Why Inspectors (and their clients) Love the ISG Warranty Packages

Thinking about adding value to your inspections with one of the Inspector Services Group warranty packages? Currently offering warranties and want to get the most out of what we offer?

That’s pretty much in a nutshell the two questions we get countless times daily here at our headquarters in Carmel. We have a team of professionals led by Mike Doerr that make the process as easy as possible and inspection company owners that take advantage of everything we offer realize quickly the benefits to their marketing, close rates, and client experience. The results have been higher volume, higher profits, and drastically reduced liability.

The biggest challenge in our business is conveying the benefits and best practices. Over the past two decades we’ve been building features and options in response to client demand that equate to literally thousands of variations on what we do that can be customized to fit the needs of any inspection company seeking to take their operation to the next level. It's something quite unique in the industry. There's nothing out there that has quite the same level of resources and compliance features or the millions invested in programming that makes these offerings so easy to use and customizable.

I’m going to simplify the process for you here and I’ve divided it up into categories based on the areas most inspectors focus on when they implement our services.

Choosing a Package that is right for your Company (and clients)

Whether you’re brand new or a seasoned veteran in home inspection, I have a word of warning for you: Warranties work best when you are delivering quality work. If you’re new and feel you need some education in an area, check out Home Inspection University at http://www.HomeInspectionUniversity.com . Log in for free, check out hundreds of area specific courses. We even have a 60 hour full home inspection classroom course right there online. It’s totally FREE. It’s open to all. We’re serious about inspection education and of course there are other resources out there as well. Take advantage of them.

We find that inspectors generally come to us very qualified. Our average client that signs up for our services has been in the business over 7 years. It’s not that we will turn you away if you’re on the newer side – we have some great clients we’ve seen grow into the business quickly and our resources to support a newer inspector in the business are vast – it’s that inspectors tend to hit a “marketing wall” after the first few years. They find that getting their name out there got them some inspections, word of mouth and a good reputation got them a few more, but when they really wanted to kick it into high gear and have a better marketing message they needed to add value to their inspection. They needed to add something that the client can point to and say “that’s something different and valuable”.

This is where choosing the Package that is right for your company becomes crucial. Some inspectors start slow and don’t want to commit to something that has a cost before they realize a return on that investment. We built a “starter package” just for that purpose and it has a really crazy price: $10 per inspection or less. It includes a mechanical and structural warranty, great marketing support, literally thousands of promotional pieces for use both digitally and in print, and a myriad of web resources you can plug right into your website. Most inspectors simply raise their price by the $10-$20 to offset the cost and in about two decades of offering these services we have yet to see an inspector that had issues getting their local market to accept such a modest price increase. Some don’t initially increase pricing if their focus is rapid ramp up on volume, so what we do is charge nothing for the first 90 days. This gives us time to get your marketing collateral together and deploy it and for your company to realize higher demand prior to billing you anything. Beyond the incredible advantage to inspectors realizing ROI before being out of pocket, it gives many with a decent base volume of business currently a chance to see good client experiences before making it a larger part of their marketing plan.

A summary of our ISG Warranty Plans

While you can customize the plans in any way that you’d like, most inspectors start off with one of three packages:

90 Day Warranty + RecallChek

This is sort of our basic package and the price point is low enough that it works for companies at all stages of growth. Some start here because the messaging is very simple and as they’re getting started simplicity in scripting, presentations, and how it is explained to the client at inspection can be important.

SewerGard

Our #1 add on to the package above is SewerGard. It’s a relatively minimal cost to add and it adds a lot of value to the marketing of any home inspection company. The marketing collateral for SewerGard is well developed and conveys the message perfectly.

The Full Package

The “Full Package” as we call it comes with the 90 Day Warranty, SewerGard, MoldSafe, and our Five Year Roof Leak Protection. Generally the cost for this package is around $25 per inspection, but if you have some pricing elasticity it’s pretty easy to absorb it into the cost of the inspection. Most that choose this package are focused on adding value in a way that would support a higher inspection fee – and it works quite well for that purpose. For those in rapid growth mode, nothing sells quite like the Roof Leak Protection.

Implementation

Most sign up at http://www.InspectionSuccess.net and then go through a short implementation session with one of our account reps. We automate the submission process through your inspection software or CRM, do a short training session on common uses of our mobile apps and websites, get a tour of the marketing resources and some guidance on the easiest components to add to websites and create some simple and fast marketing pieces.

Admin & Efficiency

As your business grows, you have to have the tools to grow with it. Hundreds of our clients have found the simplest way to increase their bandwidth is to implement our call center and most start off doing so on a part time basis. By sending over only calls that couldn’t be answered because your staff was already busy or you weren’t available, you can make sure all calls are answered and as many inspections as possible get booked. The biggest thing our clients find convenient is that they don’t have to train our call center reps and we can implement a solution with customization to your business in a matter of days. Whatever your warranty package, our team is trained to express it properly to clients to get your close rate up and avoid “discounting to win the inspection”. Many of our clients give us the authority to discount on some minor level when necessary to get the client, which is one of the questions we ask when our call center specialists get you set up. While we run the largest call center in the industry by number of inspection companies, we are far from the call center billing being the highest in the industry. We encourage through our rollover call center approach inspection companies building a small staff to handle the day to day and utilizing our services as an overflow to manage cost and deliver the best experience to clients. That’s not to say we can’t handle all your admin – we do for many – but most inspectors just prefer to keep some things in house. They also have other purposes for admin staff that may require a local presence.

