Hello out there, Hope all is well with the world today. Rain, snow and high winds are pretty much the only three elements that can ruin any window cleaners day. If you have been in the window cleaning business long enough and have employees as great as ours who are willing to tough it out and still show the utmost respect for a customers home; you know windows can be cleaned just as well on a rainy day as a bright, sunny day. Try explaining that concept to a customer who is terrified of spots, dirt and water.
There are a few magic words that can fix this most times. "We offer a RAIN GUARANTEE" IF the customer notices any spots or streaks after the rain stops they can call us back and we will fix it for (ready for the dirty four letter word?) FREE.. Yea I know I'll wash my mouth out with soap later but for now the goal is to keep work on schedule. We don't offer guarantees like this unless we are sure about our competence and ability. Look at it this way either way the customer wins.. the job is either done to perfection the first time or we come back out for free to touch up any spots. If that happens (which it rarely ever does) we lose out the customer still ends up with clean windows and no extra money out of pocket.
Logic tells us that no one would call out of work, expect the coffee shop or the cable guy to shut down because it's raining so why is it so crazy for window cleaners to keep working? Would anyone stop taking care of their families or tolerate anyone doubting your ability to do so because of the weather?? I don't think so.
Window cleaners need to find ways to make customers trust that we know what we are doing and that we can and will complete the job to their satisfaction with the most respect shown at all times despite the weather. If we can't the alternatives are: don't work, sit around singing the "rain, rain go away" song or find out how to do the indian rain dance in reverse. I don't know about you but I don't really know all the words to that song nor do I have any connections in the rain dance department, soo.......
Until next time enjoy the weather and best of luck to you all,
The Appointed One
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Excuses
Hello again, Hope everyone out there is doing well all around. We are all starting to take turns getting sick in here but hey tis the season (as stupid and yucky as it is).
Every company in the service industry is feeling the whole economy slump especially right about now when things are usually booking faster than we can enter it. Things are good but slower than usual for this time of year so far and as I mentioned we know what's going on in the economy, we all see what's happening with peoples' jobs, even the banks are making changes which is a little scary BUT what makes and breaks my day are the lame excuses we get over the phone from customers.
We make calls several times a year reminding repeat customers it's time to clean the windows or power wash the home. This time of year we focus on gutter cleaning and our newest rainflow gutter protection. We even offer extra special deals for repeat customers on top of the advertised stuff they get in the mail. In an effort to get you off the phone customers make up the strangest excuses rather than just tell you the truth either they can't afford it, they used someone else, or they just aren't interested which leaves you with one of the following.
Breaking your day: This could be where you call a repeat customer. They have been using you for the last several years and suddenly you are the enemy. They claim that you damaged something or missed something, even did a horrible job. Yet all the notes you have say nothing about any issues and even the follow up call and survey card say "what a wonderful crew, I was so excited after the work was done can't wait to see you again next year" So you ask "Why didn't you let us know when it happened" and they say "Well we didn't want to get anyone in trouble" or "We didn't think you would do anything about it" Of course none of these are the case it just sounds better to them if they have some other reason other than their own decision to turn us away. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying we never have an issue but we always do our best to address them when we are told about it. The only other real scenario that breaks my day is when the answering machine picks up you go through your whole spiel then someone picks up and says "oh they're not home now and hangs up" Please come on now why in the world would they bother to pick up the phone I was just about done with my message..... JEEZ!
Making your day: There are so many excuses that come through that just make you either stop and think for a while about whether you are the crazy one or just flat out crack up. For example when we get a customer on the phone who has used us for several years then took like a two year break. You make your offer and they say " we never used you how did you get our information?" or "I'm on the do not call list it's illegal for you to call me" These leave me scratching my head rechecking the number I dialed and reviewing the customers info. Then I laugh after confirming that I'm not the crazy one. I love the brain teaser excuses which take 2 or 3 other people to figure out what the excuse has to do with the call. Ready for these? "My house was just painted blue last month call me back next year", "No I can't have you come out it's gonna rain" and finally these two are my favorite.. "Who are you, what did we do when, huh I'm sorry I don't understand" and "I'm on my way out (or in a bank even at a funeral) can't talk now" With these calls you generally don't get a chance to say a word after they are done because they hang up. If you think about it though they are hilarious cuz why would you answer the phone if you were running out, for god sake why would you even have your phone on at a funeral especially in this day and age with caller ID and watch out now voicemail.
As funny and frustrating as these calls may be at the end of the day it's making these calls that puts you over the top so please take my advice it will help at least one person out there. Go to the bathroom before you start your calls, keep plugging along don't let anyone get under your skin and don't ever give up! Keep taking the good with the bad; trust me the good will outweigh everything else in the end.
