Duraclean Journal of Marketing, Management and Technical Topics

Becoming Successful in Restoration
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A successful restorer needs to keep in mind factors that can lead to both the homeowner and the adjuster to "buy" his/her services. This includes an understanding of the emotions and motivations of both parties. Let's first examine the homeowner's and adjustor's emotions regarding losses.

Emotional Factors

How does a homeowner view a loss to his/her home? There are several important items that come into play:

• Shock - his/her very world, place of comfort and safety has been violated. He/she has been invaded.
• Tremendous loss - items may be damaged beyond saving (or at least he/she may think that it is the case).
• Sentimental - personal items with great personal significance may have been affected.
• Anger - he/she may start to transfer hostility toward someone or something else to vent his/her emotions.
• Resentment - why me?
• Fear - what's going to happen? Will everything be covered by insurance? How is this all going to be put back together as it was before the loss?
• Cynical and suspicious - there will be people in their homes doing various things. What are they going to do? Will they do a good job? Can I rely on them?
• Greed over time - he/she may want more than is justified regarding the claim. He/she may think that the services being provided are not worth what the insurance company is paying to the restorer.

How an insurance adjuster feels about claims:

• Frustrated - so much to deal with in order to satisfy a claim.
• Overwhelmed - he/she may have over 100 open claims to close.
• Underpaid - for the time and effort put in it can be a thankless job.
• Inexperienced - with turnover rates many new adjusters struggle to perform their jobs.
• Full of fear - has to deal with adversarial relationships at times with the homeowner and the restorer as well.
• Stress - has to make the the homeowner happy as well as his/her insurance company.

A great factor in adjusters "buying" a restorer's services is based on relationships.

Buying Motivations

For homeowner it's when the restorer provides:

• Guidance - by the restorer, to be able to provide "hand holding" for the homeowner.
• Stability - the restorer needs to be a central contact, someone to hold the restoration operations altogether.
• Communication - letting the homeowner know what is happening and when.
• Illusion of control - getting the job done but giving the homeowner the impression that he/she has some "say" in what is happening.
• Trust - He/she will have confidence in what the restorer is doing.
• Hope - that his/her life will be restored
• FAST results - he/she needs to see something positive happening right away (such as having some clothes in a fire damage situation processed A.S.A.P. so he/she can have some normalcy in his/her life)

For the adjuster a restorer needs to provide:

• Justification - the restorer must document everything so there is no question as to why something is being done
• A solution to the adjustor's emotions (as listed above)
• FAST results - help the adjuster "close the file" on the claim as soon as possible
• A happy homeowner - a happy owner is a happy policy holder
• Peace for the adjuster - one worry out of the way.

If the restorer can get both parties to "buy" into the program it makes the restorer's life much easier once the job starts by drastically reducing "roadblocks" along the way so he/she can finish the job and get paid.

Labels: Insurance, Insurance Adjusters, Restoration, Sales