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When you think of plumbing, heating, air conditioning and electrical repair work here in Southern California you should think of Empire. Here are the links to a wonderful problem free tommorrow. |
Many people become emotional and some will even breakdown due to stress when you actually let them know either what’s wrong and needs to be fixed or when you give them a price for the work that needs to be performed. The typical service technician gets upset and tries to distance themselves from the customer and just get the heck outta there, losing the sale and leaving the customer with the same problem as when they arrived. They make the problem worse. The customer ends up calling out another company and that company fixes the problem and your customer only remembers that you gave them a price to replace the item. We get a phone call in the office from a very upset customer who swears up and down that you were trying to rip them off and that you probably sabotaged the item in the first place. They want their money back and want me to pay for the repair because of your indiscretions. Now what do you do?
This has happens many times in the past. We’re going to try to change that negative scenario into a positive one. A situation where you end up either selling the customer that item that they want or fixing the broken item for them completing the sale. And we’re going to do this is such a way that the customer does not get emotionally upset in the first place.
Don’t take it personal. It’s not your fault. It just happens that at this moment in your customer’s hectic life that you are only the latest bearer of bad tidings. It is most likely not the information that you are giving them that is setting them over the edge. It is simply that you are providing the last straw in breaking that camel’s back. They are unable to handle the decision making process. This is where you are going to shine. You are going to take the burden off their shoulders and assure them that you are there to take care of them.
So how do we get around this? You allowed this to happen and it never should have come to this in the first place. Let’s go back in time to before your first meeting with your customer at the front door. You should always remember and tell yourself that you are here to be the hero just before you arrive at the home.
You pull up to the home calmly and confidently and park directly in front of the home, not in the driveway, so that your customer can see the labeled truck. You are telling them that you are here to rescue them.
When you exit the truck you are not smoking, you are clean cut, well groomed, clean shaven and your uniform is neat and clean. Your shirt is tucked in. You pull out the minimal amount of tools that you need, or if this is an estimate you bring in your sales literature. Making multiple trips out to the truck to gather more tools or sales literature makes it seem as if you are not competent and sows the seeds of doubt with your customer. The more confident that you are in yourself and the more prepared you are for the situation at hand, the more trusting that your customer will be and they will leave more of the decisions to you, which is where you want it. This will put less pressure on your customer and at this point we are asking your customer to make a large decision in about an hour and half. We need to make it easy on them.