The Customer Experience-From A to Z

The Office Business
1

I am very interested in hearing all of your guys’ steps involved in creating the “customer experience”. How do you give them a great service every time? What are the techniques that you use, step by step?

Kevin has always said that everything one does for, or gives to, the customer must be of premium quality. I agree. I also believe that branding must be injected into just about every step of the customer experience. Shamefully I have yet to really start branding with a logo and phrase, etc., but I am trying to finish my brand by yesterday. And yes, I meant “yesterday”.

Here are my steps (some I have yet to implement, but will start A.S.A.P.) for residential service:

Let’s pretend the customer is named Alisa.

  1. Alisa finds my ad (be it website, flyer, etc.) or is referred by someone she knows.
  2. She calls my 800 number. I answer with a smile and a branding phrase. Then I ask a list of templated questions, give quote, then schedule date.
  3. A day before date of service I give her a reminder call.
  4. I arrive and greet Alisa by name while offering my name and the name of my crew. My uniform and my crews’ uniforms are exactly the same, from shirt to shoe, employing branding techniques. Alisa says she likes the way we are dressed and how clean cut we are. We say “thank you” and then one of us tells some corny joke about how we had called each other in the morning and thought it would be fun to dress the same today. We all laugh fakely except her, I hope-fingers crossed.
  5. I tell her that “I will go around and give an on-site quote to varify things, if that is ok, then we can get started” while I put on shoe covers.
  6. After I am done with that and upselling, I give her a signed, on-site estimate for her personal assurance of price and service. This step can and will clear up any lingering confusion or future discrepancies.
    7)We let her know our process. Outside to inside, top to bottom. “Will this be ok?”
  7. We start in on a fantastic service (no overlapping, no confusion on our part, no safety compromises), during such we ask to use the restroom and do not just assume it would be ok. We just go numero uno.
  8. We keep doors and gates shut around the house at all times.
    10)We offer to reveiw everything with her after we have finished and I have reviewed myself.
  9. When service is wrapped up I give Alisa the customized and typed out reciept (with branding on it of course). The only thing penned in is the final price and my signature varifying the receipt details. I also give her a brand new pen with company name on it (or some other useful gift with name or logo). I give her a business card, extra for friends and family.
  10. I ask her if she was pleased. I then tell Alisa my suggestions on how often she should get her windows cleaned. We settle on her next date. I get her email for future contact. I ask her to refer.
  11. Entire crew says goodbye.
  12. When I get back to home office I send out a thank-you card (customized for branding) with a $5 starbucks gift card. It is signed by whole crew.
  13. My wife calls and varified with customer that job was done well.
  14. 2 weeks before date set for next visit, we email and give call while branding.

We also send our a mini newsletter twice a year with a business card just in case they misplaced theirs.

2

Sounds like you are doing everything right to me. We have a similar routine for our house jobs. It must work, I have some customers stay with me for 12 years.

3

acclaim, I don’t think you missed anything. If anything, I would say that it was too thorough, but you can’t be too professional.

I love the company pen idea, I love the verification before the work (with the upselling of course), but I don’t know how in the heck you get your wife to call the customer making sure you did a good job… If I asked my wife to do that, she would tell me to get real.

4

WOW you sure covered it!

5

I think things must be far more casual over here in OZ though we work to a very high standard we are just not quite so formal. Anyhow two points I would consider. The phone call on the day before, if you have already phoned 2 weeks prior I think it is overkill, however the main issue is it gives them the opportunity to cancel for very little reason ie/ it looks like it might rain tomorrow.
Not doing a proper quote before hand (and this is the biggie), if you turn up with your entire crew and the job is not what you expected, therefore the price differs greatly,the customer may decide not to go ahead with the job. You have then wasted a lot of time and money, not to mention stuffed up your day. Both the above scenarios have happened to me in the past.
PS re the first point I used to be a PADI dive instructor and phoning the customer the day before was a big no no - they would look out the window and if it was not blue skies and sunny they would try and cancel.

6

impressive…do you have time to actually do the job? :smiley: just kidding…sounds very good…I do some of that but not all…may steal a couple steps from you :slight_smile:

7

Thanks for the comments brightview, but this one I don’t understand? I give a phone quote and then an on-site quote…Maybe you are just agreeing or I just don’t understand, sorry.

p.s.-I understand the phone call point that you are making. I’ve been very weary about implementing the ‘day before call’ because of the same 2 reasons you discussed (overkill and flaking out), but many do ask for it, and it can do them good to get a reminder. I figured I would try that one out and see what happens, we will see how it goes…good points, though.

8

All I was saying was, that when you give the onsite quote, the customer may change their mind ( especially if they have been less than honest re number of windows, how dirty they are or difficulty of the job ), your onsite quote may therefore be higher than the ‘over the phone’ quote '. You may then be left standing with a crew and no work. I personally go out to quote every new job, a spin off being that you can see exactly how much time you need to complete the job, ie day / half day ,thus making scheduling easier. I have tried over the phone quotes,however I have invariably had my fingers burnt .

9

Hey Aaron!

That certainly does sound like a solid little system, and obviously you’ve thought long and hard about it.

I also would recommend having these clients “locked in” before the crew arrives, and/or somehow coming up with a way to lock them in with a price over the phone in most cases, before you arrive, eliminating the need for you to have to show up at all (if possible) to provide an estimate.

And I would combine the $5 Starbucks card with a little referral request, and leverage some reciprocity there…

Aside from that, I like it. I like the “the whole crew signs the card” idea, too. I wouldn’t have thought about that one, but to be honest, it might seems a little fake, especially if they didn’t have much contact with the client.

