It's All about the Service in Plumbing Repair

Good customer service in plumbing repair is essential to long term business success. It is imperative to market your plumbing service and provide opportunities for great customer service.

"The question isn't, ‘What is good customer service?'" says Beverly Koehn, president and owner of the San Antonio-based marketing consulting firm Beverly Koehn and Associates Inc., "It's, 'What's your customer's definition of good customer service?'"

Koehn travels the country and says attention to servicing the customer has exploded in the last five years because consumers have more choices and won't settle for anything less than exceptional. They have set the bar.

Exceed Expectations
Roger Peugeot, president of Roger the Plumber in Overland Park, Kan., not only concurs, but feels he needs to set his bar higher than his customer's expectations.

"Good service begins at the top of an organization," Peugeot says. "My company is here for one reason—to help people in an extraordinary way. If you win customer loyalty, the money will follow." Peugeot promises same-day service and operates seven days a week.

Finding out how your customers need to be served is vital. "Ask your customers what kind of communication they prefer—e-mail, postcards or a phone call," Koehn says. "How often would they like to hear from you? Find out how they define exceptional service? Posing such basic questions that will illustrate to them how you are putting their needs first."

The Follow-Up
Koehn also stresses the importance of a service call follow-up. "Where I see companies drop the ball is in communicating to their customers effectively and continually, she says. Ask about their experience with the plumber. What impressed them? Were there any disappointments, challenges? I have people tell me all the time that it was a simple thing to do and people opened up, allowing them to take their businesses to the next level." Koehn adds that questions can also be posed to new customers to discover how they've been treated in the past and their expectation of you.

Peugeot employs a few more tactics. His technicians leave a postage-paid report card with a customer and mentions that there's a monthly $100 drawing for those who fill out and return the card. "The return rate is remarkable," he says. "We also make a pre-call to the customer letting them know the technician is on the way, and of course a follow-up call to see how everything went for them. This holds our technicians accountable." Another way Peugeot sets a standard is through menu pricing. "Whatever the job is, we have a flat rate so the customer knows the cost going in," he says.

The Right Attitude
Attitude also says a lot about your business including the tone of your voice, helpfulness and empathy. How do you instill the right attitude across the organization? "Train your team and help them understand," Koehn says. "Good will with a customer is destroyed if one of your associates has a bad day, or enters a home with muddy shoes or tobacco in his mouth. It's a choice to train your people and implement an ongoing customer service program."

Peugeot says that he's fortunate that his employees agree with his philosophy. "If they take care of the customers, we make sure to take care of them," he says. "We give them the best equipment, trucks and customer training including Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People course. We know our employees could work anywhere. We're happy they prefer to work for us."

Elevating the Profession
Charlie Wallace is the executive director of Quality Service Contractors (QSC), an enhanced service group of the Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors (PHCC) National Association.

The QSC mission is clear: "To provide the quality service contractor with training, technology and professional development, resulting in superior client service and satisfaction."

"The contactors participating in QCS come to us as good technicians but lack a strong business sense," Wallace says. "What they and ‘granddad' did in running their business doesn't necessarily hold up today. We need to elevate the profession. You are not just a plumber. You're a service rep, a salesman and an ambassador for your company."

Wallace says that a good customer service program can't happen overnight. "It's commitment first, then setting goals," he says. You start with baby steps. Meet those goals and move on to the next. Before you know it you're meeting and exceeding your customer's needs.