3 More Ways to Get Customers Hooked on Your Feel-Good Brand (Part 2)
You won’t make your customer feel good if you provide convenience, transparency, and avoid bad surprises. Those are the bare minimum to meet their expectations.
From my last blog post: Dr. Feelgood, from the 1989 Mötley Crüe single, was a drug dealer who got the name because he made his customers feel good. This kept his customers coming back for more. Do you make your customers feel good? It doesn’t really matter if you do a good job for them. If you don’t make them feel good about it, they won’t come back for more.
Obviously, commercial service contractors shouldn’t give their customers illicit drugs, but they can stimulate the same brain receptors that release dopamine, the feel-good hormone that drives positive reinforcement in the human biological reward system. Unfortunately, that same reward system has negative reinforcement mechanism called cortisol, the stress hormone, that’s easily triggered by bad customer service. Understanding what triggers these hormones is fundamental to creating an amazing customer experience that reduces stress, gets customers hooked to your brand, and differentiates your company from the competition.
In my previous post, I dove into the three stressors that trigger cortisol in your customers: inconvenience, uncertainty, and bad surprises. This week, I want to shift gears and talk about the three dopamine triggers you can take advantage of to make your customers feel good. Unfortunately, it’s much more difficult to elicit a dopamine response in your customers than a cortisol response because the typical triggers like sex and drugs are not tools you get to use. Instead, you’ll have to rely on subtle psychological triggers that require finesse to provoke.
Good Surprises
Our brains are wired to be delighted by good surprises. Neuroscientists from the Baylor College of Medicine conducted a research study in which volunteers played a computer game where they were presented with a red and blue deck of cards with the objective of accumulating as many points as possible by determining which deck contained more “reward” cards. They could select to flip the top card of either deck to receive a reward card that gave them points and triggered the cha-ching sound of a cash register, or a card that would remove points from their accumulated gains. Over time, they would learn which deck gave them more reward cards so they could accumulate points faster. Researchers modeled the volunteers’ expectation of reward based on their selections to classify gains and losses as expected or unexpected. On average, an unexpected reward resulted in highest release of dopamine, the feel-good hormone.
Take advantage of this psychology and provide facility managers with the great surprise of an amazing customer experience. While all of your competitors manage their service cycle and customer service with calls, paper, and ad hoc emails, you’ll stand apart when you offer a convenient, novel experience that includes online summaries of services with rich media, automated notifications (MIPS), and the ability to leave reviews. Here’s what a facility manager told a service contractor about the online service reports (Service Link) he receives that include loads of pictures, videos, and audio notes pertaining to the services:
“I love this feature and report. Your competition has nothing like this.”
The unexpected surprise of a better experience made him feel good. Now, this novelty will wane, and that’s OK. After the novelty is gone, you’ll have set a new precedent for a great customer experience that your competitors can’t touch. Their approach will feel inconvenient and uncertain. As I discussed in the first installment of this blog post, that’s a formula for the stress hormone cortisol – and a bad customer relationship.
Storytelling
Everybody loves a good story. Entire books, like Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, are dedicated to the science of great storytelling. Gottschall tells us about an experiment performed by Paul Zak, a neuroeconomist, found that our bodies release more oxytocin, the hormone that causes empathy, when we consume information in a story format as opposed to a simple factual summary. College students were offered $20 to take part in a study where they were presented with either a story about a father and his dying child or a factual summary about the impacts of cancer on children. After the presentation, the students were asked if they wanted to donate any or all of their $20 to a cancer research institute for children. Students that were presented with the story had significantly higher levels of oxytocin in their blood and, on average, donated more money. A good story with a classic arc makes us empathize with the main characters. We feel how they feel.
After the novelty of your shiny new customer experience wears off, you can take advantage of this empathetic trait to trigger dopamine by telling your customers the story of the challenges your team overcame. Start by introducing the hero, your technician, with an en route notification and an in-person greeting when they arrive. Next, show customers the challenges that the hero faces with pictures and videos of the equipment issues. How ever will the hero succeed? Present a solution with an online quote that shows how your tech will save the day and an explanation of the bad outcomes that will occur if they don’t act. Those unfavorable outcomes are the villain that add tension to the story. Most importantly, show your customers exactly how the hero saved the day with pictures and videos of the repaired equipment. When you properly craft this story, your customers will empathize with the main character, your technician, and receive a hit of dopamine from the happy ending that avoided the perilous bad outcomes.
Anticipation
Interestingly, our bodies often reward us with more dopamine when we anticipate a reward than when we actually receive a reward. Robert Sapolsky, a neuroscientist, performed a study on monkeys that were trained to, after given a signal, press a button 10 times to receive food. The monkeys’ dopamine levels rose immediately after the signal, but subsided when they were done pressing the button. The anticipation of the food released more dopamine than the reward of the food itself. When the food was only dispensed 50% of the time, their dopamine levels doubled in comparison to what they were when then the food was dispensed every time. Just like a slot machine, the mix of anticipation and uncertainty about the reward yielded a significant dopamine release in the monkeys.
