Good morning everyone, this is Christine Corelli speaking, and welcome to Excelling in Customer Service. This program is being presented by yours truly, and most of you know me. I have delivered presentations in 14 countries and worked with companies such as GE, Xerox, Goodyear, Honda, Harley-Davidson, et cetera, and have worked a great deal in your industry. I've worked with manufacturers such as Cat, Case IH, New Holland, Kubota, Caterpillar. Oh, I said that already, didn't I? And numerous dealer organizations. And I've also had the good fortune of working with dealers who have won awards by the manufacturers for world-class customer service. And I also know your customers. I have extensive experience working with construction companies, subcontractors, the American Farm Bureau, and landscape contractors as well. So having said that, let me share with you right now that we're going to go straight through on this program. However, you can ask questions or make comments via chat, and I will try to answer them as I see them coming up. And there might be places along the seminar where the questions will already be answered. And this year, by the way, I'm proud to tell you is my 25th year in business, and I'm excited about that. So let's talk about customer service. I know you know, and we all know, that today's customers are very different from their predecessors. Today's customers are better educated. They're more diverse. They're more multicultural. They're more cost-conscious. They're more demanding. They're more skeptical. They are highly impatient, and they are tech-savvy. And they have the power, that old saying, the customer rules still holds true. The customer has the power. They also have high expectations. They are not only looking for great service. They're looking for blow-away, fantastic, awesome service. They want things fixed right on time, the first time. They want to do business with organizations where it is very, very easy to do business with them. They want to feel that they have a real deal every time they work with you. And that's another reason why having a deal of the week or deal of the month is a great way to obtain their loyalty. And they, of course, want to be treated like VIPs. And now, because of technology and organizations such as Amazon.com, they want everything on demand and want very fast service, even same-day services. They expect everything to be right in their service experience and everything to work right, regardless of whether the equipment is used or rented. We know that. They want to be treated like royalty, as I said, and have you roll out the red carpet for them when they walk into your dealership. And they also want you to bend over backwards for them. And this holds true of every generation, including the younger generation, which is known as the now generation. They want everything right now. They're, again, very highly impatient, better educated. They are less loyal than other customers. They have a far shorter attention span. In fact, the research has taught that if they walk into a place of business, what they feel is acceptable wait time is three minutes. That's a little hard to meet sometimes. They're far more discriminating and socially conscious. And they want to do businesses with companies that have a cause. So, for example, if your business has a cause, such as a veterans organization or women donating to a women's shelter or any kind of organization like that, they like that. They seem to gravitate toward businesses that do have a cause. They're more environmentally conscious than ever before, of course, because they grew up with reduce, reuse, and recycle. And, again, as I mentioned, they're very, very impatient. Where do these expectations come from? Very simply, from whatever you say in your marketing and advertising. So whatever you say about yourself on your website, your marketing materials, your Facebook, your blog, anywhere else you advertise, you have to ask yourself, is there truth in marketing? Because customers don't care what you say about yourself and what promises you make. They only care about whether you keep your promises. And they also get promises from a salesperson. So the salespeople have to be very careful what is promised to them, as well as the service department or the parts department. You can't overpromise or you're going to disappoint the customer. And also what you've done for other customers, because customers in your industry and every industry belong to the same associations, go to some of the same meetings and trade shows, and they may say, well, XYD dealer did this for me. So if you did something wonderful for one dealer, the others will expect it as well. Now, when I teach customer service in any organization, I always ask this question, when does customer service begin? And you usually say from the first phone call or the first impression that customers get about you, be it a phone call or when they pass your dealership. But I feel that it's something different based on my experience. I think customer service begins with your reputation. And it is so important to have that great reputation. Here are some of the trends that are occurring today that are demanding that we have a higher level of service. And always, no matter where you are at this time, to always make it better and better. And so a lot of that is, you know, as I said, Amazon.com and the grocery stores. And, you know, even you sell, even though you sell business to business, there still is an escalation towards same-day delivery, same-day service. Okay, dramatic increase of the use of cell phone, of course, state-of-the-art technology and the apps that are enabling customers to obtain information in real time. Dramatic increase of automation and messaging, messaging. And of course, we all know that now you need to have video demonstrations with training and live chat available to customers. And there's something else that's