Rewriting my own service agreement because a client blamed me for his answering service
Three weeks into a new investor account and the leads are coming in at $41 each, which is fine for the market. He called Monday annoyed that the leads are garbage. I pulled his call recordings and the answering service he uses is asking sellers for an email address before anything else, then telling them someone will follow up within one business day. Twelve of eighteen callers hung up during that script.
So the leads aren't garbage, his intake is. My contract doesn't say a word about intake because it never occurred to me to put it there. It covers ad management, reporting, and a 30 day out.
What I'm doing now is drafting language that makes the client responsible for speed to first contact and gives me the right to review call recordings monthly. I'm nervous about two things. If I make the contract too demanding, smaller investors won't sign it, and smaller investors are most of my pipeline. And I don't actually know whether a clause like that is worth anything if he decides to leave anyway, since he can just take the 30 day out.
Right now I'm considering pricing two tiers instead, a cheaper one with no intake requirements where I report cost per lead only and nothing downstream, and a higher one where I get intake access and report on contracts. Haven't written either yet. Whatever I end up with, I'll have a lawyer in my state look at it before it goes out, since service contract terms vary.