It seems I’ve talked a lot about contractors over the last couple of months — no small wonder since I’ve been building a big shop during that time.  I’ve watched as contractors have come and gone and I marvel at how very little motivation most of them have.  They charge a premium price — and could make great money if they’d just get to work — but they piddle around getting very little done until they’ve stretched a 3 – 4 day job into a week or two.

I guess the piece they don’t get is, if you do it in three days you make ‘X”.  If it takes two weeks you still get “X” but you have to divide it over five times as many days, meaning you just cut your wages by 80%.  I don’t know anyone who has a regular job who would put up with an 80% cut in pay, but contractors do it all the time.

One bright spot I had was my siding contractor.  His crew showed up at 7:30 a.m. and didn’t leave until dark (about 6:00 p.m.)  They didn’t take breaks.  They didn’t go to lunch.  They weren’t on their cell phones all day.  They came, they worked hard, they got ‘er done and they made money.  What a concept.

As a person who has made a living helping others maximize the potential of their businesses, contractors drive me crazy.  When I see all the money they’re leaving on the table, I can’t help but think how much I’d like to run their business for just half of what I could save.  They wouldn’t have to pay me anything.  I’d just take half of what they’re leaving out there and I’d be making a fortune.

But alas, that’s not going to happen.  If these people wanted to come at 8:00 a.m. and leave at 5:00 p.m. they’d have a job where they didn’t have to work outside where it’s too hot, too cold, too rainy, too windy, etc. etc.  No, they’re here because they want to make a “reasonable” living without having to put in a full day, day in day out.  They like the freedom to take a cut in pay and go fishing.

But imagine what they could do with a little motivation, a little dedication, a little self-discipline, and a little ambition.  These are talented people.  They have a craft.  They have important skills.  They have everything they need to have everything they could ever want.  It’s a pity you can’t help them see that.

In the mean time, I guess I’ll just spend my days scratching my head and asking myself, “What’s up with these guys?”

After a few months of self-fulfillment, and recharging of the batteries, I think I’m ready to resume this blog where I left off.  I’ve had some great customer service examples lately, and I’d like to talk about them over the coming days and weeks.  And, of course, I’ve seen other examples and we’ll discuss them in the course of all this.

I’m building a big wood shop here on the mountain to pursue my love of all things wood.  Since heating in a building with high ceilings, low floors and big open spaces is always a concern, I decided to go with hydronic heating (the tubes set in the concrete floor with hot water flowing through them.)

As part of my research, I came across a company on the internet (located in Vermont) called Radiantec.  A quick call verified these guys are the most knowledgeable in the country when it comes to radiant.  The problem I’d had was I’d gotten a bid locally for $12,000 dollars for the system.  I didn’t feel like that was reasonable, so I started looking around to see what the same system would cost in other parts of the country.  Apparently it’s worth about $6,000 – $7,000 tops.  That’s where I got in touch with radiantec.

I had decided to do the job myself.  (Hey!  I figured if I can build and airplane I can certainly put a few tubes in the floor.)  Just one little glitch — I didn’t know anything at all about what, or where, or how, or anything else.  The local people either did your system from cradle to grave or they didn’t talk to you at all.  So I decided to call Radiantec, pump them for information, then go buy my stuff from the cheapest place on the internet.

What I found when I called them really surprised me.  They were willing to divulge everything — nothing held back.  They had all the stuff for sale, but they were willing to help whether I was going to buy from them or not.  As I did my research, I found they were within about 3% of the best price I could find anywhere and they had it all, so I could get everything I needed from one place.

When it came to the boiler, though, I had a problem.  The price of the boiler was about $1,500 higher than I could find it elsewhere.  When I expressed my concern about the price of the boiler, they said, “Well, if you want a cheaper boiler you can check out . . .” and gave me the names of other competing boilers.  They didn’t say, “Oh, but these aren’t as good,” or anything like that.  Just gave me the names and let me go draw my own conclusions.  The other brands had been given poor ratings by other consumers and I wasn’t interested.  I went back to them and told them I wanted their boiler, but didn’t want to pay so much for it.  They very casually gave me the name of other competitors who sold the same boiler for less.

At the end of the day, I spent $4,000 with these guys.  I have never been treated so well or so fairly by anyone.  I felt like they were truly trying to help me, not just sell me something.  Because of that, my son did a system about the same size as mine and bought from them .  He had a different salesman, but the same great service.  Then my buddy from Montana did the same.  Again, different salesman than my son or I, but the same great service.  Then his brother in Utah bought.

