Are you worried that customers are going to “shop” your repair or upgrade quote around to other service contractors? If so, you failed earlier than you may realize. Getting customers to a “yes” on quoted work starts well before you ever find a problem and send a quote. It starts with trust. I’m not talking about the kind of trust built through personal relationships and old-school customer service. That’s not scalable or reliable. I’m talking about trust built on a technology-enabled, convenient customer experience. I’m talking about giving your customers the Amazon experience so they won’t consider buying from anyone else.
Amazon is dominating its competition because it innovated for the customer instead of focusing on backend efficiency. Now, they don’t have to compete on price. Walmart, on the other hand, focused on efficiency and logistics. They are the low-price leader, but the markets have spoken and you can see from the stock chart below that consumers will pay a premium for convenience. I, for one, will happily pay a few extra dollars to avoid:
Fighting for a parking spot
Wandering around looking for products
Waiting in line to check out
It’s not just the brick-and-mortar retailers that Amazon is dominating. Other e-commerce retailers struggle to compete with Amazon’s innovations. Even though other sites have lower prices most of the time (just check Google shopping), Amazon customers are loyal and don’t consider buying from anyone else. Why? Two reasons. Amazon’s order process is more convenient, reliable, and transparent than any other e-commerce site. From beginning to end, Amazon’s customers can trust that they are ordering the right products based on pictures and reviews and that their order will arrive on time based on notifications received throughout the process. Prime is the second reason Amazon customers don’t shop around.
Amazon sold the program when it introduced Prime, a service that gives customers free, 2-day shipping on most orders for an annual fee. It’s not like 2-day shipping is a new concept, and customers are still effectively paying for expedited shipping with the annual fee, but the concept built loyalty. Prime customers are bought into the program so they feel obligated to buy exclusively from Amazon and buy more to get their money’s worth. It’s brilliant.
Service contractors can take a page from Amazon’s playbook. First, sell the program to build customer loyalty from the beginning. Your program won’t look exactly like Prime, but here’s a webinar showing what it means to sell the program as a Service Contractor. Once they are in the program, use technology to give your customers a convenient, transparent, and reliable experience. Then, when you send a quote for an upgrade or repair, customers will trust that you are the only option to consider.
Service Hazard (Infographic)
What’s holding your service business back? Is it double data entry and other accounting inefficiencies in the back office? If you solve those problems, are you going to create more value for your customers, make your techs more productive, and differentiate yourself from the competition? Nope. Accounting doesn’t drive better customer outcomes. So, why do accounting issues get all of the attention? Well, it’s easy to fall into the trap of prioritizing those back-office problems because they are in your face every day. They are like a thorn in your foot; very obvious. However, they are just the tip of the iceberg. Under the water is something much more deadly.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I decided to show you what I’m talking about:
Hiding under the surface is what’s really holding you back. Scattered customer service data slows everyone down. The symptoms are pervasive, and the costs are enormous. Why do you think the front office is always behind, techs waste time on callbacks, and sales is struggling to win new customers or make upsells? Well, when service history, customer quotes, contact information, recurring service schedule, and asset details are all stored in different places, it’s no wonder there’s so much confusion and so many slowdowns. Instead of a central system that helps your team collaborate, you’re stuck with ad hoc calls, emails, conversations, txts, and paper.
On top of that, when your service information is disorganized, it’s impossible to give your customers any visibility to the value you provide. When you don’t even know exactly where your techs are, what they are doing, or what work they’ve completed, how are you supposed to share that information with your customers? Remember what it used to be like to schedule a taxi? It was miserable. Calling the taxi dispatch took forever, you’d have no visibility to where the taxi was, no idea what they were going to charge you, and they may not even show up. It’s no wonder Uber is dominating that entire industry. All it took was a change to the process that removed risk and aggravation for customers.
Icebergs perfectly demonstrate what’s going on with most commercial service contracting businesses. It’s easy to get stuck thinking about back-office problems. They are the tip of the iceberg. But, hiding below the sea is a mess of customer service data that is slowing down the entire organization and limiting your ability to provide a better experience to your customers. When you organize that data and move it to the cloud, you can cut your costs and Uber your competition.
Write your Vows to your Premium Program Customers
We’ve mentioned (here and here) how much more profitable it is to sell a premium program that gives the customer better outcomes than it is to negotiate on labor rates.
You’ll need a few things to sell a premium program:
Technology-enabled differentiators
A proactive maintenance and/or inspection plan
A defined service level agreement (SLA)
The goal of your SLA is to clearly state your customer service promises that will reduce their pain and indicate how easy you’ll be to work with. Your SLA should cover:
Your commitment to respond. Be specific about how quickly you will respond to emergency work.
