It’s about 10 pm on Saturday night, and we have the ability to look at three different business owners. On this particular Saturday night, each of these business owners have customers who are looking for their services…NOW.
Let’s see how each handles the situation…
Scene 1: The Small Business Owner
We look through the window and there’s our small-business owners, watching a movie with his family but jumping as soon as his cell phone begins buzzing. Someone is calling for service. He bids farewell to his family, pulls on a uniform, hops in his vehicle, and runs the call. He has to. It’s just him, two other techs, and someone in the office. It’s his weekend for emergency calls.
You’ve probably done this exact thing. You may still be doing this. While you’re tired and you wish you could be with your loved ones, you know that by YOU handling the call, the call will absolutely be handled properly.
Scene 2: The Emerging Business Owner
You look into this emerging business owner’s window on Saturday night. He has eight techs in the field and several people in the office. He’s watching a movie with his family, but he can’t help nodding off every 10 minutes. It’s been a busy, exhausting week. He’s had plenty of fires to put out.
A call comes into the business, but instead of him answering, it goes to a call service. The call service doesn’t handle the call well and leaves the customer frustrated. In fact, several customers will call that night—only one books. By Monday morning, our business owner is going to be furious that the answering service failed his business and is on the hunt for a new service.
Scene 3: The CEO
We look into the window on a Saturday night of our third business owner; we’ll call him a CEO. He has more than 20 trucks, and office staff, and a small management team in place. He’s watching his movie, eating some popcorn, and truly enjoying quality time with his family. A call comes into his company; someone is looking for emergency service. He doesn’t know a thing about it.
The call goes directly to one of his call-takers. She sets the customer’s mind at ease, and in less than an hour, a technician is dispatched and on the scene to help. The homeowner is impressed, happy, and will be a customer for life.
Customer service doesn’t disappear on weekends, but no one call-taker or technician does weekends. Everyone take turns. Each person is on-call on specific weekends. They know about it and our CEO’s GM ensures it’s scheduled far in advance. Which also means that, when they are not on call, they can relax.
Conclusion: Great Customer Service Takes Planning, Organization & Delegation
These three separate companies fairly depict almost all of the owners within our organization. It begins with you as the sole driver of the business, the small-business person. You graduate from emerging business owner to CEO, hopefully.
Here’s the problem: Too many owners struggle in making the jump from one to the next. Often, the issue is “letting go.” Obsession with the business isn’t sustainable; you’ll eventually burn yourself out. You can’t take every incoming service call. You can’t possibly manage a staff of 20, 30 people by yourself. You must delegate, plan, and organize. Then, you must allow your team to do their jobs.
The transition can be difficult, understandably. When transitioning from one of the above phases to the next, it’s important to steadily escalate. Bring in the right managers to assist you first. Then, ensure you’re properly staffed on the phones and in the field. Then, keep an open line of communication with your entire team so they know how you expect calls to be handled at all hours, even Saturday nights at 10 pm. You’ll then have a true 24-hour company that serves your customers, treats your team properly, and allows you to enjoy your family.