Just a side note for any potential customers reading this please, please just be straight with us. I would much rather hear "Not interested" or "found someone to do it for less" than be strung along to a dead end.
Have a great week everybody,
The Appointed One
Every company in the service industry is feeling the whole economy slump especially right about now when things are usually booking faster than we can enter it. Things are good but slower than usual for this time of year so far and as I mentioned we know what's going on in the economy, we all see what's happening with peoples' jobs, even the banks are making changes which is a little scary BUT what makes and breaks my day are the lame excuses we get over the phone from customers.
We make calls several times a year reminding repeat customers it's time to clean the windows or power wash the home. This time of year we focus on gutter cleaning and our newest rainflow gutter protection. We even offer extra special deals for repeat customers on top of the advertised stuff they get in the mail. In an effort to get you off the phone customers make up the strangest excuses rather than just tell you the truth either they can't afford it, they used someone else, or they just aren't interested which leaves you with one of the following.
Breaking your day: This could be where you call a repeat customer. They have been using you for the last several years and suddenly you are the enemy. They claim that you damaged something or missed something, even did a horrible job. Yet all the notes you have say nothing about any issues and even the follow up call and survey card say "what a wonderful crew, I was so excited after the work was done can't wait to see you again next year" So you ask "Why didn't you let us know when it happened" and they say "Well we didn't want to get anyone in trouble" or "We didn't think you would do anything about it" Of course none of these are the case it just sounds better to them if they have some other reason other than their own decision to turn us away. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying we never have an issue but we always do our best to address them when we are told about it. The only other real scenario that breaks my day is when the answering machine picks up you go through your whole spiel then someone picks up and says "oh they're not home now and hangs up" Please come on now why in the world would they bother to pick up the phone I was just about done with my message..... JEEZ!
Making your day: There are so many excuses that come through that just make you either stop and think for a while about whether you are the crazy one or just flat out crack up. For example when we get a customer on the phone who has used us for several years then took like a two year break. You make your offer and they say " we never used you how did you get our information?" or "I'm on the do not call list it's illegal for you to call me" These leave me scratching my head rechecking the number I dialed and reviewing the customers info. Then I laugh after confirming that I'm not the crazy one. I love the brain teaser excuses which take 2 or 3 other people to figure out what the excuse has to do with the call. Ready for these? "My house was just painted blue last month call me back next year", "No I can't have you come out it's gonna rain" and finally these two are my favorite.. "Who are you, what did we do when, huh I'm sorry I don't understand" and "I'm on my way out (or in a bank even at a funeral) can't talk now" With these calls you generally don't get a chance to say a word after they are done because they hang up. If you think about it though they are hilarious cuz why would you answer the phone if you were running out, for god sake why would you even have your phone on at a funeral especially in this day and age with caller ID and watch out now voicemail.
As funny and frustrating as these calls may be at the end of the day it's making these calls that puts you over the top so please take my advice it will help at least one person out there. Go to the bathroom before you start your calls, keep plugging along don't let anyone get under your skin and don't ever give up! Keep taking the good with the bad; trust me the good will outweigh everything else in the end.
Just a side note for any potential customers reading this please, please just be straight with us. I would much rather hear "Not interested" or "found someone to do it for less" than be strung along to a dead end.
Have a great week everybody,
The Appointed One
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Coupons Expire
Good Morning!! Yes it is a good morning, the sun is shining, it's just the right amount of chilly and I managed to squeak by my last blog without getting grounded.Today I need to vent a little bit about coupons and special pricing offers. This stuff is almost always handled by "The Marketeer" she puts together all the advertisements we send out periodically with special offers for loyal customers as well as new customers. Most of our advertising is directed toward a seasonal theme. She puts a lot of time into making each advertisement as appealing as possible. She also tries to ensure that the customer has enough time to take advantage of these specials by spacing the expiration dates out pretty far. When business gets slow on top of these wonderful coupons we make calls from here to offer special limited time offers and again we make sure that the offers are valid usually for at least a month. Do you think people pay attention to these expiration dates; verbal or printed? NO THEY DON'T!
Let's take a little trip down summer '08 memory lane. The Marketeer sent out these fabulous cards at the beginning of August offering long time awaited discounted prices lower than they've been in more than 3 years. (pretty exciting so far huh?)
Everything was to expire August 30, 2008. Then on top of this fabulous card we made our calls offering even more deals on top of the printed offers because let's face it when people are on vacation no one is around to get the windows done or houses power washed. Once again these offers were valid until the end of August. To make things better we even extended all the offers out to September 15, 2008. Do you think this made a difference to our customers? Are you getting excited yet? (I know the suspense is killing you isn't it?). Finally some of the offers were extended even further to September 30, 2008. I bet you're wondering why.