Why not instead make YOURSELF the friendly, accountable “face” of the company, and you sign and send them as the President, Founder or whatever you present yourself as, instead?

That would be a slightly better application of that idea, in my opinion.

Ideally, you want them to love [I]you[/I], and like your crew a lot, too.

Again, overall, great planning.

Kevin

P.S. Don’t forget to leave her a little window cling, too! (like in the book)

10

oh, ok…well, I must disagree with that point. I appreciate your advise, though.

The value of phone quotes has been discussed many times on this forum. Maybe you’ll change your mind when you read the threads.

My business is spread out between 2 counties. I will invariably loose much money on fuel if I don’t give phone quotes. Maybe you’re phone quote method needs an improvement. Maybe you’re not asking the right questions. Maybe you should add a buffer amount. The phone quote lets me know who is willing to pay what and I almost always land the job (98% of the time for 4 years) once I get to the site even though my price is more likely to go up than down. It’s a matter of selling youself and your services well. If a residential customer isn’t willing to get a quote over the phone, I don’t service them (unless their square footage is huge).

It’s either risk being burned or burn an inevitable amount of gas. I have’nt even mentioned the time that would be wasted. To me it’s a no brainer. Maybe in your case there are factors of which I am unaware.

Thanks for the advise. I look forward to hearing from you and others again.

11

Hi Kevin,

I looked at vistaprint for the windowcling but they were priced at $5/ pop.

Is there a better supplier that you would mind sharing with us? Or do you cough out $5/pop. I understand that it’s probably well worth it even at this price, but I just haven’t pulled the trigger on that idea.

Acclaim, I feel you about the over the phone estimate thing. Especially with our service areas. If someone demands an on-site estimate for a small project (which in my book is any job that would be under $500), then they go on a long list of my to-do’s. And during this time of year, I’m looking at about 5-6 estimates that have backlogged over the course of about 3 weeks.

Take last night for an example. We worked from 7am to 9:30 pm. Power washing, windows, and a whole lot more power washing (lighted tennis courts last night)…

12

Thanks, Kevin. I think you may be right about the crew signing thing. Although the crew usually gains a relationship with the client, I would rather build on my relationship more than I would theirs. Good point.

The referral request is a nice touch. It’s a great last ditch reminder to refer.

The window cling thing I though was too passive an approach when I first read it in your book. I will rethink about it.

Do you still go out to jobs to introduce yourself? I am assuming you do not let your employees see the price or give quotes. Are there ever any problems with just a phone quote? I like the face to face pressure factor. Price is not usually a relevant variable with my clients once they have already heard the phone quote. But eventually I will not have time to go out to the job, you are right. But, I would expect problems if I don’t let the employees do the estimate, how do you get around that? And are you not more the “face” of the company if they actually see your face.

13

Kris call this guy

Mike # 973 764 5655 … “the Copy Center” Tell him I sent you… Prices will be waaay cheaper.

14

I pretty much do things exactly like you do, the phone call too. But I have had a few cancellations as well, so instead of calling, I email them 2 days out before the job. I havent gotton any cancellations so far.

Also, when I show up on the job to give an estimate, I use my tablet computer, put the estimate on a flash drive in PDF format, and also put a video on the flash drive showing all that I do. The flash drive has a sticker on it with my company name, address and phone number.

Before the job starts I hand them a customer satisfaction form, or if it looks like they are in a hurry or dont want to be bothered with it, I email the form to them after the job is done. So far I have not gotton one single form emailed back to me yet, so I may stop that. I like the starbucks card tho, I have done that with my commercial customers and they all liked it. Good way for them to remember you.

15

Thanks man, I will soon.

16

I never thought of giving the customer a c.s. form prior to the service. It sounds interesting, but at the same time, I would think that giving them one 10 minutes or so before you’ve complete the job (to be filled out while crew finishes) would make it less of a thing for them and they wouldn’t think we were trying to please them just to get good feedback. In other words, she may feel easier about it’s presence once she gets to know us.

What is their reaction to the flash drive? It seems a bit much…

17

I paid around $1 each.

I got about 250 (I think) for that price, in one batch.

18

No way. I’m too busy eating Cheerios in my underwear!
(in all seriousness I work only 2-8 hours a week on my WC business, and I’m trying to reduce that number lower and lower every week)

Actually, quite the opposite. I’ve empowered and trained them to do just that, and I have a loosely structured profit-sharing system in place.

The only “problem” is when the home is too unique and unusual (and large) to pigeon hole it into our online pricing structure, so we have to check it out in person, and then give them a sweet and powerful little estimate :slight_smile:

I don’t try to get around it. I let the guys provide pricing, and they carry with them some print outs from our website to make sure they get pricing right.

No, not necessarily. You can still be the accountable and responsible real person that can be strung up and quartered if problems occur, and that receives the accolades and praises when things run smoothly.

People seem to LOVE LOVE LOVE talking to me on the phone if they have been on our website and have seen (or are currently looking at) a picture of my face. It’s almost like they are impressed to be speaking with the “real” me, even though I have manufactured that whole impression and experience, and its nothing special at all.

And when the jobs are booked and completed without my interaction, the guys have learned to make reference to the owner, me, as providing a 100% satisfaction guarantee, too, and mentioning that my face is the one on the website.

19

Kris, if you still need those window clings let me know, I can do that for you for a good price if you don’t need a really complicate design.

This are ones that I made for Richard (Nuvududes) so he can try them out.
PM if you still need them.

Here’s a pic, material can be transparent or white, depending on how do you plan to use them.