chris, you rock, dude. Thank you for the, for the, uh, community support you've given to us and the trainings you've run. But Chris says to, to bring up financing early and often, and I couldn't agree more. Now, it should be even in your marketing material, but right now we're talking about handling inbound leads over the phone. And it's so important to bring financing up, to let people know that you offer it because homeowners shopping for a roof, remember, they're buying the single most expensive maintenance item on their home and it's the most boring thing in the entire world that no one wants to spend their money on. So if there's like concern or fear surrounding cost and you don't bring up financing, you are losing, even if the salespeople will, you are losing opportunities against everybody else by just saying, "Hey, are you interested in learning about our affordable financing solutions that fit nearly any budget?" Mistake number 5, shockingly common.

Alrighty, got you down. And what is the best number to contact you at?

This one is my cell phone. It's—

Okay, I have got your contacts created. Now give me just a moment. Let me pull pull the home up on Google Earth and get a little look at it. While I do that, if you don't mind me asking, how did you find—

You know, I was Googling roofing companies, you guys had come up, and I noticed you had a 5-star review, so here we are.

Awesome, yay, I love that. Cool, cool, cool. I process all of our reviews and respond to them, so it makes my heart really happy when people get to see them. Awesome. Okay, this is such a gorgeous home. It looks like it's kind of two colors on the front. Um, looks like maybe that's like stone or— no, that's brick. And then up at the top, it's kind of this white color. Is that the right home?

Yep, that's the one.

Okay, wonderful. Yeah, we can definitely get someone out there. It looks like it's a two-story, correct?

That's correct, yep.

Okay, excellent. Yeah, we can definitely get someone out there. Let me, um, see who's available, and then once I assign you to someone, they're going to give you a call and schedule a time to come out, um, and do an inspection. So they'll definitely give you a call today. Hopefully they'll be able to come out today. If not, they should be able to get out there tomorrow. Okay, okay.

Not setting the appointment on the call. If you end up doing this, I gotta call you back, we're gonna find out when someone's available, I'm gonna assign the lead— this is costing you more money than you could ever imagine. Because as homeowners call and you say, I don't know who can help you or when, you are basically saying we're disorganized, I don't know who's where, and I'll have to call you back. And you and I both know that by the time someone calls them back, you likely get stuck stuck in the voicemail loop and never make contact, so you completely lose the opportunity. Now put yourself in a position where imagine that you were calling to schedule a haircut with your barber, and I'm due for one myself. Imagine you call the barber and say, "Hey man, I'm calling to schedule a haircut," and they say, "Great, we're busy right now. Let me take your name and number and I'll call you back in a day or so when we can figure out our schedule." What do you do? You just call the next barber to get the appointment set. So if you are unable to set the appointment now, I'm going to give you a little tip and it is this. Use what I call the cable guy method and say, hey, not a problem. We book our appointments in 3-hour windows, 9 to noon, noon to 3, or 3 to 6. I have availability on Tuesday from 9 to noon or Wednesday from 3 to 6. Which one works best? Once they confirm, now you can say, great, thank you. So you're not waiting around for someone to give you a buzz or to show up. You'll be hearing from our team by the end of this business day, and if they don't catch you, they'll leave a voicemail confirming the exact date and time. Now you can find out who can run that lead. They'll call them and say, all right, I had the 9 to noon, I'm going to show up at 11:30. And if no one's available, it's easy. You just say, hey, we had a little scheduling snafu. I'm glad I caught you. Let's pick a new time. So your key takeaway, make sure you convert that inbound call into an appointment while you have the prospect on the horn. Mistake number 6, this one is probably the most common. Hey there, I'm calling to see if I can get some help on my roof.

Absolutely, what do you got going on?

You know, I'm not quite sure. I don't know if we've got storm damage or just need to get our roof replaced, but our roof's pretty old and I just wanted to get someone to take a peek at it and see what what we need to be doing and how much it might cost.

Awesome. We would love to help you out with that. What is your first name?

First name's Mike.

Mike. And your last name?

Plant. P-L-A-N-T.

Okay. And how'd you hear about us?

You know, I jumped on Google and I just started searching around for folks near St. Paul. You guys came up. You guys had good reviews. I figured I'd give you a buzz.

Awesome. Love it. What is your address?

It is, and that's in St. Paul.

Awesome. When are you available for one of us to pop out?

You know, I work from home, so whenever is good for you guys will work for me.

Awesome. Give me one sec here. How about Wednesday at 11?

Yeah, that'll, that'll work.

Awesome. I'll have— stop out there this coming Wednesday the 24th at 11.

Awesome. And that's not explaining the next steps. See, humans by nature always want to know what's going to happen next. And one of the best ways to build trust is tell people what you're going to do and then follow through. So while the prospect is on the phone, it's important that you guide them. This is what's going to happen next. You're going to get a confirmation text and email from us. We send all of our notices by text. We find it's the fastest way to communicate with folks. Is that okay with you, or would you prefer email? And that way you can make a note in the file on how they like to communicate. Now, on the day of your appointment— and then you just start explaining— someone's gonna show up, they're gonna knock your door, they're gonna be in a company-branded truck with company apparel. The appointment time will last about so long, and this is how it will go. This is a no-pressure appointment designed to give you the information you need to be comfortable and confident making a decision. We'll be presenting you with various options to replace your roof, whether you want the last roof you ever buy or an essential roof package at the most attainable budget, all available with affordable financing options. Now, this is how we set the expectations, because then when you— your sales rep shows up and does everything that you said you're gonna do, you look like a professional rock star. And in fact, In another video, when I analyzed the most common emotional words and phrases used by homeowners to describe their 5-star experience, the word professional was at the top of the list. This is how you create a professional experience.

In mistake number 7, Your call is now being forwarded. Please hold. Thank you for calling. Please leave a brief message.

Is not answering the phone. It goes straight to voicemail. You're ringing after hours. The phone line is busy. This little operational snafu is terrible. In fact, there was one time years ago that I was sitting inside a roofing company in Denver, Colorado in their office. I said, "Let's secret shop your company." I went through the decision or the phone tree and I clicked this was a commercial property. And guess what? The phone, it didn't even ring in the office. And we just found out that it was being forwarded to an employee who had been terminated months ago. Which meant any inbound commercial call was going into no man's land. So if your phone is not being answered, you don't know where it's ported, it's going straight to voicemail, the voicemail box isn't set up, you gotta fix it. And one of the easiest ways to do that is to integrate an AI phone answering service, at the very least in after hours, so you can convert those calls into set appointments. I hope this video inspires you to secret shop your company right now. Pick up the phone, dial it, and experience it for yourself. My guess is you might spot one of these 7 mistakes that you can quickly plug just like that and start getting even more leads without spending a penny. And if you want to experience more real-time feedback and coaching to build a profitable, future-proof company you love, join me inside the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance. Click the link in the description to learn more or apply to join.