happening and it's trending very strongly in the customer service world, and that's artificial intelligence. And it's really what's fueling conversations that service people and customer service reps are having with customers without them even realizing it. And the way the artificial intelligence works is, well, let's just refer it to as a machine. So the machine listens in real time to the conversation between the customer and someone in your dealership and then feeds useful information to that agent so that he or she, in turn, can give them the best possible response. And what's happening, folks, is with each passing year, we see these virtual assistants getting smarter and smarter. And artificial intelligence is the fuel behind this escalation and these strides. And there are new technologies that now allow customers to deploy these virtual assistants. And they come across as having a Ph.D. in customer service or technology or how to fix a machine. And so it's happening now, but it's not only the way of the future. It, as I said, is happening now and the way of today. And it's becoming more and more common and acceptable to use this type of artificial intelligence as the communication tool of choice. So it's very, very interesting what's occurring in our world today. We live in a very sped-up society. And we hear so much talk about customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is not enough. It's about customer loyalty. It's about customer advocacy so that you will be more profitable and have more word-of-mouth advertising. It's all about the customer experience. And needless to say, developing a reputation for service excellence helps to obtain and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage and promote word-of-mouth advertising. Service in this industry has always been key. But in our industry, it is critical. And again, establishing a reputation for consistently great services, critical success in this industry, critical to success. And by the way, if you see some little strange, it looks like typos or a mistake, it's because of the way the technology in the webinar app that AED is using. It just kind of squeezed it a little bit, so please bear with me on that. But the thing is that you can't have great customer service to customers on the outside unless it happens on the inside. And you also need a high-performance culture. Today, product support departments must be centers of profit centers and centers of excellence. So what would be the kiss of death for any business, any organization, any dealership that thought their service was good enough? And shockingly, I have had, shall we say, national sales managers or directors of operations talk about wanting a customer service training program or a hands-on workshop or a strategy to dramatically improve their customer service. And often, a dealer principal will say, no, we have great service, our service is good enough. And that always shocks me. Because even if you think your service is good enough, it should always, you should always be striving to have it better. Okay, so right now, let's in our heads, okay, just in our heads, rate the level of service you believe you now provide at this time. And rate it in these five ways. How well you believe your dealership serves your customers. On a scale of one to five, five being excellent. How you serve your employees. Because you have to be a great leader, a dynamic leader, if you expect your employees to serve customers extremely well. And then how well your employees serve you. Are you obtaining maximum performance from your employees? Are you the type of leader that employees want to follow and want to perform well for? And then how your employees serve each other. Because as I said, if it doesn't happen on the inside, it can't happen on the outside. And then how your customers would rate your overall level of service. Okay, so having said that, let's talk about how to excel in customer service. Usually there's seven steps or ten steps, and I'm an overachiever, so I always do 12. Okay, as I present these to you, you may say to yourself, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we're already doing these things. My question to you will always be the same. How well are you doing them? Or if you are saying, you know, I should be doing them, then it's time to get moving right after this webinar when you listen to it. Okay, so there are many ways to go about doing this, and based on my experience, I believe this is one of the great ways that you can do it. First of all, perform an employee satisfaction survey in conjunction with a customer satisfaction survey. Analyze the data that you receive, and then determine results. And why do I say do an employee satisfaction in conjunction? Because customer satisfaction starts with employee satisfaction. And numerous studies, numerous studies, have proven that customer loyalty is directly related to employee loyalty. There's even a book about it. So that's something that's very important. All right, so now what are some of the most important things to ask in your employee survey? And this is based on extensive research that these five questions are the most important questions to ask that will determine how happy your employees are. So does your immediate boss provide feedback and coaching? Has your immediate boss expressed appreciation in the last week? I spoke with someone when I was doing some consulting in an organization and was asked to help bump up the level of employee satisfaction. So in order to do that, when I'm hired by an owner manager or director of operations, I have to find out what's happening and what the employees are thinking. And I had a person say, you know, I've worked here for five years, and I do great work, and customers love me. I've developed great relationships with them, but not once in five years has my boss ever thanked me. And I find something seriously wrong about that. I'm a