You’ve already shown your customers that you’ll give them a hit of dopamine when you show up with a novel customer experience and a great story. That’s their reward. Now, all you have to do is train them to anticipate it. Teach them to anticipate a feel-good experience when you give the signal of an appointment reminder or en route notification. You’re not going to have an exciting story for every service. For example, routine maintenance work and inspections where your techs don’t find any issues don’t make for an enthralling story. That’s OK. As the monkeys show us, you don’t have to deliver the reward 100% of the time. Instead of a mediocre story on every job, tell them an incredible story, full of challenges and and successes on the jobs where your techs save the day. The important takeaway is that you should give your customers the signal on every job in order to elicit their anticipatory dopamine response.
Just like Dr. Feelgood, you can keep your customers coming back for more. Instead of drugs, you can use consumer psychology to hack their evolutionary reward system to prevent the release of cortisol and evoke the release of dopamine. If you succeed in making your customers feel good, your service brand will be impervious to the competition and your customers will be happy to pay you more for the premium experience you give them.
3 Ways to Get Customers Hooked on Your Feel-Good Brand
Motley Crue at Studio shooting, Tokyo, July 1985. (Photo by Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images)
Dr. Feelgood, from the 1989 Mötley Crüe single, was a drug dealer who got the name because he made his customers feel good. This kept his customers coming back for more. Do you make your customers feel good? It doesn’t really matter if you do a good job for them. If you don’t make them feel good about it, they won’t come back for more.
Obviously, commercial service contractors shouldn’t give their customers illicit drugs, but they can stimulate the same brain receptors that release dopamine, the feel-good hormone that drives positive reinforcement in the human biological reward system. Unfortunately, that same reward system has negative reinforcement mechanism called cortisol, the stress hormone, that’s easily triggered by bad customer service. Understanding what triggers these hormones is fundamental to creating an amazing customer experience that reduces stress, gets customers hooked to your brand, and differentiates your company from the competition.
If customers associate your brand with stress, they’ll look for a competitor that makes them feel better. Avoiding this should be simple, right? Wrong. Cortisol and other stress hormones are extremely easy to trigger in the human body. Have you or a loved one ever experienced the raw, unfiltered anger associated with even being a little bit hungry? This symptom, more commonly known as “hanger,” has definitely lead to more than one argument in my family. Relatively speaking, hanger is on the low end of the spectrum compared to the stress caused by bad customer service. You must be extremely sensitive to all of the stressors your customers experience when they deal with your brand. Start by examining your customer communication and service cycle for three critical stressors:
Uncertainty Nobody likes being in the dark, especially facility owners and managers dealing with critical building equipment. A research study by a team from the University of London published in Nature Communications in 2016 found that uncertainty is more stressful than a known bad outcome. Participants played a computer game in which they overturned rocks, some of which hid snakes. If they discovered a snake, they received a small shock. Over time, participants would learn which rocks hid snakes so they could predict whether or not they were going to receive a shock. When participants overturned rocks that they knew hid snakes, and therefore knew they were going to receive a shock, had lower stress levels than participants that were uncertain about the outcome. Wherever possible, you must provide your customer with clarity about what you do for them and what outcomes to expect. Automatic, electronic Marketing Impressions Per Service (MIPS) are a great tool for delivering certainty and transparency throughout the service cycle. From appointment reminders, to tech en route notifications, to job summaries with pictures and videos, MIPS will tell the story of every service you deliver and provide certainty that your company is delivering value.
Inconveniences We all get stressed out when we feel like others are wasting our valuable time. My story about returning a broken amplifier to MonoPrice, an online electronics retailer, is a great example of common inconveniences found in most customer service processes that lead to loads of stress. I wasted hours on phone calls, online chats, and email exchanges because their team lacked the information they needed to solve any of my problems. Their customer service data was scattered across different systems, divisions, and employees. Getting answers and resolution to my problems felt next to impossible. Eliminate inconveniences from your service cycle and organize your customer service data so that everyone on your team, from techs to receptionists, can answer customer questions and resolve their issues to the best of their ability.
Badsurprises Be proactive in your services and communication so your customer is never surprised by bad outcomes. Even if those outcomes aren’t your fault, you will be associated with the stress your customers experience. For example, if a piece of equipment that you manage fails due to something out of your control, your customer will still associate the stress of that experience with your brand. Or, if they are unpleasantly surprised by a large invoice because you didn’t communicate proactively about the potential expense, they will associate that stress with your brand. Set expectations early and often so your customer is never surprised by a bad outcome because the surprise is worse than the outcome.
Check out the continuation of this blog post here where I tell you how to hack your customers’ reward system to trigger dopamine and make them feel good throughout the service cycle with tools like stories, technology, and pleasant surprises.
