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2004/12/28, 02:55 PM
Found out today that we are losing customers and have made $80,000 less this year than last year. Was wondering if there was a way to contact our current customers to find out how they think the company was doing without looking obvious or desperate. Any ideas??
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2004/12/28, 03:12 PM
Cristal, I don't know what your company does. I own mine and send out a survey upon completion of each job. The customer is instructed to sign it or not. We listen to the annonymous ones equally. The feedback is usually very positive and we are almost always able to implement improvements that are suggested.
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Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder where have I gone wrong? Then I hear a voice say this is gonna take longer than one night.
Charlie
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2004/12/28, 03:36 PM
I am the office manager for a carpet cleaning business. My husband just left the company last week because it doesn't exactly pay the technitions fairly. I get paid by the hour so I am fine. we lost 2 complexes over the past month, and they were both fairly large accounts. I think that sending out a survey just might be a really really good idea. i will have to run it by the boss. thx gramps!
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2004/12/28, 04:28 PM
Have someone pay a visit to the clients. Show some personal service and ask why. Face to face is best. Ask if they left for better service, or to save money. If it is money, you might get them back, if it is service (poor) you will have a hard time.
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If you can dream it, if you can imagine it, then you can be it, you can do it. If it is meaningful enough, and you commit the energy of your passion, you will.
Ivan
carivan@freetrainers.com
Montreal Canada
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2004/12/28, 04:42 PM
For one of the complexes we lost, it was because 2 of our techs let slip that the owner no longer comes into the office and that complex considered their relationship to be with the owner, not the company. The second one was because we were quoting jobs that they felt were too expensive. I ran the idea of the survey by my boss, and she thinks it is a good idea. She is going to run it by the owner and see what he thinks.
Secondly, she will be spending about 3 hours each week(she's a co-owner and stay at home mom, with an in home office) visiting different complexes that have either used us in the past or are new.
I think we may have the right ideas in place, now we just have to wait and see if they work.
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2004/12/29, 04:39 AM
Does you company have a Strategic Plan? I have found that comapnies without a vision for growth and a plan in place will often lead to failure.
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2004/12/29, 06:20 AM
A survey is an excellent idea to gain some perspective on your profit and loss margins.
Even better is to construct a plan to start evaluating the performance of your techs and momentum of your business before the end of the year even comes about. You know, hind sight is 20/20....so why not put your glasses on in the first place? :big_smile:
I have all of my staff conduct call backs within five days of the client's first visit. I can't even begin to tell you how much they appreciate that level of customer service and how much better it seems to work at getting them to provide the information I am looking for than the generic post/thank you card.
You can also utilize different kinds of software to check you client retention and the individual performance of your techs. I am a huge believer in self awareness and sitting down with my staff and looking at the numbers helps us both to identify our strengths and weaknesses.
All that being said....all the research and planning in the world is not going to be productive if your techs aren't being taken care of by the company. If the company cannot afford to change their pay scales, perhaps they can offer other incentives.
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Julienne
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
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2004/12/29, 10:26 AM
Cristal, it sounds like there are management problems. Unless the owners have an attitude change, it could be difficult to improve the situation.
I do believe in the 10-250 theory of satisfied customers. That is if you make a customer happy they will tell about 10 people. If you piss 'em off they'll tell 250 people.
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Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder where have I gone wrong? Then I hear a voice say this is gonna take longer than one night.
Charlie
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2004/12/29, 12:23 PM
I do think there are management problems, but have no idea in how to fix them. I was told that after 6 months I would get a dollar raise. I have been here almost a year and have not seen it. 2 of our techs have been with the company 7 years. They don't get any kind of paid vacation, or even sick days. you don't come to work you don't get paid. They are paid on commission, but if the company does a job at no charge because it's a friend of the companies or whatnot, the tech's don't get paid anything for that job. There are deffinate issues, but the owner has the "I'm always right" attitude. Where my boss and I thought the survey was good idea, the owner shot it down because he doesn't want people rehashing problems the were dealt with previously.
I can't wait until we pay off my husbands car so I can go to cosmotology school, move and work for Julienne, have a nice boss and do something I love.
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