Great customer service makes a huge impact on your customers. Last week, I went to a nice restaurant with my wife and friends. We had anticipated the event for several weeks, selected a restaurant based on the type of food they offer, their ambiance, location, and their good reputation.
We enjoyed everything about the experience! The food was great, and the environment was nice, and the customer service was wonderful. Being Woodard’s Director of Sales and Marketing, I know great customer service – we work hard to provide it to our customers. Yes, there is a cost associated with the service, but there are a great number of customers willing to pay just a little bit more to be pampered through their experience – and these customers usually tell others of their experience, bringing in new customers for the company. At the restaurant, we paid a bit more, and we experienced great customer service with our food – and as a result, the restaurant has built a relationship with me.
At Woodard, one way we build our customer service is through engaging our customers. We’ve found that through our communication, we are best able to identify our customer’s needs, wants and desires – so we can fill them. This makes our customer’s objectives our own. We stay flexible in how we address these needs, making sure that our solutions do more than just meet our needs – in fact, we search for solutions that are a “win for the customer, a win for our employee, and a win for our company” – we call this “W3” and it’s what we strive for through all of our customer interactions. If we achieve W3 with our customers, we know that they will be thrilled with our service, earn us compliments, and will tell others of their experience.
One recent example of a W3 moment was when we responded to a residential water loss, caused by a pipe break in their basement. The project started simply enough, with us extracting the water and drying the structure. To speed the drying process, we opened up a few wall cavities in order to inject air, and unfortunately we found active termite damage. Working with the homeowner and their insurance provider, we assisted their exterminator by removing some drywall, insulation and wall studs, then quickly rebuilding the affected area after the treatment. While this situation was unusual for us (working with an exterminator), we quickly adjusted our service to best assist the homeowner and their insurance provider. As you can see, the customer won (we provided additional demo and reconstruction services to help save them time and expense), our employees won (they safely built their knowledge base of pest treatment while managing the reconstruction efforts), and our company won (through developing a very satisfied customer who is telling others of their great experience in light of an unfortunate situation).
I find it interesting how few companies look for a win-win-win solution, which usually means they put themselves before the good of the customer. Whether you own a nice restaurant, or work for a cleaning and restoration company, there’s something to be learned here for everyone: great customer service pays handsome dividends in the long term!
Let me know how you’ve been treated lately!
By: Dave Christoff – Director of Sales and Marketing, Woodard Cleaning & Restoration Services