Fix the cracks in your customer experience before they become a chasm
You know those signs on the back of dump trucks that say something like “Stay back 200 feet?” Those things are no joke. I found out the hard way when I was driving home from work on the interstate and heard a loud CRACK in my windshield. I definitely let loose a few four-letter words. There’s almost nothing worse than dealing with cracked glass on a vehicle. Cost aside, you’ve got to play phone-call rodeo with some auto-glass repair shop to get on their schedule, drop off your car, go without a car for a day (or more if they mess up the appointment), and then you’ve got to hitch a ride to pick up your car. What a waste of time. Personally, that inconvenience is just enough to push me to procrastinate getting the repair. That’s about the worst thing you can do with a cracked windshield as the cracks can grow and lead to more costly repairs and more damage to the vehicle if they start to leak.
Facility owners and managers handle their building systems and equipment a lot like most car owners handle their cracked windshields: defer repairs to avoid hassle. Yes, sometimes it’s an issue of cash flow. More often than not, however, I’m willing to wager facility managers are just like me and willing to procrastinate to avoid the phone-call rodeo, the scheduling nightmare, and the overall inconvenience of working with service companies. At least, that’s what I thought before I tried Safelite. Talk about easy.
I scheduled my repair online, received one quick call to confirm insurance details, and my part was done. They showed up at my office, completed the repair, and I just had to give the service tech my credit card. No hassles. Throughout the service cycle, they sent me useful notifications that reminded me about the upcoming appointment, notified me that the technician was on his way, provided my receipt, requested feedback, and requested reviews. Every single one of those MIPS (read about Marketing Impressions Per Service) reinforced what makes Safelite so much different and better than their competition: convenience. In addition to reinforcing the value for me, some of those marketing impressions helped Safelite extract value from me.
For example, when they asked, I left a review. I was happy to! That’s going to drive more customers to Safelite as they outrank their poorly-rated, less-convenient competitors online. On top of that, they managed to upsell me on new windshield wipers. From the moment I started scheduling the repair online until the technician was in the parking lot, they didn’t miss a single chance to try and sell me more products and services. Every single marketing impression I received leading up to the appointment contained all sorts of ancillary offers like new wipers and windshield treatments. I was happy to spend more money with Safelite because they had been so reliable thus far that I trusted their recommendations.
Service contracting should be this convenient for facility owners and managers. They shouldn’t defer repairs in an attempt to avoid the hassle. Instead, they should prioritize the services and repairs you perform because they know it’s going to be easy compared to the mountains of other work they need to get done. Put yourself in their shoes and think about what it’s like to work with your contracting company. What steps might cause frustration? Here are a few common examples:
Calling to schedule an appointment and connecting with someone who doesn’t understand your facility which leads to long hold times or callbacks.
The “phone-call rodeo” to confirm dates, times, and equipment details because the contractor doesn’t have organized records.
Having a technician show up who is not qualified to perform the correct work because a dispatcher didn’t have access to the location details, equipment information, or service history.
Forgetting your appointment date or time and being caught unprepared when a tech shows up at an inconvenient time.
Being handed a pile of loose, triplicate forms that need to be filed and collect dust as opposed to searchable, digital records that include complete service history with pictures and videos.
Receiving a quote as an email attachment that can’t be opened on a smartphone and must be printed off, signed, scanned, and returned as an email.
Having questions about past services and needing to go through another phone-call rodeo to get the answers.
The list goes on. These pain points are cracks that can grow into a chasm between you and your customers. With technology, like ServiceTrade, that’s designed to help your entire team collect, organize, understand, and present service information to your customer online, you can eliminate all of these frustrations. Instead of the phone-call rodeo, give them a way to access rich equipment history and request services online. Send them MIPS that remind them about upcoming appointments, notify them when the tech is on the way, summarize completed work, request reviews, and provide online quotes with pictures and videos that can be approved with the click of a button. Give them this level of customer service and they’ll be happy to pay you more for the premium you provide because they will trust you more and appreciate how easy you are to work with. Don’t let the small cracks in your customers’ experience grow beyond the point of repair. Give them the Safelite experience so they can see that you are the most convenient, trustworthy contractor to work with.
Two Ways for Contractors to Attract More Service Technician Job Applications
Your reputation has always been important when recruiting talent because the best techs want to work at the best companies. But the mediums job seekers use to search for potential employers has changed. Word of mouth is still around but pales in importance compared to your company’s online reputation. Before a job seeker even applies, your website, social media presence, and online reviews help them through the first two phases of the job hunt: Discovery and research.
1. Be Easy to Discover
When a technician starts their job hunt and isn’t familiar with all the local companies, where do you think they start? Google, of course. They’ll search for companies in their industry and the top results will be the first companies they research. That’s how Google has trained us all. The top search results are the best bet, and searching for local companies is no exception. Fortunately, the fresh, dynamic content created by your Digital Wrap is exactly the kind of indicator Google uses to rank websites. Just by performing the day-to-day tasks associated with the services you offer, your techs will be collecting customer reviews and generating rich content that will help prospective employees (and customers) discover your company.