believer that the last thing you should say when your employees walk out the door is, hey, thanks. Okay, so do you feel there's a high level of teamwork in your department? Do you feel valued by your immediate boss and the company? And here's the critical question. Would you recommend working here to someone else? Those five questions are going to help you to determine the level of employee satisfaction. I am more than happy to provide you with a completely, a very simple employee satisfaction survey with my compliments. And if you'd like to have it, simply send me an email when we are finished and you can put down employee satisfaction survey. And this includes those of you who may be listening to this recording and you are listening to actually the recording afterwards. All right, so that's important. Now, put a customer survey with questions based on these. And this is how customers judge us. And by the way, this again is extensive research on how customers are judging you and your dealership. And this is from your industry, by the way. So the communication, is it a high level? How well do you do on listening? Do you follow up? Do you and your people display empathy, caring? Do you keep customers informed? Because that is really so very important to them. Are you accessible? Are you reliable? What's the level of knowledge and expertise that you provide? How do you resolve complaints and solve problems? Attitude, do the people in your company have a positive attitude? Do they have an attitude of, hey, I'm here to serve you? Do they sound like that when they answer the phone? Is there ease in doing business? Do you exceed expectations? Response time, et cetera, et cetera, consistency of service. The equipment fixed right parts found quickly. So you can create a survey using this and keep it simple. The simpler, the better. And then, of course, analyze the data and determine three things that you're doing right and three things where you need to improve upon, which is coming up. But step number two is, of course, communicating the importance of excelling in service and that everyone's involvement, commitment, and teamwork is mandatory. So I will share with you that top performing dealers, their executives and managers are always talking up service excellence, service excellence have to be better than our competitors, have to be flawless, so they're always talking it up. And so it's communicating it and that also letting them know, folks, I'm really serious. I'm really serious about this. No matter how great we are, we have to be better. We have to be continuously better. Okay, so now what we're going to do next, I recommend, is I believe that everything starts and stops with core values. So one of the things that I do with companies is ask people where and how specifically they should demonstrate their core values. Folks, your core values should drive all you do. And so the values of respect, teamwork, health, accountability, focus on quality, safety, all that other good stuff, family, and also continuous improvement and any other core value that you feel is important to your company. Some people say God and country, whatever else your core values are. But let me share with you an example of what somebody might come up with in a group setting. We will never stretch the truth or tell a lie just to make a sale. We'll remind customers and each other that we take safety seriously. We will demonstrate respect to customers even when they are irate. And we will strive for excellence in all we do. So those are just some ways. And, you know, in the interest of being time conscious in a one-hour webinar, and I'd like to go into more depth, but I just want to touch upon some examples. And then what is excellence? One of the manufacturers that I've worked with is always telling the dealers and the employees, every dealership, every department in our corporation must be centers of excellence. So I thought, well, people, we have to come up, because I was working with them, we have to come up with what does excellence mean to you? What's the simple? And I always believe that excellence is being the best at what you do. And you might find it interesting if you were to facilitate a discussion on what you believe that excellence is all about. Okay, so then what you would do is instruct your employees to be ever cognizant on how those equipment customers judge your dealership and the things that influence them to stay loyal. Go over all of these things with them. Ask them what else do they think is really important to customers. And you know that they'll come up with more. Here's another thing that you might find interesting. Anybody remember who this person is? If you've ever watched Cheers, it's Norm from Cheers. And what was it that everybody loved about him? He knew everyone's name. And customers are more loyal to businesses where everyone knows their name. And one of the dealers that I work with has this as one of their guiding principles. We know our customers and we treat them like they're part of the family. That's another reason why it might be a good thing for you to have, when you have events, you might want to, or customer appreciation events, you might want to invite your best customers, potential best customers, and include families and include perhaps your sales and customer service team and their families and call it a family affair because that's what it's all about, is making customers feel like family, calling them by name, instructing your people to, when they know the customer and the customer calls in, say, oh, hi, this is Susan, how may I help you today? And recognize the customer to immediately say, oh, hello, John, how are you doing? I'll be happy to help you with that. Always make them feel they're part of the family and they're known. And I'm sure that you feel the same way in your own sales experiences. Okay, how they judge your service department, needless to say, they don't