Where Did All the Customers Go?

A couple of years ago, we planned some major renovations to our home. This included building a deck. I knew someone who goes to our church who specializes in this type of work. I asked him if he could come over and give us an estimate. Unfortunately, when he was scheduled to arrive, he notified us that he was sick and would have to reschedule. No problem. After another four weeks went by without having heard from him, I called him to ask if he could schedule another time to give us an estimate on our deck. After another three weeks, he came over and quoted the job a week later.

There was one problem with his estimate. It was $15,000 higher than the budget I quoted him when he first asked me how much we were going to allocate for this project. It was only after I had already spoken to several other contractors — each of which was equally poor in follow up — that the first vendor came back and provided a workable estimate.

The job was finished about three weeks later than we were led to believe. I guess that should not have been a surprise. We knew that the wood had to be stained; however, our contractor said that it would have to be done the following year. When the original contractor called to ask if we wanted him to do an estimate on the staining work, I told him that we were not interested. Instead, I found another contractor who specialized in this type of work and hired him to do the job even though his original scheduling time was 18 weeks out. The reason I picked him was because he came over the first day he said he would, which was only three days after we spoke about this job.

What most people don’t understand is that even if a customer is happy with the outcome they get from you, that’s not enough to ensure that they are coming back to do business with you again. Far more important to most customers is that the process you put them through does not drive them up the wall or take substantially longer than you promise. If you are losing customers and you don’t know why, I challenge you to think about how it feels for your customers to do business with you.

Regardless of your business, but especially if you’re a contractor, you need to learn how to give your word, keep your word, and provide reliable deadlines. The next time you give an estimate, see yourself the same way your customers see you and decide if you like what you see.

“Excellent customer service, just like true love should not be celebrated in practice on a certain day!”

– Michael Virardi

Let me hear from you.

This excerpt is taken from the seminar entitled Legendary Customer Service VI: Mastering The Process and The Outcome. I encourage you to click here to register for the exclusive live Zoom presentation of Legendary Customer Service VI: Mastering The Process and The Outcome on Thursday, August 17, 2023 from 9 AM to 12 noon Eastern Standard Time.