|
Focusing on those concepts and products that improve your
customers’ businesses should dovetail into improved sales
and better business relationships for you. In addition, you can benefit from improved customer relations
between your dealers and their customers. The role you play in
educating your dealers in this area can contribute to their success, and in turn, yours.
|
Customer Relations Management
In years
past, the adage, “The customer is always right!” was an
easy way for business owners and managers to keep their employees
focused on taking care of their customer’s needs. The saying
suggests one should think before reacting negatively to a
customer’s request. However, just saying what to do doesn’t
get it done!
Today,
businesses must manage customer relations. Indeed, good customer
relations demands that employees are educated as to the needs of their
customers and provide systems so that good customer service can and
will take place easily and effectively. |
Encourage Your Dealers to
Always Be Professional
Consumers
today are interested in having their needs met when they want or need
them met. Truly professional dealers understand the importance of
catering to the customer and delivering exceptional service. Here are a
few areas where you can educate your dealers to help them deliver top
notch service to their customers.
|
Answering the Phone…Real
Customers Want to Talk to Real People
More
dealers lose the telephone battle before war is declared! Service and
installation sales begin with a phone call to your dealer’s
office. When that call occurs, encourage your dealers to put their best
foot forward. There is nothing more frustrating to a customer than
voice mail or an answering machine when that customer has a heating or
cooling emergency. The best advice you can give your dealers is to
avoid using voicemail especially on incoming emergency calls. If a
dealer is not in a position to hire staff to answer phones, calls
should be forwarded to the contractor’s cell phone or to a phone
answering service. Contractors should be very careful that the
answering service is competent! A return call should be made to a
customer within ten minutes. After ten minutes customers get edgy.
After an hour without a return phone call on an extremely cold or hot
day, your dealer will likely lose the service work to another company.
|
Training the Office Staff
Encourage
dealers to train their staff to answer incoming calls promptly and
politely regardless of how busy they are. Customers want to feel
respected and know their requests are important to company personnel.
Customers not only want contractors to “do it right the first
time,” they want them to “get it right (the information)
the first time.” They should gather all necessary information
from the customer to allow the contractor to satisfy all the
customer’s needs. Failure to ask appropriate questions when the
customer is on the phone will result in a return phone call to get all
the details that were overlooked on the first call. Lack of
professionalism by contractor may cause a customer to shop around.
|
Identification
and Visibility
Customers
need to know at a glance that the company they hired is responding to
their request. Contractor’s trucks should be lettered with the
company name and phone number. Technicians should be in a neat, freshly
laundered uniform. Personnel identification badges should be worn and
shown to the customer. If identification badges are not available,
business cards should be printed for the technician so the customer can
verify technician information. Imagine how careful each technician
would be if his face and name were associated with every service call
he performed each day.
|
Friendly
Technicians Make Everything Better
The
stress level associated with a broken down HVACR system ranks right up
there with a broken down vehicle on a road trip. When a
customer’s comfort or convenience is in jeopardy they get grumpy.
A friendly technician with empathy for the customer’s compromised
situation will go a long way to making the service experience a
positive experience.
A
competent technician informing the customer upfront as to the problem
with their system and letting them know the price for repair
won’t necessarily make the customer happy but it will make them
realize their service company is professional.
Giving the
customer choices as to repair or replacement in a friendly, empathetic
way is also a more professional approach and brings the customer to the
reality of their situation. When handled properly and professionally a
customer is not likely to turn his/her angst on the technician and
service company. |
Will that be Cash, Check or
Credit Card?
We
don’t have to tell you that credit and collection can be the
toughest part of running any business. You should counsel your dealers
about how to ask for payment and help them understand the value of
asking the customer what the intended method of payment will be on
completion of the service or installation work. We believe asking for
payment on job completion tells the customer, “We have the
knowledge and trained craftsmen to satisfy your needs, we take pride in
our workmanship, we stand behind our work and back it up with a
guarantee, we have taken the needed time to correct your problem and we
are worthy of the fees we charge.”
Encourage
your dealers to accept credit cards. Much of our economy runs on
plastic today and HVACR dealers should position their company to
receive payment as easily as possible. Dealers that express concern
over the bank discount rates on credit card charges should be reminded
just how costly it is waiting for the payment after the job has been
completed. |
Staying in
Touch
Dealers
should make follow up calls to be certain that their work was completed
to the customer’s satisfaction. Newsletters and direct mail cards
issued quarterly keep the customer reminded that the company is still
available to take care of any needs that arise. Holiday greetings and
birthday cards provide a nice touch that many companies use to stay in
touch.
Considering
all the businesses vying for customer dollars, good customer relations
is of utmost important in today’s market. Your role in educating
your dealers as to the importance of customer relations management and
helping them implement systems will set your company apart from other
distributors in your market and may be the key ingredients to your
dealers’ success. |
*
Jim D’Amico and Ken Cederquist are partners in Profit
Strategies, a provider of retail pricing systems for
service and installation for the HVACR and Plumbing trades. Jim is a
former HVAC contractor and is
available at JimD@ProfitStrategies.net
or 800-353-4393. Ken is a former distributor and is available at KenC@ProfitStrategies.net
or 800-808-4586. Their main office line is 888-229-4100. www.ProfitStrategies.net. |