Well here we go fast forwarding to today October 15, 2008. Hope no one got whip lash on that trip. (If you're not laughing you should be). Customers are calling to book appointments for our lowest price ever promotions. What do you think my response is? "Well sorry but that offer is expired" Can you guess what I get back?.... ready here it comes my favorite part.. "How can it be expired I just got the card in the mail" and "Well you didn't run that special very long I just got your message"
So here are my potential reasons for these kind of responses. One the post offices and phone companies have it in for us. The postal service is keeping our mailings hostage until they feel like sending them out in order to sabotage us. The phone company has the same idea so they are internally re-routing our calls to other places until our offers expire then sending them to the right machine. Big Conspiracy to sabotage our business and yours too so be very careful.
Two the most logical reason is the customer is tossing our card aside or hitting the delete button on the machine because they don't want to deal with it without thinking first. Then later on when they actually spend the 2 minutes it takes to look at the windows or the siding of the house causing them to call us with a major case of amnesia; wanting the deals that have expired a month ago. I'll leave it up to you to decide which is the real reason they didn't call for the specials prior to their expiration date.
Lesson of the day would be: Customers please please pay attention to expiration dates and take a minute to listen to our messages... maybe even return the call. We can always book appointments in advance. Fellow window cleaners maybe we can all make more of an effort to make expiration dates clearer, BIGGER, BOLDER.
Have a Great Week,
The Apointed One
Let's take a little trip down summer '08 memory lane. The Marketeer sent out these fabulous cards at the beginning of August offering long time awaited discounted prices lower than they've been in more than 3 years. (pretty exciting so far huh?)
Everything was to expire August 30, 2008. Then on top of this fabulous card we made our calls offering even more deals on top of the printed offers because let's face it when people are on vacation no one is around to get the windows done or houses power washed. Once again these offers were valid until the end of August. To make things better we even extended all the offers out to September 15, 2008. Do you think this made a difference to our customers? Are you getting excited yet? (I know the suspense is killing you isn't it?). Finally some of the offers were extended even further to September 30, 2008. I bet you're wondering why.
Well here we go fast forwarding to today October 15, 2008. Hope no one got whip lash on that trip. (If you're not laughing you should be). Customers are calling to book appointments for our lowest price ever promotions. What do you think my response is? "Well sorry but that offer is expired" Can you guess what I get back?.... ready here it comes my favorite part.. "How can it be expired I just got the card in the mail" and "Well you didn't run that special very long I just got your message"
So here are my potential reasons for these kind of responses. One the post offices and phone companies have it in for us. The postal service is keeping our mailings hostage until they feel like sending them out in order to sabotage us. The phone company has the same idea so they are internally re-routing our calls to other places until our offers expire then sending them to the right machine. Big Conspiracy to sabotage our business and yours too so be very careful.
Two the most logical reason is the customer is tossing our card aside or hitting the delete button on the machine because they don't want to deal with it without thinking first. Then later on when they actually spend the 2 minutes it takes to look at the windows or the siding of the house causing them to call us with a major case of amnesia; wanting the deals that have expired a month ago. I'll leave it up to you to decide which is the real reason they didn't call for the specials prior to their expiration date.
Lesson of the day would be: Customers please please pay attention to expiration dates and take a minute to listen to our messages... maybe even return the call. We can always book appointments in advance. Fellow window cleaners maybe we can all make more of an effort to make expiration dates clearer, BIGGER, BOLDER.
Have a Great Week,
The Apointed One
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Communication
Good Morning ,
"WHATEVER" has been the key word around here all week. As I mentioned previously we function just like a real life family and this is one of those phases where the famous term "whatever" comes into play. You ever get mad at a family member and you guys don't speak about anything even if its important? Well that's kinda what it feels like in here sometimes. There is missing information from a customers file or a new customer is entered then just left incomplete and if you wind up being the last person to have dealt w/ that customer you get the fifty questions as to why when something goes wrong. Then everyone is just like "whatever". This particularly stinks when it's a customer who ends up getting away w/ a scam b/c the "whatever" factor took leaving lots of holes in the line of communication.