A promise of a priority response. Give your attention to them first for maintenance or inspection work over customers that haven’t committed at the premium level.
How you’ll share the risk. Explain that by buying into the program, they’ll receive a valuable customer rate and/or eliminate some additional charges that non-plan customers pay like trip charges or OT labor.
You don’t have to go so far as to promise to love, honor, and cherish your customers, but let them know what you promise in return for their agreement to buy in at your premium program level.
Break the Profit Vise
Service contractors, you’ve got 2 huge problems. First, skilled workers are expensive and hard to find. We call this the “Skilled Labor Squeeze.” Second, small-time competition is undercutting you on price. We call these fly-by-the-night operations “One Truck Chuck.” With expensive labor driving costs up and cheap competitors driving prices down, you’re stuck in a profit-squeezing vise. So, what are you going to do about it? It may seem crazy, but the answer is to organize your customer service data.
Not sure what I’m talking about? Take a look at this blog post from a couple weeks ago about the inefficiencies hiding in most service contracting businesses. Basically, customer service data, the information necessary to provide world-class service, is usually scattered or locked up in an accounting system and filing cabinets. Data like service history, scheduling information, equipment failure records, and customer contact information, to name a few, are stored in a hundred different places and in a hundred different formats.
Effective collaboration makes technicians more productive and helps customers understand why you are different and better. If your information is locked up and inaccessible by technicians and customers, you’re especially vulnerable to the Skilled Labor Squeeze and One Truck Chuck. Why? Let’s break it down:
Technicians Administration, callbacks, and downtime are extreme wastes of tech time that are all caused by messy customer service data. Taking calls to answer questions about the work they performed last week is a waste of time. Calling the office or other techs to understand service history at a location is a waste of time. Going back to a location to gather data that was lost in the office is a waste of time. Coming back to the office to drop off paperwork is a waste of time.
Real-time collaboration of centralized customer service data in the cloud eliminates all of that waste. When skilled labor is more difficult to hire than ever, it’s critical to keep field technicians as productive as possible. Customers If your only vehicle to inform customers about what you do for them and why you’re important is an invoice, Chuck is going to steal your customers. In their eyes, you and One Truck Chuck look the same. You need to show them how you are more valuable. Queue the customer service data!
Once your data is organized and accessible, you can differentiate yourself from Chuck by collaborating with customers and providing visibility to the quality of your work. You can show them how thoughtful your program is. You can show them the pictures and videos that demonstrate equipment failure. You can show them how you save them money by keeping your techs productive working on their equipment instead of wasting time on administration and callbacks. You can show them how you help them make better decisions because they will have better information.
You will stand out against One Truck Chuck when you collect and use service information in helpful ways for the customer. Organized customer service data enables collaboration. Collaboration makes techs productive. Collaboration creates value for customers. This doesn’t work when the data is locked up in an accounting system. This doesn’t work when data is scattered across spreadsheets, email inboxes, and paper. Organize the mess, free the data, and start collaborating.
Fill the Stadium for Your Customer Service Features
So now what?
You’ve completed a big project to add new capabilities or value for your customers – something like implementing ServiceTrade or adding the Service Portal to your website. How do you get the word out so your customers start using and appreciating it?
If you have asked those questions, you aren’t alone. I’ve heard them half a dozen times so far this year. While you’re basking in a successful implementation, it doesn’t take long to realize that implementation was just the beginning. So what’s next? Driving adoption is the next project – and you’ll want to jump on it fast.
Feed Adoption with Customer Marketing
Every time we talk about marketing with service contractors, I feel like the response is something like “I got 99 problems and marketing is #99.” But marketing communications will help your customers understand and use your great customer service features.
Billy said this in chapter 7 of The Digital Wrap: “The strongest benefit of the digital wrap approach to marketing is that your marketing and sales impressions are actually valuable to the customer instead of being an aggravation or interruption.” He was writing about the marketing impressions that should be built into your service cycle, but it’s a pretty good rule for every marketing impression.
Marketing outreach is a good way to educate your customers about what you’re offering and why it’s good for them. You don’t want to send your first Service Link (online after-service report) and get a call from the customer asking, “What is this and why did I get it?” But your marketing must be seen as helpful, not annoying. Here’s how.