All in all, because those guys treated me so well, you can count about 9 systems and over $50,000 in revenues to the company.  No, they didn’t get all my money.  I bought my boiler elsewhere.  But they got the rest of my business and my undying loyalty which was worth way more, at the end of the day, than the boiler.

I can’t help but think how great the world would be if everyone did business like our friends in Vermont.  You’ve got to be good to have your office in Vermont and be selling service in Idaho, Montana, Utah, etc.  These guys are that good.  If you need a system, let me know and I’ll give you the name of the salesman I worked with.  If you don’t need one right now, at least consider how you treat your customers.  Hopefully you aren’t holding them hostage like people around here try to do.  Hopefully you are giving them everything they need so they’ll be back and be comfortable recommending their friends.

Thanks for reading this incredibly long story and I look forward to writing more.

I had fun in New York.  Who doesn’t have fun in a place with that much culture and that much cultural diversity?  We went to the theatre, to the museums, to the historic places, to the touristy places and everywhere in between.  Some of the best food in the world can be found in New York.  In some ways I really enjoyed being there.  It’s a great place to go every four or five years, if only to remind you why you live in the mountains.

The thing that I marvel at is how poor the customer service is everywhere you go.  “They’re just New Yorkers,” people say, as if to excuse the way people treat you.  “Oh, it’s okay that they treat you like that then.  I didn’t realize they were from New York.”  The level of customer service was so poor you hardly dared ask for directions or advice for fear someone would bite your head off.

In a great city with so much to offer culturally, I don’t see how they can get away with treating people that way.  I have been to other areas where tourism is a big part of their livelihood and they don’t mistreat tourists.  Not only do they “tolerate” them, they embrace them.  Would that be so hard in New York?  Surely there’s someone in New York who needs a job who’s not a jerk.  We joked that in order to get a job in customer service in New York you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you really are incapable of treating people civilly.

If I didn’t learn anything else on this trip (and I did) it was that the customer is king.  People who are treated well are more likely to spend more, and encourage their friends and family to return and do the same.  Those who are mistreated close their wallets and encourage people to avoid going to such a place, even if you are from New York.  ‘Nough said.

So why did I switch?  The answer is easy.  Last year about this time I ordered a new set of Day Timer inserts online.  They came, and within two weeks I was receiving about two to three emails a week from Day Timer promoting me on everything they could think of.  It’s like ordering from them had created this gigantic spam machine that couldn’t be turned off.  I opted out on their website.  It didn’t work.  I opted out again.  It didn’t work.  I called the company and told them to get me off their list.  It didn’t work.  I called my email provider and had them mark anything from Day Timers as spam.  I think I’ve got it turned off.

But the thing that’s really turned off is me.  I wouldn’t go back to Day Timers if they were the only ones in the entire world offering time management tools.  It’s kind of sad, after 20 years, to say goodbye forever to an old friend.  But what choice do I have?  The moral to this story is even though you have the best product, even though you have a customer base that’s been with you for decades, even though you you lead the field, you can still drive your customers away.

If you don’t learn anything else from reading this blog, I hope you will take away that customer service is everything.  Without the customer, you don’t have a business.  The customers are your business.  They’re not an inconvenience.  They’re not something you also do.  They’re not something you can abuse (or even take lightly for that matter.)  They are your business.  If that fact ever slips from your current consciousness, you risk losing every one of them — maybe not all at once.  But over time, you risk losing your customers (just like Day Timer did with me.)  One day you wake up and you have no customers.  Since you’re in the customer service business, you have no business.  That would be especially disheartening, since it’s all avoidable.

The fastest way to do that is to watch for the dog to do something that is sort of what you’re looking for and reward him.  He goes, “Wow!  That’s cool.  I do this, I get rewarded.”  And so he does it again.  Only this time, he has to be just a little closer to what you want to get the reward.  The dog says, “Oh, I see.  You want this, not that.”  And so it goes until the dog is doing exactly what you want, at which time you can begin to phase out the reward for that thing and start working on something else.

So what does that have to do with business?  We’re not training dogs here, but we are training people.  Every day we have to get customers, employees, vendors, etc. to do what we’d like them to do.  We do that in business by making it easy to do what we want, and more difficult to do what we don’t want.

Let me give you en example.  I ordered a DVD from a company about two weeks ago.  They sent me a confirmation that they’d gotten my order.  When I noticed they hadn’t yet hit my credit card, I went to find out why.  On the website, they have a place to send an email, or a phone number if you want to call.  Being one who hates phone trees, I decided it would be just as fast to email.  I sent the question and waited for a reply.  That was three days ago, and still no reply.