Focus on Increasing your Close Rate

When a client calls in to book with you or inquire about rates, make sure they know that your inspection includes warranty coverage. There are some simple ways to do this. For instance, add the following verbiage somewhere in the call;

“Your Inspection includes a mechanical and structural warranty for 90 days from the date of inspection or 22 days after closing, whichever comes later, in case something that was noted as being in good condition later fails. Taking care of our clients is our #1 priority and this is one of several ways we accomplish that.”

You can make a slight modification to that verbiage for other coverages. Our system can be set to automatically distribute the policies, in which case you might add “A copy of all of your policies will be sent via email. What is the best email address for you so that we can send your report and these protection plans to?” (Sure beats “What’s your email address”)

Get the Phone to Ring More Often

Our staff will generally send you a sample of a website to show you a great presentation of the warranties to get website visitors to convert to clients more often. Here’s one of my favorites:

http://www.maxhomeinspections.com

I could post hundreds of great examples, but what I like about this one is that right at the top the client is hit with the message of the 5 Year Roof Warranty, then as they scroll down looking for more information they get this chart with an almost overwhelming presentation about how much value comes with each inspection. It also happened to be up on another screen when I started writing this. So I chose the easy path.

Remember this: Most people that come to your website are looking for an inspection. They need a reason to choose your inspection company.

Warranties are just a simple way to do that. Most of our clients don’t rely solely on web traffic (some areas just don’t support it and where it does some just have aspirations that go beyond what a typical site would generate on its own). So we have a marketing department that makes custom brochures and fliers and promo items if none of the hundreds of pieces on our Resource Site give you the image you’re looking for.

Increase your Revenue

Once you have that professional image and awesome marketing message locked and loaded, clients tend to move into the increasing revenue stage of business. Most of our clients that have sought these opportunities with us find them in the following places:

1. Adding Services (like environmental testing through PriorityLab http://www.PriorityLab.com )
2. Putting together packages to increase per inspection revenue
3. Implementing Warranty Sales (one year policies)

When you add up the annual revenue we’ve created with inspectors on just these 3 items, it’s astounding. In 2019 alone so far, our clients have billed out over $40 Million in mold and environmental testing and that number continues to increase as we improve on things like our “Mold Menu” which make it incredibly easy to present to clients on site. Packages have done well too – roughly $130 Million in upgrades we’ve tracked through our systems like NXT Inspekt (a CRM for inspectors that automates the upgrade process that you can access at http://www.NXTInspekt.com ). Then there is the opportunity to offer your client the full warranty as an extension to the free inspection warranties. We will pay out several million in commissions to our inspection clients on this in 2020 and the majority of that business will come from email generated business that required no direct sales activity by inspectors.

How easy is it to add these revenue generators? Just email Mike Doerr and tell him you want it done. He’ll get the right team members on automating everything they can and getting you the tools to do your part in the field. There’s an extra $200 million or so entering the pockets of home inspectors this year and it didn’t get that big on accident. We make it easy. MDoerr@RWSwarranty.com is Mike’s email address.

Decreasing your Liability and Complaints

We did a lengthy audit recently with one of the three major insurers in home inspection and found that ISG Warranty Package clients have over 60% reduced number of claims and payouts (both, almost in sync) when compared to inspectors that offer no warranty coverage as a part of their inspection. It was analyzed over every policy with the company and for a period of the last 5 years. It’s obvious to our long time clients why, but for those of you that are newer to the process, here’s what you need to know:

1. Clients don’t complain about something that gets covered. Pretty simple, right?
2. Clients can’t sue over something if there are no damages because something is covered.
3. The warranty process is the ideal way to ensure that the inspector is protected when a frivolous action is being contemplated.

Of course #1 and #2 above are obvious, but on #3 I want to tell you a little about our process when it comes to any warranty claim. The first thing we do is get communication from the client that they are experiencing an issue and we document everything about it. Then we get bids. Then we apply coverage. That’s pretty much an oversimplification of a process that on every single claim takes on average 3 hours of labor by claims staff. Without going into too much detail, the process helps us to document that a new issue isn’t something that the client should hold the inspector responsible for. For the rare occasions where something isn’t a covered issue and the inspector is in no way responsible, these records become invaluable. In the process we can do a bit of quality control as well and daily we have interactions with inspectors that are giving them insight on what they should be looking for in the field.

It may very well be the greatest risk management tool in home inspection outside of being a good inspector. Between elimination of damages, third party monitoring of client issues, and guidance on complaints, we do more than just take claims for inspectors and those that take full advantage of it have better results with clients and better client experiences than their peers. Most claims simply come straight to us and are handled.