Invite Your Customers to Play Ball
Since a few people have asked for our advice for bringing awareness to their new customer service features, we have assembled examples, templates, and first-draft copy that you can use. Some of the materials available in our marketing resource center are:
Example websites from our customers
Bannerstand for trade shows or conferences that you can borrow
Powerpoint slides
Example email, invoice insert letter, and handout or postcard
Screenshots of customer service features, and more.
Take a look at those marketing resources and use them as a starting point for your own programs. You can run a marketing communications program without dedicating a ton of time or financial resources – doing a little is more effective than doing nothing at all.
Bring Them on Home
With a little bit of thoughtful outreach and follow up, you can:
Get your customers to adopt all your customer service features.
Help your customers understand how the program they bought from you continues to be good for them.
Keep the stream of communication open and ongoing.
Your account managers could do this work 1-to-1, but marketing can do the same 1-to-many. Make marketing communications do the heavy lifting, and have account managers follow up with their accounts.
There was a quote in the movie A Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” Why that may be true for lost baseball legends on a farm in Iowa, it is most decidedly not true for service contractors who want customers to take advantage of their new, modern, online customer experience. Like with modern baseball, you’ve got to do some work to get butts in the seats.
Read Chapter 7 of the Digital Wrap for free! You’ll gain an understanding of how many valuable marketing impressions you can earn with your customers (and sometimes with prospects) during your service cycle.
Lessons in Customer Service from the Utility Company – NOT
It is fortunate for the utility companies that they are protected by high walls of regulation that prevent new entrants from competing with them. I had to call customer service at Duke Power yesterday because I need to change the service at a location where I am now the personal representative of the owner. I assumed there would be a process to demonstrate to them my power of attorney, so I was not expecting it to be as simple as checking a box on a website. What I did not expect was a flashback to the mid-1980s.
When I reached the supervisor who could actually give me some instructions, she told me that I needed to fax the notarized power of attorney to their legal department. I replied that I did not have a fax so could she please just supply me with an email address. I have a nifty little app on my phone called CamScanner, and I can quickly shoot a scanned copy to legal. She repeated the fax number and said that I could mail it to them via the postal service if I did not have access to a fax. I asked her to hold the line for one moment while I picked up another call.
“It’s the ’80s calling,” I told her. “They want their customer experience back.” She repeated the fax number for me, and we said our goodbyes.
Don’t be like the utility companies. Take every opportunity to streamline the customer experience with your brand so that the customer is endeared to your company and never plots to leave for a competitor. After I hung up with Duke, I told Shawn, our marketing director, that the next house I build will absolutely be off the grid. I cannot wait to write Elon Musk checks for my Powerwall and my solar installation in addition to the check that I am willing to write for a small diesel generator. I want to get rid of Duke at the first opportunity I can because they suck.
Now, you might think this is a crazy response to having to deal with a fax machine. I can assure that the generation that is behind me (I am pushing 50) feels the same way and more so. If you want to keep your customers for the next 10 – 20 years, don’t be like Duke. As often as you can, do away with old, archaic approaches to customer service and replace them with conveniences that make the customer appreciate the thoughtfulness of your brand. Here are a couple of pro tips:
Be Mobile Friendly – everyone wants to engage from their smartphone, so let them.
Maximize Self Service – no one really wants to talk to anyone in your office, so don’t make them.
Take a Long View – expensive, disruptive repairs that might make a good margin for you are not good for the customer. Find ways to charge maintenance subscription fees that smooth your revenue while minimizing customer pain from surprises.
Sell the Program – emphasize to everyone that your brand is all about technology enabled conveniences. They will remember that pitch when they encounter the stupidity of a vendor (like Duke) that doesn’t get it.
Don’t be the utility company. You do not have the regulatory protections and you don’t want a reputation built upon 1980’s customer service.
Customer Interfaces: Comparing Apples and Blackberrys
Just over ten years ago, Apple announced the iPhone. Blackberry was the smartphone king with a great keyboard and wheel/ball for email power users. Now Apple is the most valuable company in the world, and Blackberry is out of the smartphone market. More applications and a better user interface won the day by a landslide. How would your customers grade the applications you provide and your user interface? Apple? Or Blackberry?
Think about it. Maybe you used to trade in labor rates and parts. Today you trade in information and convenience. Pressure readings, amperage readings, inspection intervals, flow rates – the information you manage is your stock in trade. What type of user interface are you providing your customer for them to value your stock? Phone calls and ad hoc emails with files attached? Uh, can you say “worse than Blackberry.” What will happen when your competitor shows the customer an iPhone? Oh, right. We already know how that movie ends.