want their uptime compromised or their livelihood compromised. And, of course, it's accuracy, diagnosing the problem, quality work, finding parts fast, completed when promised, and accessibility 24-7, 365, and a lot of people are doing it. I know one service manager that says he has two cell phones, one for his family and one for customers, and he keeps his cell phone right at his side morning, noon, and night. Now, that's dedication and may cause some problems within relationships, but that is what many people are doing, and that's what dedication is always about. The next thing you would do, of course, with your employee team is to provide the results of the surveys and identify, hey, here's where we shine. These are the strengths. But here's a few service flaws that were identified or problems. Okay, and then ask them questions such as how, you know, what are you hearing in the field, et cetera, and start asking questions and solve problems this way. So why did this happen? How did this happen? Which person, et cetera, et cetera? And then questions such as to sales. Well, salespeople, what are you hearing in the field? Here's my favorite question that I believe every manager and every business owner should ask on a regular basis and in a not threatening way. Is there anything I should know about? Not, hey, is there anything I should know about in a threatening way? So let's use this for an example. You take a vacation or you go to one of the wonderful AED events or the AED Summit and you come back and whoever's steering the ship, you just nicely say, hi, how's it going? Is there anything I should know about? Why is that? Because if you don't ask, very often they won't tell you. And something may occur down the road where you say, well, why didn't somebody tell me about it? And by the way, if your employees fear you, which they should not as a leader or even customer service manager, they should never be afraid of you. And what are customers saying? And what is the most pressing complaint or problem that needs immediate attention? So those are some good questions to ask on a regular basis. When you have a problem, always find the root cause of the problem. So let's say, for example, you take your best technician and they're so great at what they do and they're fast and they're great team players and you put them as head of the service department. You make them service manager. But something doesn't work out. So what would be the root cause of the problem? It could be that you didn't provide the individual with training on how to manage, how to motivate employees, and how to be a dynamic leader. So that might be what the problem is, the root cause. And often what happens, as you well know, is if you put someone in a leadership position and it doesn't work out, then they go back to their old job and someone else gets put in their place and that causes demotivation of everyone. Here's another example. Say you hired someone and you believe it was the right person for the job and the person doesn't work out. They're either incompetent, they have a bad attitude. Well, it isn't really the person's problem. The problem, the root cause, could be the hiring process that you use. So you may have to bump up your hiring process. I hope that's a good example for you. All right. The next thing which is so important, and this is what many world-class companies known for world-class customer service do is to dramatically improve the level of service with both employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. So when you go through all these things and you do the surveys and you ask the questions in a group setting, whether you do it all at once or in multiple meetings or at each branch, identify three areas for improvement in customer and employee satisfaction. So, for example, identify the three most critical areas for improvement to make customers happy. So I'm just going to pick something with customers, you know, oh, that it keeps coming up over and over again that it takes too long to find certain parts, okay, or that you don't get field assistance fast enough or just things like that. So whatever those three things are, and they'll be different, of course, for every dealership, and they may change year to year because you're going to conduct this once a year. And then the other thing is employee satisfaction. Now, talk about a top-performing company and creating a culture of excellence and high performance is when the president of the company says to employees after the employee satisfaction survey and perhaps at an annual meeting, however you choose to do it, is to say, well, okay, so it has been identified that you need, you know, more help with, you're not very happy because you need more help with the new business system and the new technology that we're using. So we're going to help that. We're going to solve that problem. The other thing that came to mind is there seems to be a lack of communication from management in speaking to employees and giving them feedback. So we're going to work on this and identify this as one of our areas of improvement. And I will also give you a solution for that as well because I'm sure you're saying, I don't have time, which you don't, I'm sure, but you have to do it. So identify the areas of improvement and then it could be perhaps more flex out, whatever it may be, the things that keep coming up over and over again, but three areas that you will focus on in the next year, shall we say, and see how it's going. And it's great to say, well, okay, we identified that and so how are we doing so far? Employees love that. Is it better? You can also conduct these type of things at a retreat. So those things are really important to do. Okay, also, just going back one minute, another way to do, you know, conduct the level of, determine the level of employee satisfaction is, as you know, there are systems where when, as soon as an invoice gets entered into