Better Customer Service
Who is The Inspector's Customer?
Often the inspector has at least two people with a vested interest in their service, the home buyer, and the buyers agent. However many times there are four people, the home buyer, the home seller, and both their respective Real Estate Agents. So who is your customer, well the party who pays for the inspection is your customer. However all parties involved are either potential customers, or may be considered a client. Any Real Estate Agent who brings you ongoing referrals, would be considered a client.
Good Customer Service is The Lifeblood of any Business.
You can offer promotions to bring in new business, but unless you have satisfied customers, those referrals will stop coming. Good customer service is also about bringing those customers back, and sending them away happy – happy enough to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then use your inspection service for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers.
Great Marketing Won't Keep Your Customers, or Clients.
If you’re a great marketer, you can sell anything to anyone once. But it will be your approach to customer service that determines whether or not you’ll ever be able to sell that person additional, or future services, as well as repeat services. The essence of good customer service is forming a relationship with customers – a relationship that that individual customer feels that he would like to pursue. The one true secret of good customer service and acting accordingly; “You will be judged by what you do, not what you say.”
Really, providing good customer service is a simple thing. If you truly want to have good customer service, all you have to do is ensure that your business consistently does these things:
1) Answer your phone.
Get call forwarding, or an answering service. Just make sure that someone is picking up the phone when someone calls your business. (Notice I say “someone”. People who call want to talk to a live person, not a “fake recorded robot”.) For more on answering the phone, see Phone Answering Tips to Win Business.
2) Don’t make promises unless you will keep them.
Not plan to keep them, but You will definitely keep them. Reliability is one of the keys to any good relationship, and good customer service is no exception. If you have an inspection scheduled for 3:30, then be there at 3:15, if something occurs which will make you late, then call as much ahead of time as possible.
3) Listen to your customers.
If you listen, your customer will voice their concerns, so take the time to address their concerns. In particular first time home buyers may be fearful of most of the issues you found during the inspection, so as always never be an alarmist, just stick with the facts. If they are common findings, then let them know that.
4) Deal with complaints.
No one likes hearing complaints, and many of us have developed a reflex shrug, saying, “You can’t please all the people all the time”. Maybe not, but if you give the complaint your attention, you may be able to please this one person this one time - and position your business to reap the benefits of good customer service. If you get a call from your customer, and they are saying you missed something, make an appointment and meet them at the property as soon as possible.
5) Be extra thorough - even if there’s no immediate profit in it.
Don't set yourself up for failure. Many State regulations, as well as respected professional inspection organizations say you only need to test a sampling of windows, and electrical receptacles per room, murphy's law dictates the ones you did not test will be the ones with an issue. If your customer calls you with an issue with one of those non tested windows or receptacles, are you just going to defend yourself because you met the minimum requirements? Well good luck with that, and I hope you can live with your conscious, we certainly would not want you as a Pro-Sight member.
6)Train your staff (If Your a Multiple Inspector Firm) to be ALWAYS helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable.
Do it yourself or hire someone to train them. Talk to everyone about good customer service and what it is (and isn’t) regularly. Most importantly, give every member of your staff (which of course would include the inspectors) enough information and power to make those small customer-pleasing decisions, so they never have to say, “I don’t know, but so-and-so will be back at...”
7) Take the extra step.
If your customer asks you a question about a certain item on the the property, don’t just say the answer. Rather lead the customer to the item on the property, and answer the question there. Then wait and see if they have additional questions about it, or any further needs. Whatever the extra step may be, if you want to provide good customer service, take it. People notice when people make an extra effort, and they will tell other people.
8) Throw in something extra.
Whether it’s a coupon for a future discount, additional information on home maintenance, or a genuine smile, people love to get more than they thought they were getting. And don’t think that a gesture has to be large to be effective. If you apply these eight simple rules consistently, your business will become known for its good customer service. And the best part? The irony of good customer service is that over time it will bring in more new customers than promotions and price slashing ever did!
