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Getting customers is hard.
It is expensive. It is time consuming. You have to find them
or they have to find you. Companies devote a large portion of their available resources to
connecting with potential customers. Getting a potential new
customer to call you or to visit your place of business is only
beginning of a potentially long and profitable relationship but it could
also be the end. All too often, after having
spent a whole bunch of time and money attracting a potential new customer to call or
visit, businesses blow it when the new prospect makes contact.
Jan Carlzon, former President of
Scandinavia Airline Services (SAS) coined the phrase ‘Moments of Truth’
to describe interactions between a company and its customers or the
public. The Moments of Truth are when the rubber hits the road.
They are decisive events that can have a powerful positive or
negative influence on your business.
Most companies do things backwards.
They have poorly paid receptionists, phone answerers, and greeters managing the
Moments of Truth. Companies will spend weeks looking for a
suitable candidate for a middle management position. They will
spend hours interviewing a candidate. They will interview many
candidates for a middle management position. All this effort is
put into hiring for a position that may never manage the moments of
truth. The result is that there is often a disconnect between a
company and its customers.
It never ceases to amaze me when I go
into businesses or call a business on the phone and the first person I
encounter is either unpleasant or is not helpful. The people who
answer your phone or greet people at your place of business can make or
break you. I have worked for companies that have used temporary
employment agencies to fill those jobs. Many companies rarely, if
ever, interview the temporary employees. The people who are
managing the moments of truth are usually among the lowest paid people
an organization.
Who is
Answering Your Phone?
One of the best places I worked was Crown
Cork and Seal Company. I'll never forget an experience I had after
I had only been with CC&S for a few days. My boss asked me to call
a senior vice president to discuss a project with him. I asked him
how I should go about arranging to talk with the senior VP. My
boss didn't seem to understand the question. He responded simply
by saying, "pick up the phone and call him". In other companies
that I had worked for, engineers didn't "pick up the phone and call" a
senior VP. There was protocol to be followed. Well, I did as
the boss asked and called the VP. He answered the phone! No
receptionist, no secretary, no anything between him and me.
This was a 100 year-old fortune 500 company with plants all over the
world yet VPs and even the president answered their own phones. Of
course, senior VPs didn't answer their own phones for other CC&S people.
They always answered their own phones. What a great way to run a
business!
My goal is to always stay connected to my
customers. No matter how long we are in business or how big we
grow, I will always try to be the first person to answer the phone when
it rings. No matter how busy I am, I will always find time to talk
with customers or anyone else who calls. You will always have a
direct connection to the decision makers here at BestInspectors.Net.
Every time you answer your phone or meet
a new client or real estate agent, remember that you are managing the
moments of truth for your business. What if you can't always
answer your own phone? What if you can't always be the first
person from your business that people meet? You need to make
absolutely sure that the people you hire are not only willing but able
to represent your business as you would represent it. Anyone who
has or has ever had employees knows what a challenge that can be.
Still, it is vital to your company's success to have people who can
manage the moments of truth so keep looking until you find the right
person.
Crisis
Customer service and quality have reached
a crisis level in North America. Crisis is one of those words that
has almost completely lost all meaning because it is so over used and
abused. Problems have become "issues" and slightly more serious
problems have become "crises". The classical definition of crisis
is "a turning point, the decisive state of things, or the point of time
when an affair has arrived at its highest point, and must soon terminate
or suffer a material change". Service in America has reached just
such a point. At the rate we are going, it probably won't be too
long before the motto printed on a dollar bill will be "Made in China".
It is nearly impossible to talk
on the telephone with someone, anyone, with the authority to fix
things gone wrong. Getting past the first line of defense is
difficult. Talking with a top decision maker in most large
companies is completely out of the question. Forget about it! They are not
interested in talking with their customers. Executives of large
companies these days have a "Take the money and run" attitude. The
attitude common in so many big companies is "When the customer calls,
send the calls to India, Pakistan, or the Philippines".
The good news is that you can really
stand out from other businesses almost without trying. People have
become so accustomed to bad service that bad service is what they
expect. Bad service and being indifferent or disrespectful has
become the norm. Being friendly and helpful and treating people
with respect and offering good service will ensure that not only will
people appreciate you and your good service, they will remember you and
will tell others about you.
Not "We",
"Me"
If you are an independent self-employed
home inspector, make sure your customers know it. Independent
service providers have become a rare breed. The days of the corner
drugstore, the neighborhood hardware store where you could buy one nut
or bolt if that's all you needed, and the family doctor who made house
calls are all relics of the past. They are also the people you
trusted and had confidence in. You didn't worry about possibly
encountering some indifferent or incompetent person whose only concern
was what they would be doing after they got off work.
Sometimes it seems that everyone wants to
look like General Motors. Independent home inspectors talk about
how "We do this" and "We do that" on a home
inspection. If there is no "We", then tell your customers and
potential customers "I will do this" and "I
will do that". Most important, "The buck stops with ME".
Make it absolutely clear that when your customer hires you,
they are hiring you and you alone! Then, do your
best to make sure that dealing with you is a good experience for your
customers. Later, when your customers have opportunities to
recommend you to others, they are more likely to recommend you because
they know that they are recommending you, not some unknown
faceless "We" person whom they have never met (and never
will because there is no We). I want my customers to
know that when they need me, they will get Me, not "We"
They Call Me
"Mister"
You have heard this from me before, your
hearing it again, and I can assure you that if you hang around, this
won't be the last time you hear me admonishing the practice of referring
to one's self as "Mister". A home inspector who introduces himself
as "Mister Whatever" is mismanaging the moments of truth.
Referring to yourself as Mister is an anachronism, at best. At its
worst, it makes you look pompous, arrogant, and self-absorbed boor.
Conversely, referring to another person with the title "Mister", shows
deference and respect. You should always introduce yourself by
your first name. In most instances, you should introduce yourself
by your first name only. Using your first name only is a clear
invitation to your customer to call you by your first name. That
immediately puts people at ease with you. People will respect you
more when you are humble and personable. If it is your practice or
your habit to refer to yourself as Mister, stop. Right now, stop.
Don't ever do it again.
Nobody's
Perfect
You will pay a high price for mismanaging
the moments of truth. Nobody is perfect. There will be times
when you will make mistakes. You will have an occasional bad day.
Before you realize what you are doing, you will answer the phone in a
churlish tone. It takes self-awareness and self-discipline to make
sure that the person calling you or meeting you is not treated poorly
because you are having a bad day. You are sometimes going to
mismanage moments of truth.
The time to think about how you interact
with others is right now. Manage your moments of truth and you
will grow your business.
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