Millennials, almost exclusively, find and research new job opportunities online. Most of my millennial friends discovered, researched, and applied for their current job completely online without talking to a single person. From discovery on Google or a job board to exhaustive research of prospective companies, they did everything on their laptop or smartphone. They browsed the company website and social media for information about the mission and culture. Where applicable, they researched customer reviews. They paid especially close attention to the reviews from current and past employees.
Indeed and Glassdoor, two of the largest job listing websites, are the dominant players when it comes to company reviews by former and current employees. When you Google a company by name, the employee rating of that company on Indeed or Glassdoor are often in the top results. Very quickly, a potential candidate can see what real employees think about a company. This can work for or against you. From a job seekers perspective, zero company reviews is concerning, a bunch of bad reviews is a death knell, and a mix of mostly good reviews is a great sign. I say a mix because people will be suspicious of your reviews if they are all five stars. Just like with your customers, it’s ok to ask your employees to leave a review of your company, just be sure that the review truly represents what they think, not what you think. Don’t instruct them to leave a good review and be responsive and respectful of any results you receive.
2. Be Easy to Research
If they find your company online, potential employees are going to look at your company website before they apply for a job. Is your website going to help recruit them? Does it have the information they ‘re looking for? Candidates aren’t just searching for a company that has an opening. They want to know about company culture and values. What do you stand for? They want to get a feel for what it’s like to work there. Is it fun? Is it challenging? They want to know what the opportunities for growth are. Will they advance their technical skill set or have an opportunity for advancement? They also want an easy application process. The bigger the barrier to applying, the fewer candidates you’ll receive. For example, a simple, mobile-friendly web form that collects their name and phone number with a call to action like “Are you a skilled technician and want to learn more about working at Aardvark Services?” will receive a lot more candidates than a Byzantine application process that asks candidates every possible question and requires them to upload a resume. You’ll definitely do more work to qualify candidates and get more that aren’t a fit but, in the midst of a skilled labor shortage, that’s an acceptable cost. Chances are, you’ll lose candidates you want before they even have a chance to apply if your application process is too difficult. Keep it simple.
Social media is a powerful tool when recruiting, especially Facebook and LinkedIn. When a candidate is considering a company, most will review the company’s social media profile and posts to learn about the brand. Compared to the corporate website, job seekers expect to find a candid representation of the company’s personality. Posts about company events, employees, and corporate values go a long way to help them get a better feel for the company.
It’d be nice if you could meet all of your hiring demand with a flood of great candidates that found you online, but that’s not going to happen for every company. Most likely, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty and actively recruit new employees. Armed with a reputable brand and a strong presence online, it will be easier. All you have to do is ask.
For entry-level office and field positions, one ServiceTrade customer Guardian Fire Protection has another interesting recruiting approach. Once a month, they host an open door interview day. Anyone who shows up is guaranteed an interview. Now, some interviews are MUCH shorter than others, but everyone gets a shot. They advertise the event through craigslist, social media, and through their website. For a relatively low investment of time and money, they’ve filled multiple open positions. When they ask successful candidates that show up on the interview day why they didn’t just apply online, candidates often say that they didn’t feel like their resume was good enough.
If potential employees don’t already know about your brand, your website and reviews should drive discovery through search engine optimization. Once they discover your brand, your online reputation should drive their research to the conclusion that you are a great company to work for and that they should apply. You can do a lot to help your recruiting efforts by making the discovery and research easier for job seekers. Want a big bonus? Being easy to discover and research will help out your potential customers, too.
If a Tree Falls
My wife and I love hiking and camping with our dogs. It’s our escape. So, last year, we took a trip up to the beautiful Grayson Highlands in western Virginia for a quick weekend trip with a couple friends. Hiking along those exposed ridges at a relatively high altitude provide some of the best views you’ll find in southern Appalachia. The first day was absolutely gorgeous. After a long day of backpacking, we decided to set up camp just off the ridge in a little patch of woods. Not long after we set up camp, we had to turn in early because of a constant drizzle from a small storm. We were all wiped out, so it wasn’t a problem. At least, not for the first couple hours. That small storm turned into a massive thunderstorm and it was blowing right over the ridge we were camping on.
My wife, Jessie, shook me, but I was already awake. Nobody could sleep through that noise. “It sounds like lightning is right on top of us!” she said. It was loud, but I wasn’t concerned. “Count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder. The lightning is a mile away for every 5 seconds.” I recalled from my time in the Boy Scouts. At this point, we were at 15 seconds. 3 miles. No problem. It was loud, but we were safe and that put Jessie at ease. The dogs, not so much.