the system, an automatic e-mail goes to the customer asking about their level of satisfaction. Other companies have someone appointed that calls every single customer that was brought their equipment in for service or sent someone out into the field to find out and talk to them how their level of service was, their emails, et cetera. Or they hand them a comment card. There's many, many different ways to do it. So that is what is really important, to let customers know that you really care. The next thing is establish processes and procedures for service excellence and complaint management. And I remember I was sitting with a board of directors once facilitating a session in your industry. And when I said that, one of the board members said, oh, the minute you start talking about processes, I shut my brain down. I shut down. And my reply was, well, in my opinion, the reason that FedEx and McDonald's has processes and procedures is because they work. And the key is always to improve upon them. So establish those processes and procedures for everything when a complaint comes in, when there's a problem that develops. A lot of companies also have problem-solving teams that will jump in when there's a problem and they need to have the problem solved. So that would be a process and procedure. All right, here's another thing. Processes and procedures for complaint management. I have done entire breakout sessions and programs on this particular topic and this particular slide. AED, CED Magazine, was gracious enough to publish an extensive article on this. And I would be pleased to email that to you if, as I mentioned, you would send me an email after our program. All right, so how do you win over a difficult customer? OK, the first thing you're going to do is, I'm sorry that happened to you. And use verbal cushions like, well, that shouldn't have happened. Or I don't blame you for being upset. Perhaps they believe that there's an error on the invoice. So you would say, well, let's walk through the invoice together and see what we find. So that customers that are unhappy, the verbal cushions are things that more or less cushion and dilute the anger or the emotion, shall we say. And always stay calm and allow the customer to vent. That's the first thing I teach people is to stay calm, stay calm, stay calm. And then also to paraphrase. OK, so let me understand this. We fixed the machine the second time. And when you started operating again, it broke down for the third time. This should not have happened. So I'm just using an example. And that sounds like a nightmare, doesn't it? But it actually did happen to one of my clients. OK, express empathy. OK, I'm sorry this happened. Here's what I'm going to do. And then, of course, you'd explain what you can and you can't do. And then take ownership to self. Now, if anyone, a manager, gets a complaint that upper level management or executives or owners should know about, report it to management. How else will they know what needs to be fixed? And very often, some of these complaints and the three areas that were identified in customer service surveys are used in strategic planning sessions by dealerships that are known for world class customer service. All right, number seven, manage customer expectations. This is really important. I've done an entire three hour program on this topic for a manufacturer for parts and service managers. So how do we manage customer expectations? Well, I'm sure that you could add to this. But here's how I feel, what I feel is important to manage expectations. To always be upfront and honest at all times. That's how you build trust, especially from the onset. And always be clear with customer on the cost. Well, we can do this, but this might cost a little extra. Or just in case we find something when we start to service, there may be an additional charge or wait time. And it is possible this just could take a little longer than we expected. I'll do my best to prevent that from happening, of course. But it's always good to manage those expectations, because it's better to tell them than to not tell them. And communicate what the warranty does and does not cover. And that's why a best practice would be that a letter from the service manager goes out immediately after a purchase that explains what the warranty does and does not cover. And then hope that the buyer reads it. All right, and I'm a believer in sending a letter and an email to make sure they get it. And never oversell the equipment. Never make promises that you can't keep. All right, a simple rule, always give customers more than they expect to get in any way that you can help it. Now, I'll share this with you. One of the programs I did on exceeding expectations and managing expectations, and a service manager said, I will do absolutely the best I can do. I know how this is important to you. I said, well, what was it that anyone did that is an amazing demonstration of how you stood on your head and bent over backwards? And one service manager raised his hand in one of my workshops and said, well, I delivered a machine at 7 o'clock on Christmas Eve, and I kept my family waiting for dinner. I said, oh, my goodness. Well, yes, because the construction contractor had to get to work the very next day. He needed that machine. He delivered it and had it fixed. And the customer, by the way, is now a customer for life and a tremendous advocate. Here's another thing. Put proactive complaint prevention into place. A great thing to do with your company and with different departments, of course, is to facilitate this discussion. And you would be amazed at what people can come up with, people will come up with. So first of all, you have to talk about the causes of dissatisfaction. And of course, if they learn something else is wrong with the machine that they didn't expect, that they're unhappy. But all those other things, a part not shipped, and how about this one, shipping the