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Build Your Business: Nobody Likes to Wait
1 May, 2008 By: Pat Quigley Pest Management ProfessionalIdon't like to wait. For those of you who know me, this is not a surprise — but it goes beyond merely not liking it.
 Patrick Quigley |
As a matter of fact, I get extremely frustrated when someone tells me they are going to come to my house at a certain time and then they're late. I'm not a big fan of going to the doctor for an 11:30 a.m. appointment, showing up at 11:15 a.m. and then have to wait until 12:05 p.m. to actually see the doctor.
I get annoyed when the mechanic tells me that my car should be done by 1:30 p.m., and I have to call them at 4 p.m., when they tell me it is now coming off of the lift. I can pick it up in 10 minutes, but when I get there it's just now coming off of the lift.
When I work with companies on retaining customers, and we talk to some of the customers about why they cancel, we discover many reasons. Two of the most common are:
- The technician is always late for my scheduled appointment.
- I've gotten switched from one day to the next, and I can't rely on that type of scheduling.
I ride with sales representatives all over the country in an effort to train them, and I can't tell you how many times I have heard them tell clients they're running late and are only five minutes away. Since I don't know their states and territories, I naively assume they're being truthful. More often than not, they're not being 100 percent accurate (and what's worse, they probably know that).
Typically, we wind up being 15 minutes away and the representative thinks it's OK because he or she called. When I ask why they would do something like that, they mention that people are used to waiting. Are they crazy?
Part of me gets it. You're in the service business and there are many variables you can't control: travel time, traffic, existing customer issues, among others. I understand all of that. But why is it that there are companies out there exceeding customer expectations every time? Why can they be on time? Why can they show up when they say they're going to? Why do they deliver the expectation that they communicate to the customer?
Simple — because they care. They care enough not to set unrealistic expectations and unrealistic time frames for their clients. They don't give their people so much work to do in one day that they don't take care of the client. They're fair in setting realistic expectations for not only their customers but, equally important, their employees.
I read an article in USA Today a few months ago about how people are more time poor than they are money poor. I bet a lot of you right now are agreeing with that statement. Think about the things you have to do after work or on weekends: your hobbies, your kids, banking, paying bills — the list can go on forever.
I know stuff happens and we will always be pushed for time. We can't expect everything to go the way it's planned. But, if you waste your customers' time, they'll eventually tire of it and find someone with a better scheduling procedure than you to do the job.
Quigley is president of Sales Training by Design located in Gloucester Township, N.J. You can reach him by visiting
www.salesbydesign.com
or e-mail your questions for future articles to
pquigley@salesbydesign.com.
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