Maybe now would be a good time to figure out a strategy for giving your customer more applications and a better user interface. Maybe your website should be something other than a billboard on a screen. Maybe the customer should have access to the information that you collect regarding their equipment through applications that help them make decisions regarding the maintenance and repair of that equipment. Don’t wait for the competitor to introduce the customer to iPhone. In fewer than 10 years they will be the most valuable company in your market and you will be out of business.
One final pro tip – this is not an accounting problem, so don’t bother asking your accounting application provider to solve it with a “customer service module.” Instead, look for built-in customer engagement features like an online customer portal and service history reports from providers who are evolving like Apple did over the past ten years that will help keep you at the front of your market.
It Actually is Rocket Science
Sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected places. Like space and a government agency.
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is shrewdly launching (pun intended) the GOES-16 satellite and sharing their excitement with the public.
Service contractors can learn from two things that NOAA did exceptionally well:
They engaged their audience throughout the process of adding new technology
The way they shared data made it meaningful to their audience
NOAA has been building awareness of GOES-16 for months. The communication picked up when the new weather imaging satellite was nearing launch in Nov 2016. Now that GOES-16 is in orbit, NOAA shared the first images from the new satellite.
Follow the GOES-16 Launch Sequence
You can build a lot of goodwill and interest in new customer service technology you’re putting in place if you include customers early in the process.
Tell customers it’s coming
Give them updates throughout the launch
Once you’re up and running, share information and give it context
Give examples how the new technology will help you do better work for them
Repeat #3 and #4 liberally
Then answer their question: What’s in it for me?
Like NOAA’s shiny new toy, great customer service technology can help your company provide customers with rich information, like photos, to help them make informed decisions. However, like the images collected by the GOES-16, the pictures you can collect in the field require technical expertise to understand. Fortunately, NOAA has provided another great example of customer education to overcome this technical hurdle.
NOAA smartly used photo captions to explain their new technology: How it’s better, what it tells us that it didn’t before, and what they’ll do with this information. They did a great job of this in just a few simple words. Click through to their website for the full article, or here are some examples that you can click to enlarge.
Photos from your service calls are critically important, but a lot of times they aren’t enough to tell your customers exactly what you want them to know.
Don’t just share raw data, tell people what they’re seeing
Don’t let them draw incorrect conclusions, apply your expertise to explain the current situation and how it could impact their future
Tell them why it’s better than what you gave them in the past
Want to be the winner in your market? Be the first to innovate.
These words of wisdom were imparted by Reese Bobby to his son Ricky Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (clip and clip). Winners get more than their fair share, and a loser is just a loser. No one cares about second place. In our fast-moving world, the winners often take all of the profit, and the losers are just losers.
Ten years ago last week, Blackberry was the world’s number one smartphone. It had a keyboard that was awesome. Apple introduced the iPhone with its innovative user interface, and ten years later Apple is the most valuable company in the world. Apple takes over 100% of the profits in the smartphone market, and Blackberry does not even make smartphones any longer. If you ain’t first, yer last! The winner takes it all, and a loser is just a loser.
Ten years ago, Blockbuster was number one in the video rental market. Today, Netflix is number one with a market value of over $57 billion. They introduced an innovative user interface for renting movies over the Internet, and Blockbuster went out of business. If you ain’t first, yer last! The winner takes it all, and a loser is just a loser.
Ten years ago, taxi companies were protected, regulated operators in the local markets they served. They proudly paid huge sums of money for their operating medallions. Today, Uber is an enterprise worth over $80 billion – more than all of the taxi companies in the world combined. They introduced an innovative user interface for hailing a car and paying for the ride, and the taxi companies have been decimated in their local, protected markets. If you ain’t first, yer last! The winner takes it all, and a loser is just a loser.
How good is your user interface to the customer? Is it still phone calls and triplicate forms? Is it ad-hoc emails with files attached? No organization or intelligence, just a dump of PDF files? What happens to your business if you are not the first in your market to introduce an innovative interface for customers to receive your services? Are you going to be first or last when the change comes to your market? Will you be the winner that takes a bigger share? Or a loser who is just a loser?
Maybe it is time to start thinking about technology as a way to please your customers instead of simply a way to seek operating cost leverage. The lesson of Apple, Netflix, and Uber is also the lesson of Blackberry, Blockbuster, and the taxi companies. It does not matter how long you have been around or how good your internal operations may be. An innovator in your market can turn your business into a loser. So, are you going to be first in your market to innovate with a better customer interface? Or will you just become one of the losers when someone else innovates first?