wrong part? I said, no, that couldn't have happened. And you know what? It happens far often than I ever would have imagined as I work with different organizations and they shake their head yes and like, oh, dear. OK. So here's a few things that you can do to be proactive in complaint prevention. World-class companies over-communicate with customers. They over-communicate because it's better to over-communicate than not. And that means ask the customer, how do you want? What's the best way to communicate with you? Would it be text message? Would it be email? Would it be voicemail? What would you like me to do? And you'd be amazed, of course, as time goes on, that more and more want texting. I'm sure that's no surprise to you. But to over-communicate with them. Here's where we are right now. And it's just like, think about how you order something and you can track it exactly where it is with UPS. Or if you order a car from Uber, you can even see where the car is coming from in real time. But it is really important to over-communicate with customers. Always be on the lookout for technicians to hire and get involved with the AED Foundation. Always obtain complete contact information, machine locations, model year, hours, and communicate full and accurate communication to other departments. And so those, again, are things that are so very important. You can even have a simple list of do's and don'ts. Don't suggest the warranty and ensure it's covered. Don't turn down any business until you're absolutely sure we can't provide it. Just a simple list of do's and don'ts can make all the difference in the world. And then here's a few more. Check and double-check entries and your work. Have brief weekly meetings to discuss, here's what we did really well. Here's a run we made. And here, oh boy, did we really miss. We dropped the ball. We missed here. So baseball time coming up here. So those are weekly meetings. And if Friday morning is a good day to do it, then do it. And talk about proactive complaint prevention. And every time a complaint occurs, ask yourself, what could we have done to prevent this from happening in the first place? All right, don't go home till all parts are shipped. And I love this story of a particular dealer had a lot of trouble finding a part and even went to the manufacturer. They couldn't find it. And so they had a team trained on how to find a part. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to learn how to do it. But guess who was the person that found the part? The office manager. The office manager found it faster than anybody else that found the part they needed. So those are ways to be proactive in complaint prevention. All right, now the next thing is to make sure that you always strive to improve the level of internal customer service. I'm very, very passionate about that as well. And again, I know many of you are saying, oh, I do that. Oh, I do that. Oh, I do that. But how well are you doing it? How often are you doing it? And this kind of stuff should be ongoing. So have teams or create teams in different branches or from different departments, and then change them off. Ask them to find methods to improve in communication, streamlining operations, teamwork, any kind of ideas for service excellence. I'm working with a company right now and training them on leadership. And we are including training for emerging leaders. So I've given their emerging leaders an assignment to come up with answers and ideas and solutions to these areas that we're talking about. And I learned that top performers and people that demonstrate leadership ability, they can come up with some amazing things to help improve operations, management employee relationships, and all those other things. All right, here's another thing I'm very strong about. It seems like even the best dealerships still often have business silos and territorialism. And the reason why is because people tend to be competitive. So let's just say, for example, one particular individual is top salesperson, or one particular branch has the highest level of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in their service department, or one branch just outshines all the others in all areas. Well, sometimes they don't want to share their best practices and talk about what they're doing because they're competitive. They want to keep that title of being the best and being number one. So we have to break down business silos and territorialism and find methods to communicate with one another on a consistent basis. And it's so easy to do, by the way. Hopefully, you are already doing this, but perhaps you have something such as a Facebook page, or rather, a LinkedIn page, or that only, I'm sorry, I'm going to take that back. Facebook page, where only individuals in your company can get into it. And there are best practices and ideas that are posted on a regular basis. And no one else can see it, no competitor, and things like that. But this is what I believe has to start happening. And I will share this with you. We still have just a little time. One of the best, most profitable dealers that is a member of AED, very prominent, had one branch that was, wow, unbelievably fantastic. And when the director of operations explained to me what was going on and all the wonderful things that were happening, profitability, happy clients, growing, prospering, new customers, I said, well, I'll tell you what the secret is. It has to be the branch manager. Because if the branch manager is a great person to work with and not for, and inspires people to perform, and works with customers, and visits customers, all that other good stuff, that's how you get top performance. But the key is that best practices should be shared. Number 11, establish accountability for each department. Now, there's a lot of talk about accountability. But where a lot of people in management fall short is they talk about accountability. We have to be