Home improvement finance is a great way for customers to make major projects more viable and manageable. It also helps tradespeople like you widen your customer base and give your customers more flexibility.
However, it can be hard to know where to start, especially if finance isn’t necessarily your area of expertise. And given the sums of money involved, it’s vital that you get it right.
This post takes a look at what it means to offer finance as a tradesperson, key things to consider, and how technology can help.
What to do when offering finance to your customers
Perhaps the most important thing to consider when offering home improvement finance is transparency. This is for two reasons, the first being that customers need to feel confident about the finance package they’re committing to. The project they’ve come to you for may be one of the largest financial undertakings they’ve ever made, short of buying their house or their car. For them, knowing exactly what the arrangements are with the repayment plan, penalty clauses and other vital information is therefore paramount.
The second reason is legal compliance. Finance is understandably very strictly regulated, with a complex web of laws about what is and isn’t acceptable. It’s absolutely critical that you team up with an experienced, properly regulated finance partner who operates in the correct manner.
Factors to consider when offering finance
When you begin to offer finance, it’s important to remember that no two customers are the same. Of course, you’ll already be fully aware that they’re all different from a job perspective, but now you have to consider the differences from a financial perspective, too. Some customers will have access to bigger loans at better rates of interest and with more favourable repayment terms.
You should also consider how you can make the process of organising finance as easy for the customer as possible. Customers being faced with lots of form-filling in, lots of red tape, or who have to get a quote from you and then approach a finance company, may feel that it isn’t worth the hassle. Anything you can do to tie the quotation/sale process in with finance provision will be a major time-saver that customers will appreciate.
Benefits to offering home improvement finance
There are lots of reasons why offering finance for the home improvement services you provide can be positive – not only for your customers, but for you too:
Flexibility: the availability of finance increases the options available to prospective customers, and helps them make decisions that make sense for them
Customer appeal: by enabling customers who can’t pay for projects up front to use finance instead substantially widens the potential number of people who can buy from you
Brand perception: as word gets around about your flexibility and finance options, you’ll improve your reputation in the area and attract more interest through word of mouth
Guaranteed payment: as your finance partner will look after the customer from the repayment side of matters, you can be rest assured that you’ll be paid in full with little to no risk involved.
Why use Duologi to offer home improvement finance
Partnering with an expert provider to establish your home improvement finance offering is always a good idea. But partnering with one with technical prowess such as Duologi can give you the edge over your competition.
We can give you a seamless consumer finance solution, whatever your trade. This can be integrated with the sales and/or quotation facility on your website, so that customers can order their project, along with the finance required to fund it, at the same time. This makes their life much easier, as well as yours as you don’t have to do any processing of finance requests.
What’s more, Duologi is fully authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, so you can be sure we have the qualifications and expertise to ensure your finance offering is above board and complies with the law.
Book a free consultation
If you’d like to know more about what Duologi can do for your business, our friendly team is more than happy to show you how our home improvement finance offering works. Get in touch today to arrange a free consultation.