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Building Your Brand through Storytelling

Do you want your customers to feel good about your brand? Try telling a great story. Research shows that storytelling has immense power to make us feel emotions as if we are a part of the story. The Nike marketing department sure figured this one out. Get your Kleenex ready. It gets you right in […]

How much information is too much?

Check out this image from an Amazon notification that I received during the holiday season.  It included imagery of the product (some black pajamas), a map of my neighborhood that indicates the location of my house, the current location of the delivery driver (the Santa sleigh), and a caption telling me Santa (aka Amazon) was […]

5 Reasons Why Hiring Millennials No Different Than Hiring Previous Generations

For the last decade, my career has been centered around recruiting and managing millennials. Plus, I am one. When we talk about recruiting and retaining millennials, I know what a lot of people are thinking: I don’t want to. Millennials have been labeled as entitled, unfocused, and job jumpers. Some even call us narcissistic. When […]

The Road to Success is Paved with Good Integrations

As VP of Customer Success at ServiceTrade, what everybody calls me at work is “that guy who can answer your questions about integrations.” The number of meetings I’ve been called into to discuss integrations with customers has gone up dramatically in 2018. I’ve noticed a theme in a lot of these conversations: customers aren’t really […]

What Contractors can Learn from the Mechanic

Megabrands like Amazon and Domino’s are outselling their competitors and changing consumer expectations by going on offense and providing better customer experiences that are convenient and transparent. As easy as it is to dismiss these examples because they are seemingly unrelated to service contracting, even the local mechanic is giving their customers a better service […]

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 […]

Good is Not Good Enough – How Amazon Raised Expectations to Feel Good for Commercial Service Contractors

Several dozen books (at least) have been written about the Amazon phenomenon, and I could probably go on and on myself about the lessons that can be drawn from its success. The lesson for the service contractor is that making your customers feel good about your service will likely lead to greater riches for you […]

Prioritizing Customers Above Accounting – B&W Mechanical

They spent hours on it. Brad Boggs at B&W Mechanical and Shawn Mims of ServiceTrade met several times to discuss how to integrate B&W’s accounting system with ServiceTrade. They planned it strategically, they talked with an integrator about the details, they held several follow-up calls. But as they say, the struggle of connecting ServiceTrade’s open […]

Good is Not Good Enough

Amazon does not settle for “good” in the realm of customer service. It is not enough for the customer to simply get what they paid to receive. Amazon wants customers to enjoy the experience in the same manner as a guest might enjoy a good party. Great brands now want to copy Amazon because Jeff […]

Tellin’ ain’t Sellin’ – Every Customer is From Missouri, So Show Them Something!

When your salespeople call on customers, what are they pitching? What do they present when they get that rare opportunity to show a high-profile prospect the benefit of working with your company?  While I have not been in the room often when a commercial service contractor is pitching a customer, I have seen hundreds of […]