Bristan, the showers and taps brand, has discovered that the UK plumbing sector is falling behind other UK industries when it comes to engaging with customers online.
After undertaking its largest ever market survey, Bristan found that only 44% of installers frequently use social media. However, with nearly 60% of the UK population regularly communicating via social media the plumbing industry is missing a valuable channel to connect with its customers.
To make matters worse, only 46% of installers currently have a website compared to the national average of 71% for UK SMEs, which could mean that some plumbers may be missing out on valuable revenue by not making themselves more visible online.
However, the Bristan survey did demonstrate that installers are ahead of the UK population when it comes to some forms of technology, with more than 85% of installers surveyed saying they use a smart phone. This figure is above the national average of 48.4% of UK residents and 60.4% of UK mobile phone users.
Fiona Bowyer, head of marketing at Bristan, said:
The rise of social media is no passing fad. With statistics now showing that social media is here to stay installers need to fully embrace these channels to maximise the way they can communicate with their customers.
As more and more people turn to social media for project recommendations or to research suppliers, the likes of Facebook and Twitter are becoming vitally important not only to maintain a business’ brand, but also to enable dealers to capitalise on potential sales leads.
Designed specially to gain a view of the industry through the eyes of the people that work within it, the Bristan ‘Connect’ research was carried out over four months, utilising an online survey, focus groups and a numerous job shadowing days, and engaged with close to 1,000 installers from across the country. The in-depth analysis gauged the installers’ attitudes towards things such as working practices, client engagement, product knowledge and buying habits.