Finding out as early as possible

To improve a service and solve problems, we find that we really need to want to know about problems.

It is upsetting and hurts our egos to hear problems and complaints, but we have to rise above that and just want to do what is right to create the best possible service.

Metaphors for this is people such as people covering their ears as they do not want to hear bad news, hiding or sticking their heads in the sand are all applicable.

Don’t assume no news from a client means everything is going great, there could be a very small problem happening but the client is too busy to contact you directly.  Nipping it in the bud early will make your client very happy and will keep them for a far longer time.

This means that we are actively hunting and looking for problems and this includes asking customers about them.

Customers normally only tell us once they are angry, normally as something has been going on for a while and they only tell us once it has gotten worse and worse.  As they are angry it is then harder to resolve the problem, it is also harder as the problem will have probably grown.

As a result they are more likely to cancel.

Even if they do not cancel this time, we have used up  goodwill with them and any good feelings towards us, so they are less likely to forgive any future issues and so even more likely to cancel in future.

Our aim is to build up goodwill and their feelings towards us.

So we need them to say before the point they are so angry, that they are motivated and bothered to contact us.  We also want to reduce the possibility of them cancelling, wanting to cancel, or damaging their goodwill towards us

We need to provide the best service and so they get that from us and have no need to go elsewhere.

The bottom line is that customers will find out about things before we do and we need them to tell us.

Making customers complain

Customers tend not to complain as:

1. It is effort
2. They put it off as they have other things to do
3. They fear a negative reaction to their complaint.

So a large part of quality control is making your customers feel comfortable to tell if there is a problem and to be bothered to do so.

I am sure you know restaurants, the waiter comes and asks if everything is okay.  The food is terrible and the people will never go back there, but it is easier to say yes it is and the customer does not want any aggravation from saying they are not happy.  The customer will just never go back there.

This happens a lot because the waiter does not really want to know if there are any problems and the customer feels they will not be able to sort it out there and then even if they say.

It can be such a big issue that customers just want to cancel as the easiest route out.  It is easier and they do not get the repercussions from complaining.

When they do cancel, they even make excuses that it is because they no longer want a cleaner anymore, they will do it themselves, their old cleaner has returned of any other issue.  This is normally because they do not want repercussions the cleaner or the cleaning company.

To resolve this:

1, Have chats with the customer and build up a relationship, they will then be happy and comfortable talking with you.  It becomes a pleasure talking with you and they are more likely to bother to tell you if they have any problems.   These chats from the moment the customer joins, to other regular times are all building up to making the customer feel comfortable to say if there is ever an issue in future.  They need to know that we want to know even about the smallest most trivial issue.

2, as parts of the chats, repeatedly say that you really want to know if there is a problem no matter how small or that you will improve.  The customer will then see that you will not respond with aggression, upset and so on, you will be pleased as you really want to know.  You will not make it a problem and will be thankful for the information.  This is hard to achieve as it is almost reprogramming the fears and experiences that customers may have had from elsewhere.

3, Make complaining a pleasant experience, because the customer enjoys spending time with you and so this is an excuse to do so.

Keeping in contact with your customers.

Always try to keep in contact with your customers as much as possible to help get complaints

You can give them a call and have a nice friendly chat about things and how the cleaner is doing.

An excellent way is to send out a how a monthly “how are we doing” email.

We also send them emails every month such as

Dear (Customer name)

We hope you are well. Please can you kindly tell us how things are going and if there is anything we could do better, no matter how small?

Best regards,

(name)

Wellman Clean

The email is short so they actually read it, we find that the longer the email, the more it will be ignored.

We find that changing the wording regularly means it will be read more.  Some of them also need to express that we really want to know about problems and why we want to know.

This also makes it easier and less time consuming for them to tell you problems.  These emails start for them the process of this happening.

We are already there and in contact and so it is not like they are having to start the process of complaining.  We have already started it for them.

Things that you can include in emails are
* Please call the agency if ever you would like us to allocate you a new cleaner, have a temporary one to cover your regular cleaner’s sickness or holidays.

* The better the direct feedback you give us, the better we can understand and serve your needs.