Unfortunately, that 15 seconds quickly turned into 10, then 5, then 3. “Half a mile? We’ll be fine. At least we’re not out on top of the exposed ridge!” I thought to myself. Jessie, on the other hand, was not feeling great about the situation. She gets sweaty palms when she’s anxious and, at this point, they were sopping wet. That’s when it happened. CRACK! The light was blinding and the sound deafening. Zero seconds. It was right on top of us. Then again. CRACK! This one was different. It was followed by a long, low creaking moan and hard, leafy thud. A tree just fell in the forest and we heard it.
The next day, we were a little shaken up, but everyone was OK, even the dogs. We found the fallen tree about a hundred yards away and decided that we’d never camp on a ridge during a storm again. We hiked back down to our cars and couldn’t wait to get home to sleep with a solid roof over our heads.
This is a true story, mostly. The trip, the storm, and the nervous wife all happened. The falling tree, not so much. It seems like a plausible story, but it’s fiction: The same kind of fiction that your customers receive from other, less-reputable contractors. Your customers have been burned by bad contractors that told them plausible stories about their building assets just to, ultimately, be disappointed by bad outcomes like unexpected equipment failures and exorbitant expenses for unnecessary work. They are wary of touching that hot stove again.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? An age-old debate. Sorry, I don’t have an answer for you on this one. I do, however, have another question for you. If you tell your customer a tree falls in a forest, will they believe you? Those other contractors have made it difficult. How about if you show them this?
Absolutely, they’re going to believe you because those disreputable contractors have made your customers skeptical. You can write pages describing the work you perform for them or spend hours on the phone with them, but they’ll still question you regardless of your company’s reputation. Instead, show them. Show them pictures of the leaking system. Show them videos of the failing asset. You should even show them when things aren’t broken just to reassure them that their equipment is in good condition. Show them everything. You’ll stand out from all the other contractors as transparent and trustworthy and they’ll be happy to pay a premium for your reliable services.
Sound like a lot of work ot show pictures and videos from every job to the customer? It’s not. Technology makes it easy. All of your techs are used to taking pictures and videos with their smartphones. Getting that rich media in front of your customers is another challenge altogether. Ad-hoc emails with attachments are not the answer. Instead, let software like ServiceTrade, solve that problem in a scalable way. ServiceTrade logs every picture and every video your techs take and automatically organizes them against jobs and quotes that are effortless to share with your customers. For example, after your tech snaps a couple pictures and a quick video of an equipment issue and collects the customer’s signature, all of that information, the pictures, the video, and the signed work order, will automatically be sent to the customer’s inbox. That’ll show them!
Service Certainty
Who has better pizza, Domino’s or Papa John’s? I do a lot of presentations about these companies and when I pose this questions to audiences, usually they’re split right down the middle. Personally, I’m a Domino’s fan. From a value perspective, however, our opinions about who has better pies don’t really matter. Here’s what really matters:
Domino’s is CRUSHING Papa John’s and they have been since 2009. In fact, Domino’s stock has outperformed Amazon, Apple, and Google in the last 9 years. For every dollar you invested in Domino’s in 2009, you’d have $36 as of the writing of this blog post. Compare that to $10, $5.50, and $2.75 for Amazon, Apple, and Google respectively. Papa John’s, on the other hand, would be worth a respectable $3.75, but it’s been on a steady decline for the past two years.
These numbers are surprising considering how ubiquitous Papa John’s marketing is. It’s practically impossible to watch sports without hearing their slogan, “Better ingredients, better pizza.” They’re everywhere. Domino’s spends plenty of money on advertising too, but their marketing strategy went a very different direction starting in 2009. It’s best summed up by their CEO, Patrick Doyle, who said:
“We are as much a tech company as we are a pizza company”
What technology do you think he’s talking about? Their accounting platform? Their point of sales systems? Their pizza ovens? No. He’s talking about their customer-facing technology like their Pizza Tracker and mobile apps. While Papa John’s has been pouring money into billboards, radio ads, and TV spots, Domino’s hired the best web and mobile developers, built an incredible R&D team, and took a massive risk on the future of smartphones. In fact, an interview in 2015 revealed that around 300 of their 700 employees at their corporate headquarters were focused on technology, not pizza (or accounting). Here’s another one of Doyle’s quotes:
“We believe by transaction counts we’re in the top five of e-commerce companies in the world.”
That’s unbelievable for a pizza company. On the other hand, Papa John’s sales are sinking and their stock price is sliding. They’re trying to blame their poor financial performance on the recent drama and viewership decline in the NFL. The reality is that they got left in the dust. Nine years later, they’re trying to catch up to Domino’s with Papa Track, their answer to the Pizza Tracker, but it’s too little too late. They’re sitting at the starting line coughing up dust while Domino’s is off to the races.
Domino’s figured out how to differentiate their offering with something more valuable than close-ups of melty cheese and empty platitudes like “Better ingredients. Better pizza.” Really? Does anyone buy that Papa John’s really has superior ingredients and better pizza? Can they prove it? Sadly, I’ve heard a lot of service contractors use a very similar line. “Better techs. Better service.” Really? Do you think anyone is buying that? Even if they do, it’s impossible to convince the customer that it’s true. So, why bother? Instead, take a page from Domino’s book. Offer customers a better experience with service certainty.