Now what would you predict I’m going to do now?  That’s right.  I’m going to call.  There’s no question it’s more efficient for the company to respond via email than to do so via phone.  It is cheaper, more efficient and in their best interest in every way to have me email.  But what do you think I’ll do next time?  Of course.  They’ve shaped my behavior.  I know the most efficient way for me is to call.  I don’t care that it costs them more.  I just want to be helped and they’ve taught me that calling will get me what I need the fastest with this company.

I guess it’s like bringing my wife flowers.  She’s shaped my behavior well on that one.  The first time I showed up with flowers she made a big deal out of it and gave me a big hug and told me I was the best, etc.  I liked that.  It wasn’t long before I brought flowers again to get the same treatment.  I know my wife will tell me I’m the best whenever I bring flowers, so I do it all the time.  That behavior is well ingrained in me now.  And why not?  We both get what we want and we’re both happier for her having shaped my behavior.  I know what she wants and when I do that for her, she gives me what I want.  Win / win.  Everyone gets what they want.

In effect, we’re all shaping behavior (for better or worse) in every thing we do.  We’re doing it with our spouse and children, with our employer, with our customers, with our vendors, with our friends — everything, everyone, everywhere.  We tend to think our actions occur in a vacuum.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Every action, every decision, everything we do has far reaching consequences if we stop and think about it.

Think about how what you do shapes the behavior (in some small way) of those around you.  Are you getting what you want?  If not, chances are you’re rewarding the wrong behavior and ignoring the right behavior.  Take some time today to think about shaping behavior and you’ll see there are opportunities you never knew existed.

So I called the Riki’s company, New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (www.cheesemaking.com) and asked for customer service.  I explained what had happened and asked for advice.  I got the short answer (which was actually more than I really expected when I made the call) and then spent the next thirty minutes trying to get off the phone with them.  They weren’t hanging up until they were darn sure I knew everything I needed to know to have a good experience next time.  I have to say that was the best customer service experience I have ever had anywhere.  The only other thing they could have done was jump in their car, come to my house and make it for me.  They did everything else.

I wonder how often that happens in their business.  I mean cheesemaking, while not particularly difficult (as near as I can tell) is not widely practiced in the good old USA.  But these people bent over backwards for a first time customer.  Imagine calling Chef Boyardee or the Schilling spice people and telling them your spaghetti sauce didn’t turn out.  What are the odds their customer service staff would spend a half hour on the phone with you explaining how to make better spaghetti sauce?  About zero.  And yet, if you’re going to grow your business (your industry in this case) that’s exactly what you have to do.  

When I see companies doing this sort of thing I think, “There goes a company that’s going to make it big.”  In an economic downturn like we’re experiencing right now, it would have been easy for New England Cheesemaking Supply Co. to reduce the number of customer service people, put in an automated voice mail system, have someone send out a brief email on resolving the problem.  But instead, they ramped up.  They are taking care of people at a time when everyone is stressed out.  They are moving forward while their competitors are languishing.  Really, cheesemaking isn’t something you need to do.  It’s cheaper to go to the store and buy cheese than it is to make it yourself.  You have to want to do this.  Helpful, encouraging customer service people make you want to stay with it.

You know, it’s really refreshing to run across someone who is passionate about what they do.  Someone who will make a small sacrifice in profits on the front end to produce a rainmaker on the back end.  I know that making a profit is important to these people.  It is to every business.  After all it’s profit that allows us to pay our employees, keep our doors open, provide a service in the community, etc.  But when you meet someone who is passionate enough about what they do to take the long view, you get a much better sense for what’s possible.  It’s so easy.  It’s so cheap (relatively speaking.)  Why isn’t everyone doing it?

Now I don't now about you, but I have to wonder why in the world does the electronic system give a rats about my phone and account numbers if it's not going to pass it along to the people?  It's safe to say I was offended and frustrated with the whole thing.

So here are my two rules of automated voice answering systems:

1.  Don't use them.  Pay the few bucks more for a person.  The customer is calling because they have a problem.  They're probably frustrated and angry.  They're going to talk to a person eventually, so why make them more frustrated and more angry before they get there?

2.   If you absolutely can't live without one of these systems, don't capture useless information and don't capture anything twice.  Get in, get what you need, and get out.  Don't prolong the agony.

Now, if you'll just enter your name, bank account numbers and passwords, a living breathing human being will be just a click away.