accountable. Do they know what accountable is? That means responsible for a positive result, all right, be accountable for performance, and be accountable for quality work. But they have to say what specifically individuals need to be accountable for. And in each department, the service department, the parts department, the office, they all have to be different. So here's an example. We'll be accountable to lock out and tag out unsafe machinery, accountable to ensure problems are solved, be accountable that all rentals are clean and patient, and the thing is that every manager or owner should pinpoint things that they specifically want people to be accountable for. And whenever someone new is hired, the value statement and the accountability should be put in front of them. And they should sign it so that they prove that they read it and understand it. And of course, these things can be changed, et cetera. And the list doesn't have to go long, long, long, long. If you are progressing in that area, then you do not necessarily have to put it on every list as it is updated. And I recommend that you establish what specifically people need to be accountable for. I suggest that you do that quarterly. All right, so let's also talk a little bit, and if you have any questions, this would be a great time, if you let's implement some best practices of top performing dealer organizations. And I'm sure that you can even add to this what I'm going to share with you, and some you may have already heard. But if you're already doing something, let's see how you can do them even better. One of the best practices is that you use complaints in strategic planning and areas to focus on to improve upon. We talked about that. And then another would be to use this formula. I'm a firm believer that happy employees equal happy customers. And that, of course, equals long-term profitability. And there are so many companies and dealerships that really believe in this. I have great people. It's my people that are helping this organization grow and prosper, to be dynamic leaders, to practice dynamic leadership, to make people understand and feel that you care about them and that you're valued. And by the way, this type of involvement and asking them is motivating in and of itself. Training people is motivating in and of itself. And also, another thing to do is make sure that you train and then provide training, all the training that is needed, and then empower your employees to resolve complaints at the onset without having to call a manager or yourself at any time, because that's what the best do. OK, make sure your warehouse is impeccable order. I've walked into some dealerships and wanted to close my eyes at some of the mess. But it should be an impeccable order, because it's a reflection of how you operate your business. The rental machines should be kept in top position. You should know your customers' business. Salespeople and service people should know their customers' business so they can anticipate when a part will be needed and let the customer know. And again, I know you are already doing this, but how can you enhance it? And remember when I talked about Norm from Cheers and I said how it's important to be friendly and call customers by name? Be noticeably friendlier than your competitors. Call them by name, as I said. Reach out to them. When someone walks into the dealership, the first person that they walk past, they say, hi, what brings you in today? What do you need? Can I help you? I'm John. Reach out to them. And of course, these are very basic, but it's really important and people can't forget. And I'll share a story with you very quickly about how someone did not reach out to a customer and ended up losing that customer. And follow up when you receive a complaint. True story. Very big construction contractor in a very big city hired college kids to be their runners and instructed the college kid. They called the dealership, made sure the dealership had the part that they needed very quickly to fix the machine. They knew it would be a simple fix, and so they sent the college kid to run out and get the part. The kid came in. Oh, I can't imagine this happening, but it did. The parts manager and the service manager were chit-chatting. It was slow. And they were just chit-chatting, and the young man was standing there for quite a while. And then finally turned to him and said, well, what do you need? He said, well, I came to pick up the part from XYZ Construction. Oh, oh, oh, OK, here it is. When the young man got back, the construction company owner, who was on that very important job site that day, with his project manager said, well, what took you so long? Well, you know, I don't know. He said, I stood there for a long time before they decided to help me out and get me the part. Well, he was livid, but said nothing. And about two months later, when the company called and said, how come you haven't been ordering from us? Is something wrong? Well, he told them. He said, I'm never going to allow one of my people to treat any one of my, I'm sorry, I'm not going to allow any company I do business with to treat one of my people that way. Well, it took a lot of dinners and a lot of apologizing to get that customer back, but he did. So not displaying a sense of urgency is really important. Another company I know of that won an award for world class customer service from the major manufacturer, they role play during downtime. And they actually have fun doing it. They have one team that gets up or two people that say, what's the way to not treat a customer? And they make it as funny as possible. One person will be the customer and the other will be the employee. And the customer might say, oh, hi, can you help me out? And then the employee will say, why don't you talk to somebody who cares? Or they look away and people start laughing and then they do it the way that it should be done. That's a novel idea, isn't