Domino’s thoughtful investments in technology are cutting edge because they focus entirely on the customer as opposed to logistics and accounting. Everything they build is for the customers’ express benefit. In some cases, they even added administrative work for their in-store employees to improve the digital outcome for the customer. Their Pizza Tracker is semi-automated, but Domino’s employees still have to manually update the system a couple of times to alert customers about the progress of their pizza. For example, every time a pizza is ready for the oven or put in the car for delivery, whether or not the customer is actively using the Pizza Tracker, some Domino’s employee has to update the system just in case a customer decides to check in on their order. They sell more than 2 million pizzas a day. If we assume an average of 1.5 pizzas per order, that works out to almost 1 billion manual system updates a year. That’s a lot of Domino’s data entry! And, for what? The customer. It’s that simple.
Obviously, Domino’s has limited the cost of these billion customer updates substantially with a technology-enabled process. They’re not picking up the phone and calling their customers multiple times per order to update them on the progress. That would be ridiculously cost prohibitive and annoying for the customer. Yet, that’s exactly how most service contractors think about solving the same problem! Better call the customer or send them an ad-hoc email to let them know what’s going on with their service. That’s an expensive approach so it’s either reserved for premium clients or doesn’t get done at all. Why not give every customer a great experience and let technology solve that problem by incorporating it into the standard workflow? For example, instead of having techs call, email, or text to alert the office and customer that they are on the way to a service call, incorporate technology (like ServiceTrade) that will, with a few clicks, log the techs drive time, update the office staff, and send an en route notification to the customer with a picture of the tech and estimated time of arrival. Or, instead of signing a paperwork order, waiting for it to get back to the office, scanning it, and emailing it to the customer with an ad-hoc summary and picture attachments, how about incorporating technology (like ServiceTrade) that will automatically send all this information to the customer the moment they sign the digital work order? Even if it adds a few new points of quick data entry, it’ll remove a boatload of calls and emails.
For Domino’s, however, there were no cost savings with their new workflow. They weren’t calling or emailing the customer to update them on their orders in the first place so these billion data entry points were a net new expense. Despite that, they don’t even think twice about the cost because they understand the value of MIPS, or Marketing Impressions Per Service. MIPS is the heart and soul of Domino’s customer experience strategy. For each service (or pizza) delivered, a series of useful notifications are sent to the customer updating them on their purchase. In Domino’s case, customers receive push notifications on their mobile device throughout the process. From prep to bake to delivery, customers are notified about every step and each notification links back to the Pizza Tracker, the visual manifestation of MIPS.
When you order a pizza for an office full of hungry coworkers or a house full of famished kids, you want certainty about your order. Hangry and anxious, they’ll look to you for one answer: When will the pizza arrive? At this point, you can either be a zero or a hero. If you’re in the dark and you leave your compadres in limbo, the anxiety will escalate and you’re going to be a zero. Compare that to the certainty of “it just got boxed up and should be here in 12 minutes.” That’s more like it! You’ll be the hero. Next time you want a pizza, who are you going to call? The company that made you a zero or the one that gave you certainty and made you a hero? When your customers have failing equipment or systems in their building that impact their tenants, customers, or coworkers, do you think they’d rather have the hero or the zero? This doesn’t just apply to emergency service work. For standard maintenance or inspection work, they’d rather be certain about what’s going on so they can keep their colleagues up to date, make arrangements on their end, and have peace of mind about the work being performed.
At the end of the day, all facility owners and managers really want is certainty. Strategically, that means certainty about their facility budget. Tactically, that means certainty about the facility services they receive from day to day. They want certainty about everything from when the tech will arrive to how they should resolve equipment issues. MIPS give your customers tactical certainty by giving them the information they need to make good decisions on a service-by-service basis. Service certainty can distinguish you from the unpredictable, unreliable competition.
That Awkward Moment
I love asking business owners and managers “Who do you think you are?” I’m not trying to pick a fight. What I’m really asking is “What makes you different and better than your competition?” But that’s a pretty boring question. Generally, those who give me a concise, thoughtful answer run growing and profitable companies. Those who can’t, don’t.
We’ve written a lot about figuring out what makes you different and better than your competition, but sometimes being committed to your unique value proposition leads to difficult conversations with customers and prospects. Being different will certainly help your company stand out relative to the competition, but it can also feel pretty uncomfortable at times. I will never forget a customer visit with Billy that illustrates just how difficult being committed to being different can be. We were visiting with Randy and Rebekah Akins, the owners of Aztec Fire and Safety in San Diego California. Randy was on the phone because he could not get to the office that day, and Billy, Rebekah, and I were sitting in Rebekah’s office. Randy led off the conversation with an observation on why he had abandoned his last customer service platform and selected ServiceTrade.