For example yesterday I got a call from a prospective customer looking to book work off of a conversation she had previously w/ the marketeer. This customer had stated that she was close to the family and was offered a really good deal b/c of this relationship and b/c she had our closest competitor out to her home. Everything she was telling me made sense and seemed legit based on deals we were running back in the summer. The only problem is all that pricing had ended but again I was told b/c of who she was she could have the deal.. SURPRISE there were no notes at all about this woman so my gut said to just blow her off for now BUT I also didn't want to turn away a job especially considering she was pretty local. I was able to verify that she did have some distant connection to the family. Today however I spoke to the Marketeer who had the original contact w/ this woman and was told that she wasn't gonna do the work at all. So once again the "WHATEVER" factor came into play and another customer gets away w/ a spectacular deal and I'm awaiting the consequences of being the one who booked the work. (I'll probably be grounded for a week.. no t.v. LOL)
This is absolutely hilarious b/c when you think about it it happens so much to everyone where ever you go. Everyone tries to get something for nothing, families fight and make up, but at the end of the day COMMUNICATION is the key to success. So take this lesson we learn daily and use it wisely to get through the obstacles of business as well as life as smoothly as possible.
--
Shannon Horvath
Commercial Sales Manager
All County Window Cleaning
47 Rt. 94
Vernon, NJ 07462
P - 973-827-8311
F - 973-827-8312
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Job Estimating
Good Morning, Hope everyone is well and happy today. How many estimates are done per day? Anyone have any idea? Me neither. I know it's more than I can keep track of. The one thing I do know for sure is that some days you have a much better chance of winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning than getting information out of customers on the phone.
We do our free estimates over the phone for residential customers. We try to ask as few questions as possible in the easiest way possible yet we get the sigh right away. You know what I'm talking about.. when you say "I just have a few quick questions for you" and you get the long sigh w/ the following statements.. "I don't know how many windows I have" or "I don't have time for this can't you just send someone out" or my favorite " Ohhhh you do this over the phone"
Well yes of course we do this over the phone.. we don't have someone on staff to just run around counting windows for us. That would cost more money which in turn would cost the customer more money (which they aren't happy about spending in the first place). We have a website with pictures of windows to help w/ the estimating process, plus I think our questions are easy enough to answer.... I mean most customers call about their own house so one would think that we should have some idea of what the windows look like.. right??.
Once in a while you do get the customer who is very old and hard of hearing, the guy who just builds houses, or the couple who buys houses just to flip them leaving them with no clue as to what is actually in the house, not to mention the one customer who just flat out refuses to answer your questions and insists on having an in person estimate or they will use someone else. When this happens we really aren't left with too many options other than send Mr. Fancy Pants out to estimate or tell the customer we don't have anyone to do this so they will have to wait until we are in the area which could be weeks from now; then hope they don't find someone else in the meantime to do the job.
Most times we are able to get the estimate over the phone and we come very very close to the actual count with the exception of the few times that we show up and the job has doubled or is no where near the type of windows we discussed. My recommendation to avoid losing jobs or making anyone mad is: Questions need to be as basic as possible and the customers need to be made aware of any existing policies on estimating up front which is something we do all the time. We even print these policies on our work orders for everyones protection. We have a fairly large service area, offer a high quality service and try to keep prices as in line as we can without sacrificing what counts; so this is the only option I see unless you can and want to employ someone to wait then run around to do in person estimates all day.
We do our free estimates over the phone for residential customers. We try to ask as few questions as possible in the easiest way possible yet we get the sigh right away. You know what I'm talking about.. when you say "I just have a few quick questions for you" and you get the long sigh w/ the following statements.. "I don't know how many windows I have" or "I don't have time for this can't you just send someone out" or my favorite " Ohhhh you do this over the phone"
Well yes of course we do this over the phone.. we don't have someone on staff to just run around counting windows for us. That would cost more money which in turn would cost the customer more money (which they aren't happy about spending in the first place). We have a website with pictures of windows to help w/ the estimating process, plus I think our questions are easy enough to answer.... I mean most customers call about their own house so one would think that we should have some idea of what the windows look like.. right??.
Once in a while you do get the customer who is very old and hard of hearing, the guy who just builds houses, or the couple who buys houses just to flip them leaving them with no clue as to what is actually in the house, not to mention the one customer who just flat out refuses to answer your questions and insists on having an in person estimate or they will use someone else. When this happens we really aren't left with too many options other than send Mr. Fancy Pants out to estimate or tell the customer we don't have anyone to do this so they will have to wait until we are in the area which could be weeks from now; then hope they don't find someone else in the meantime to do the job.
Most times we are able to get the estimate over the phone and we come very very close to the actual count with the exception of the few times that we show up and the job has doubled or is no where near the type of windows we discussed. My recommendation to avoid losing jobs or making anyone mad is: Questions need to be as basic as possible and the customers need to be made aware of any existing policies on estimating up front which is something we do all the time. We even print these policies on our work orders for everyones protection. We have a fairly large service area, offer a high quality service and try to keep prices as in line as we can without sacrificing what counts; so this is the only option I see unless you can and want to employ someone to wait then run around to do in person estimates all day.
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