* We recommend contacting the agency directly if there are things you would like us to do, rather than asking the cleaner to tell us.

We really want you to be happy and find a major part of that is making you feel comfortable to tell us so if there is anything you are ever not totally satisfied with, no matter how small.

As your cleaning agency the worst thing for us to hear is “for the last few weeks the cleaner has been mediocre, or not great on a certain aspect of their cleaning” or any other issue. We really strive for you to receive great cleaning in every way.

Clients do of course normally find out about things before we do, if we were told earlier we would have been able to sort out the problem immediately.

Also we would love to know not just for you, but for the other customers who use the same cleaner:

We find that if a customer does not contact us quickly, the customer gets more annoyed and the problem does not get better. The customer is unhappy so leaves the agency, the cleaner and the agency loose the job when it could have easily been resolved at an earlier stage.

Sometimes the customer does not want to contact the agency to be nice to the cleaner, but of course it eventually results in the customer leaving the agency which is worse :

* The cleaner loses the job and has been denied the opportunity for retraining, or whatever could have solved the problem.

* If the problem would be resolved by the current cleaner being changed, the cleaner loses the job anyway, but also another would be replacement cleaner is denied the job as the customer has left the agency, so it does not help anyone.

*The loss of the customer also means the agency gets smaller so cannot re invest in growing the business which in turn provides jobs for more cleaners.

Also, if you are ever not happy with your cleaning consultant at the office there are feedback links on every page of our website that go straight to a feedback form. This goes straight through to senior management who investigate every issue.

We find putting all this in one email means it never gets read, so have to use the most important parts of it most and can use other bits later on.

The main thing is you are building up that you want to hear about issues and you are thankful for the feedback, so that they feel comfortable and even rewarded for saying.

Escalating problems

Customers also need a route to escalate complaints to if they are not happy with how their direct contact is headline it.  This is so that it can be resolved before they may decide to cancel.

Customers when they start and at regular times need to be told that if they are ever not happy with how someone assists them, the place where they can quickly and easily go to escalate the issue.

It is possible that they may not be happy with how the current person is dealing with their issue and want to escalate it to a higher level.  It needs to be quick and easy for them to do,

The aim is to try and get customers to do this instead of cancelling or writing a bad review somewhere

When they get to the feedback part of your website, it could start with something like:

In a continuous attempt to improve our service to you, we would be extremely grateful if you could give us any feedback.

Our aim is to give you the very best service and making customers comfortable to give us feedback is an essential part of that.

Please help us by being really frank because it is only by listening to what you say that we can improve our standards. If the service you received was good then we would love to hear about it, if it has not been up to scratch then we need to hear about it.

How to send out emails easily

We use a web program called “Mailchimp” and it seems to be one of the most popular mass email services. Probably in part because it is easy to use, comes with an amount of free emails each month and integrates with many software packages

With this program you are able to set up campaigns to specific customers such as area, size of company etc.  You can also send out offers and other things you will want your clients to know.

It is far simpler than sending out an email one at a time via your outlook. You can also set it up so your clients name is included so they do not feel it is a generic email and they feel special.

This is also good for you, as a happy client will normally not email you back. However you then have a record as proof you contacted the client, in case in future there is a problem and they say you never contacted them.

The big thing is not to put ‘Hi Customer’, but use the software to insert their name after their name.  We will have a separate article to show how to do this.

Small problems

We also want to encourage the client to tell us about the smallest possible trivial problems as:

1, this shows we really do care

2, It helps us to improve the service and be the best.  We also need to ensure that there is nothing that the client feels they could get better elsewhere.

3, A small problem could turn into a far bigger deal if left.  They also continually annoy your client until they explode and may even want to cancel.

If a client has a small problem with a cleaner such as forgetting to empty a particular bin or small marks on a window then it is better to find out as soon as possible so you can rectify the problem.  Your client is probably far too busy to contact you directly and the problem could get worse and worse and this makes the client angrier.

Remember you client is paying you so they will want to feel your presence either by phone calls or emails.

Don’t assume no news from a client means everything is going great, there could be a very small problem happening but the client is too busy to contact you directly.  Nipping it in the bud early will make your client very happy and will keep them for a far longer time.