“The last application we used really screwed up our QuickBooks, and the most important thing ServiceTrade can get right is an elegant integration with our accounting application,” Randy declared through the phone speaker.
Uh oh, I thought to myself. This is about to get really interesting. Billy didn’t let it go as I hoped he might. Randy had just signed up with ServiceTrade the week before, and I guess Billy was pretty confident that Randy had already written and mailed the check because his first response was a verbal punch in the mouth for Randy.
“Well then, you are likely to be disappointed with ServiceTrade if an elegant QuickBooks integration is what is most important to you. We focus most of our research and development spending on innovations that help you make more money from your customers through great customer service. We believe making more money and great customer service is far more important than how you send the information to your accounting application.” Billy wasted no time getting to the heart of the conflict, and Rebekah and I stared awkwardly at each other wondering what was going to happen next. I personally was happy that Randy was not in the room because he seemed to be spoiling for a fight after wasting a year or more on an application and then switching to ServiceTrade to solve what he felt was his most important problem – QuickBooks integration.
My response to the situation.
“That’s a pretty arrogant thing to declare in the first meeting with a new customer. Basically, you are telling me that what I want is not important and that you guys know better than the customer. We are going to be very disappointed if you can’t help us with this QuickBooks problem.” Randy wasn’t backing down either. I felt I should do something, but this experience was like watching a train wreck, and I felt paralyzed. I literally couldn’t speak or move. Billy continued with “We certainly don’t mean to be arrogant, and you guys are important to us. I hope the QuickBooks thing works, but it might not. If you stick with us, however, I can promise you in six months you will be thrilled with how much easier it is to take care of your customers, deliver more services, raise your prices, and attract new customers.”
“We have already written the check, and we plan to make every attempt to be a good customer. I hope you are right because our last experience with technology was a huge disappointment,” Randy closed the door on the fight, and we moved onto more comfortable ground with a conversation regarding the training and data migration plan for Aztec.
Fast forward eight months and Billy and Randy are best buds. Randy and Rebekah’s business is growing like crazy, and they feel like ServiceTrade has made them stand out in their market. They are selling more services, earning a premium, and attracting new and better customers to their brand. Billy took a calculated risk in that first conversation because he knew that the best ServiceTrade could do regarding a QuickBooks integration was not going to impress anyone. QuickBooks is low cost, basic accounting application that is easy to use, but it has severe limitations regarding how third-party applications interface with it. There are no APIs for the desktop version. Besides, having a QuickBooks integration is not what sets ServiceTrade apart in the market. We know who we are as a company, and our mission is to help commercial service contractors use technology to deliver amazing customer service and become more valuable to their customers. QuickBooks has no bearing on that mission.
Do you know who you are as a business? Do you know what makes you different and special in your market? Can you confidently tell your prospects that you don’t care about being the low price leader and explain what unique value you can offer them instead? Can you explain why your program will reduce inconvenient and expensive breakdowns in the future? Do your customers know who you are? Commit to being different, even if it means being uncomfortable, in your early engagements with customers and prospects to overcome the bad habits they’ve learned from your low-end competition.
The Death of Blind Trust
Service contractors, beware. Blind trust is dead and as the “youths” say, pics or it didn’t happen. Pictures and videos are the new currency of trust thanks to technology that makes it so easy to capture and share them. Social media and modern ecommerce have trained us to expect images as tangible evidence that stories are true and products are real. Asking your customers to blindly trust your expertise without providing visual proof is like buying products online that don’t have pictures. It won’t happen. My wife and I had a recent experience with a Toyota dealership service department that’s a great example where a couple pictures could have made the difference between us being lifelong customers and abandoning the dealer completely.
When we purchased Jessie’s Prius, we bought a package of ten services at a discount from their counter rate. We drop her car off for service every few months and every once in a while they warn us about small issues like bad windshield wipers. Whenever possible, I take care of small issues myself. Changing out a set of wipers isn’t exactly rocket surgery.
We were satisfied with the Toyota dealer until last month when they performed a thorough inspection for the 75k mile service. That’s when the recommendations and repair suggestions came out of the woodwork! We expected some, but this list was just ridiculous. My favorite was that they still recommended new windshield wipers because they weren’t replaced by Toyota last time we brought the car in. They just carried the recommendation over despite the fact that there were obviously new wipers on the car. That particular misstep had me questioning the rest of the quoted work.
If they didn’t look at the wipers, how can we trust that they looked at anything else? There weren’t any pictures that prove that they did. They quoted us for tire alignment but they didn’t include a graph showing the results of the alignment test. They just said “Found suspension in need of alignment based on time or miles.” Then there’s the quote for replacing the brake pads and resurfacing the rotors without any pictures of the pad or rotor wear. The brake fluid is discolored? Show us. Pics or it didn’t happen.
