Customer Service Is More Than Just Fixing The Problem
By Jayme Broudy, Contractor’s Business School
Dear Jayme:
I do a lot of HVAC service work and one of my techs gets more bad feedback on his attitude than any of the others. Problem is, he’s also the best tech I have. What do I do?
-Roger
Dear Roger:
When you were out there turning the wrench yourself it may have seemed like being a technical wizard was all that mattered. Field people certainly must be technical experts but as a business owner, your job is to maximize the business’s overall performance and that means a lot more than just getting the heat fixed.
Let’s make some assumptions:
• You’d like to keep your existing customers and add new ones.
• Keeping customers requires leaving them with a feeling of being well served.
Agreed so far? Okay.
The place where contractors often get tripped up is in the definition of “well-served”. “Well-served” goes far beyond installing the new compressor. Turn the situation around. When you’re the customer (of a business other than another trade), what makes you feel good about your experience? What impresses you? What makes you think positively of a company and sends you back to them? Usually the list is pretty short:
• The product or service is as advertised and delivered in the most effective way.
• No surprises except perhaps pleasant ones (“We didn’t have the standard grade part you wanted, but here’s the heavy duty part for the same price.”).
• Excellent value for the money. Value, not price.
• Pleasant people to deal with (Think about the best waiter you’ve ever had. How would your customers feel if they were treated the way he did you? Sound silly? It’s not. Your business is no different; you just sell something other than food).
Of all these things, which is dependent on excellent technical skills? Only the first one. Yes, the customer may feel the result of your expertise (the heat was out, now it’s not), but he won’t realize how cleverly you diagnosed the problem or how beautifully you routed the ductwork, and he probably doesn’t care. The bulk of his impressions are created by things other than technical expertise, and especially by the respect and courtesy of your employees, so your job is to:
• Develop customer service standards and include them in job descriptions and performance evaluations.
• Create a training process that explains the how’s and why’s of good customer interactions to your people. Include a written manual.
• Install a feedback loop to make sure you employees are following those standards. This can be a follow up call from your office with a few standard questions.
Don’t get me wrong, excellent technical expertise is supremely important, but it only becomes an issue if your techs aren’t good at the tech aspect. It’s a prerequisite, not a feature.
The guy who you describe as your best tech is anything but. He may fix the technical problem but if the customer feels disrespected, the customer will go elsewhere next time (and tell his friends). Your best tech is the one who leaves the customer with both a solved HVAC problem AND the feeling that he (the customer) was the most important person on earth. And because that customer signs your paychecks, he is.
Cheers!
Jayme
“If you go through a lot of hammers each month, I don’t think it necessarily means you’re a hard worker. It may just mean that you have a lot to learn about proper hammer maintenance.” - Jack Handey
Jayme Broudy is the founder and principal of Contractor’s Business School® - a coaching, training and consulting firm specializing in helping contractors produce more profit in less time. Since 1993, Jayme has worked with hundreds of contractors in many specialty areas to build successful stand-alone businesses. Visit www.contractorsbusinessschool.com/assessment to complete a free Business Analysis, or call (800) 527-7545 to get the FREE CD "10 Key Strategies to Build a Business that Works."
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