Why you need an ambassador

Illustration: Leo Michael

The roundtable discussions at the PMP Growth Summit always yield great content.

This year, customer and employee retention were hot topics. Summit attendee Michael Broder, CEO of BHB Pest Elimination, Wallington, N.J., has his commercial service manager visit accounts outside of the scheduled stops. The manager is there to answer questions from the client liaison, who may not be on-site when the technician is there. He also is there to upsell, saying for instance, “Here’s where you might want us to install door sweeps, and why.”

Broder, who also is on our Editorial Advisory Board and an online columnist, related a story as to how this saved one account — and the sanity of the scheduled technician.

“We had a restaurant owner who was a stickler for keeping everything clean, yet he still had fruit flies. Every month, we’d log ‘clean the soda fountain.’ Our manager went there and said, ‘Show me how you clean the soda fountain.’ The client wiped the front of it. Our manager pulled off the bottom tray from the machine, which amazed the client: ‘That comes out? I’ve been in business 30 years and never realized this.’” Once the client learned this was part of the “soda fountain cleaning routine,” the fly problem disappeared.

Every employee is an ambassador for your company, of course, but to designate a person to keep the communication lines flowing regularly, not just when there are fires to put out, could strengthen both your customer bonds and employee morale.