it? To have a little fun in the workplace, but it's great. OK, another dealer I know allows three hours to do a dynamic sales presentation when a machine is purchased. OK, now not every customer is going to want this, but here's what they do. Whether the customer comes to their facility or they go to deliver the machine, they spend one hour going over operating with the operating person. And then they spend another hour on safety. And they spend a third hour answering questions. They bring in lunch. They bring in gifts. They do a phenomenal presentation. And customers love it. Not every company, though, has the time for it, but this is offered to them. And then they have a process. So as soon as a machine is delivered or picked up, very shortly afterwards that same day, unless it's the end of the day, have you thought of any other questions? Or can I answer anything? Have you thought of anything since we've left? How's the machine working for you? Then two days later, there's another call. Then one week later, there's another call. And all these different things. And the service manager is involved as well. So how can you take your presentation and make it so that it's so memorable and it totally exceeds customer expectations that people are very impressed and even talk about it to other contractors or farmers and miners, whatever equipment that you happen to be selling? OK, the CEO. What's a CEO? The CEO is a chief experience officer or an ambassador or a manager of customer service. Or the title could be global service person, where one person in your organization, perhaps the office manager, perhaps someone who has a dynamic personality, upbeat, outgoing, and can call customers and even call some randomly to find out how is your service experience? Is there anything that you suggest that more we can help you with? Is there anything we can improve upon? And then in many organizations, the owner will make random phone calls, random phone calls to customers just to say, how was your service experience? How's my salesperson taking care of you? Just want to make sure you're happy. And then always, always, always continuous improvement. So you might want to appoint someone a CEO. I think that's an excellent thing. And by the way, you'd be surprised at what they may hear that you may not know about, unless you continuously ask that question. Is there anything you should know about? OK, so a couple other things before I wrap up. Again, we talked about here's another great practice to provide great service is customers love a percentage off for their next purchase or a percentage off to their best customers. If you ever make a mistake, make sure you overcompensate. The machine that broke down twice, actually their senior vice president went out to the field and said, this should not have happened. I'm getting you a new machine. Now that cost, you know, he had to work something out with the manufacturer, of course. But what happened is that it was five years later that he told this story, and he still has a customer. Now, I know any time you do anything like that, it costs money. But again, you want to maintain that very strong reputation. Here's another thing. Make sure that you check Yelp every week, or have your customer experience officer or director of service excellence. That's another great title that's going to check this out for you. So you always know what's happy. It's all about keeping customers happy these days. And there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And I always love to hear stories about how somebody stood on their head to make customers happy. So OK, so what I'd like to ask you, remind you again at this time, is if you send me an email, just send an email and put down employee satisfaction survey. You can put down customer complaint article, and I'd be happy to send that to you. If you'd like to link in with me, I would love to have you linked in. If you would like to follow me on Twitter or Facebook, that's on that slide. If I can be of service to you and your company at any time, I'd welcome your phone call. And again, Monday Morning Motivation, which I've now changed to Business Motivation, is read by about 1,000 AED people, which I'm proud to say after being involved with the association for so long. And I love that. But they do read it, and lots of them tell me it's valuable, and they do forward it to others. So you can sign up for that in my website or just put it in your email. I really hope that you found value in this presentation and got a couple of ideas. I hope that if you are already doing a lot of the things that I'm talking about, that you find ways to do them even better, and that you always talk up customer service excellence to your employees. Treat your employees exceptionally well. Make sure that they're happy. And yes, you're very busy to talk to your employees. I always say, here's your solution. Make sure not a single day goes by where you don't spend at least 20 minutes talking to employees, whether it's five minutes, five minutes, five minutes, or random here, there, 10 minutes, 10 minutes, on customer hours or not. Just make sure that you talk to them. And that's one thing that I ask you to strive to do, to always. And that's a way of making them feel important. And everyone, every single person in your company has a lot to do with customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and profitability. So again, thank you so very much for your time. If you'd like to go to my website, it's christinespeaks.com. There are many, many articles. And I want to say my closing words are develop an obsession to deliver your best performance with every customer, every day, everywhere. Thank you so much for your participation in this event. Bye-bye.

customer service

excelling

expectations

communication

employee satisfaction

customer satisfaction

improvement

managing customer expectations

complaint resolution

online reviews