We don’t like getting ripped off. Nobody does. Even the feeling that you might be getting ripped off is enough for someone to consider getting a second opinion. And, that’s exactly what we intend to do. We’re going to our favorite local mechanic who emails us pictures of issues before sending quotes for repair. Taking pictures and sharing them with your customers should be easy. If it’s not, you’ve got a problem. Don’t expect your customers to blindly trust you.
COUNT YOUR MnMs
“Money for Nothing” is the concept that you can charge a premium if you offer customers predictable facility outcomes at a predictable price. You should be more profitable when “nothing” happens: no emergencies and no system failures. These bad outcomes are undesirable for the customer and expensive for everyone, especially your company. Even if you charge the customer an exorbitant labor rate or emergency fee, being reactive costs a lot more than your tech’s overtime rate. The uneven labor demand of reactive work overextends your most expensive resource, skilled labor. Read our Money for Nothing blog post and check out Billy Marshall’s presentation, Money for Nothing: How Exceptional Service Brands Earn More Pay for Less Work, for a deeper understanding of the topic.
To understand how a Money for Nothing program works operationally, let’s talk about your technician Dan. OK, you may not have a Dan, but stick with me. Dan is the man. He’s been with you for years and he racks up all sorts of repair work and generates a lot of revenue for the business. He’s great at what he does and is irreplaceable in the face of the skilled labor shortage we’re experiencing. On a typical maintenance call, he may find a small equipment issue that has the potential of manifesting into a severe problem in the future. He reports the issue that makes its way to the customer as a quote. As usual, the facility manager, Stingy Steve, ignores the quote because he doesn’t think it’s all that urgent. Eventually, the equipment fails and Dan has to drop another job and work late to resolve the issue. Even though Dan the Man predicted the problem, Stingy Steve is still frustrated that he has to spend more money and deal with the hassle of an emergency.
That’s a bad customer outcome that could have been avoided. That’s how you lose customers. Dan did a great job reporting the problem and your team did a great job quoting it, but more effort should have been made to convince Steve that the minor repair was the right choice. Measuring the right performance metrics can help hold your team accountable for good outcomes and incentivize them to work harder for your customer to avoid situations like this.
Money for Nothing Metrics – or MnMs, not to be mistaken with M&Ms – are business measurements that will help your facility service organization effectively deliver on your premium service contracts and drive better customer outcomes. But first, what internal metrics do you currently use? Labor utilization summaries? Quote approval rates? Revenue per tech per day? These are valuable KPIs for measuring productivity and revenue, but what about customer outcomes? You can measure retention and customer lifetime value, but those are just the results of your performance. They indicate the overall “stickiness” of your brand and how effective you are at extracting dollars from your customers, but they don’t help you understand how you got there. We know that you can’t improve what you don’t measure, so let’s take a look at some key MnMs.
Suggested Repairs
How proactive is your team when it comes to equipment and system issues? Easy. Just track the ratio of reported, quoted, and approved proactive repairs as compared to more severe, reactive problems. The higher the ratio, the better job your company is doing at preventing future catastrophes. Even though these repairs produce less revenue, they will reduce the chance of a bad customer experience and can be scheduled during slow months.
Emergency Calls and Overtime Usage
How often do your customers have unexpected issues? For most service contractors, the answer is very seasonal, but you still have some control over the volume. More proactivity leads to fewer emergencies and happier customers. Measure the volume of emergency calls and overtime hours used for contracted customers to the total number of contracted customers by month to get a sense of what to expect from month to month. You know you’re doing a good job when that ratio drops for the same month year over year.
Hold your team accountable and incentivize them for “nothing.” Just like your program, your team should be making money for nothing: no emergencies, no failures, no bad outcomes. MnMs give you the numbers you need to set goals and realize outcomes.
Money for Nothing
When you deliver great service, equipment and systems don’t fail, nothing happens, and your customer is left wondering if you’re worth the money. When you deliver poor service, systems fail and the customer gets frustrated. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Billy Marshall’s keynote presentation at the 2017 Digital Wrap Conference, Money for Nothing: How Exceptional Service Brands Earn More Pay for Less Work, explains how to keep customers happy and earn a premium when nothing goes wrong. As Billy explained in an earlier blog post, this strategy requires you to show customers all the “snakes” you find in their systems:
You can give the customer what they want, which is nothing, as long as you are regularly finding snakes on the roof, snakes in the riser room, snakes in the ductwork, snakes in every nook and cranny of their critical equipment. Of course, these are figurative snakes, not literal snakes. The snakes are the equipment deficiencies that your technicians are recording with photos, audio, and video for the customer to review online via your Service Link. The deficiency snakes are clickbait that constantly reminds the customer how your diligence keeps them from getting bitten by disruptions and breakdowns which inevitably lead to hassles and aggravation.
Billy didn’t stop talking about snakes for months. He managed to take this snake analogy all the way to his keynote presentation:
The analogies and stories don’t stop at snakes. Check out Billy’s entire presentation to learn how to make “Money for Nothing” and create a customer program that will let you charge a premium because you provide more value.