Occasionally clients may reach out to an inspector because they don’t like participating in the process. We’ve had clients outright refuse to get an estimate or send us a copy of the quote they have. Sometimes there are just communication issues. Either way, we have a team of people in our escalations department that are specially trained to ensure a client that feels neglected turns into a testimonial. If you ever have one of those and have a client that needs some special attention – don’t hesitate to send a note to Mike Doerr or myself. We’ll get them taken care of. My email is Nathan@Nathan.tv by the way.

Advanced Users

Our clients tend to grow with us. We’re sort of a unique situation in the home inspection industry – one of the only businesses that truly partners with inspectors and handles administrative duties while simultaneously delivering value for the end user. If it weren’t for compliance issues and ensuring clients were aware a warranty company is standing behind the policies, you might not even see our logos everywhere. Your logo and name should be giant – our logos tiny. It doesn’t mean we can’t do a lot for you though, we just do it very quietly. Here are some of the things what I would call our Advanced Users tend to take advantage of after they get their relationship started with us as I outlined above.

They train their staff on the InspectorLab / PriorityLab app – replacing all paper COC’s in their environmental testing.
They utilize our complaint handling system.
They utilize NXT Inspekt to automate their business processes and increase sales.
They get with our marketing department and develop custom marketing pieces for their business.
They participate in the our TOP 3.0 discussion group or attend our events
They finance their tool purchases through InspectorShop
They invest in advanced equipment like the CrawlBot, the Breeze Radon Monitor, or the Breeze Environmental Tester.
They utilize our legal team to help them with legal matters.
They post on the Inspection Forum with backlinks to their websites.
They hold events with our staff for agents in their area.
They partner with our warranty sales reps throughout the U.S. (none in Canada, sorry - working on it!) to promote in real estate offices.

It starts with a conversation with one of our account reps and an understanding of where you want to take your home inspection company. . The above gives you a roadmap and the thought process inspectors use to analyze options, this link gives you an express lane to getting started! http://www.InspectionSuccess.net

We offer too much to try to implement all in one day. My best advice: Don't even try. Just start with whatever package you think your clients deserve, add some resources that save you time and make you money shortly thereafter, then start grabbing the revenue ops, then start diving into the advanced stuff. I've seen some go from zero to nearly everything we offer in 6 months, others that went from step one to step 2 over a period of 10 years. Both are awesome inspectors, both seek success and may define it differently, and both do everything at their own pace. We will work with you at yours!

If you are on the fence about whether or not any of these items sound like they would work for your business, then ask yourself this question. What are you doing to make yourself stand out from your competition?
Do you and your competition do a thorough inspection? Yes and yes.
Do you all show up on time? yes and yes.
Do you all include color photos? Yes and Yes.
Do you all have experience? Yes and Yes.
Do you have logo shirts, marked vehicle, clean cut appearance, and on and on. Yes and yes.
If you all answered yes, then you have the same standard business with nothing to separate you from each other. So why should a client call and schedule with you? The answer is, there's no reason, since you're just like all the rest.

So adding the value of extra coverages for your buyers will not only protect them from an expense they may not be able to afford, but it will also protect you from a demand for payment on an item that was working just fine when you were at the inspection, but for some reason failed after. It happens, it's no one's fault, but you're now the hero to the buyer, and the agent that referred you now has a happy client spreading the good word about your company. It's a win, win, win for all parties.

Well said Scott.

Every inspector claims to "stand be hind your work" yet when a customer has an honest problem in their home what most inspectors stand behind is a flimsy SOP and their inspection agreement to explain why the customers hones problem is not the inspectors responsibility..... to truly stand behind your work is to offer over $100,000 in after inspection warranty protection.... that's how HomePro Inspections truly stands behind their work!

If you are trying to decide between offering warranties to your clients & home seller with your inspection or not, the choice is EASY - DO IT!!
The cost is minimal. It protects the client, it protects you and it's the right thing to do. Everyone knows a home inspection is a point in time, things change, things happen.

Give your clients the protection they deserve with Free warranties! Be different than the other inspection companies out there.
Contact Residental Warranty Services at 800-544-8156 or online: https://residentialwarrantyservices.com/

En-Vision Property Inspections includes $100K in FREE Warranties with every full home inspection. PLUS, $10K Structural Warranty to the seller of the home that we inspect - for FREE.

If you are looking for a home inspection in Michigan, contact En-Vision Property Inspections at 586-453-8755 or online: https://www.en-visionpropertyinspections.com/
and we will show you why we are "Inspections Exceeding Expectations".

In our experience with these services spanning over two decades, almost no inspector has had trouble convincing their local market to accept a price increase of $10–$20 in order to cover this expense. We don't believe in charging anything for the first 90 days since we know that many companies don't raise prices at all if their main goal is to quickly boost volume. This will allow us to prepare and release your marketing materials and for your business to see increased demand before we begin charging you.

super mario bros