The 10 Commandments Of Good Business

We live in a remarkable age. Information comes at us from all directions. Unfortunately, the rapidly changing nature of small business often forces us to focus our attention on the "crisis of the day" rather than the whole picture. In a world of unexpected illnesses and misplaced service tickets, it becomes too easy to let the mechanics of running your company become more important than the people who make it happen.

Certainly your employees are critical to your success. They are the backbone of your pest control business. A well trained employee can make your company grow. Just as true, an employee who is poorly trained, improperly equipped or unhappy in his or her work can cause your company to flounder. But there is another person associated with your firm who is perhaps ultimately the most important ingredient to your success or failure: the customer.

Keep in mind, however, that customers today are living in the same fast-paced world as the rest of us. Often they come from two-income households where they don’t have the time or inclination to wait for a technician to arrive at their home or apartment. They do have the time and inclination, however, to hunt for the best company available. And today’s customers are more informed than at any time in our industry’s history. That’s because they have virtually unlimited resources – including newspapers, consumer protection organizations, radio and TV ads and the Internet – to investigate the merits of a particular company and the products used by pest management professionals.

Given this dramatic change in the business environment resulting from the onset of the "information age," what do customers want from their PCO? It’s a question worth exploring further if one hopes to survive and prosper in the coming millennium.

WHAT THEY WANT. Your customers have certain basic expectations. They want more than dead bugs. They want peace of mind. How do you provide them with peace of mind? By delivering on the following eight basic expectations:

Results. The bottom line is that the customer wants us to get rid of the pests that are currently causing problems and prevent new pests from entering and establishing themselves in the account.

Dependability. They expect us to show up on time and to arrive promptly when called. Excuses for being late or missing the appointment, whether real or not, don’t generally sit well with the customer. They often have made special arrangements for you to be there. If we leave them waiting we’re telling them that we don’t care about them or their valuable time.

Friendly/Helpful Manner. From the initial sales contact to the interaction with your company’s service technicians, we must always project a friendly, helpful manner. This also includes our office personnel. One bad experience can anger or disappoint the customer and we may end up losing them because of what they feel was less than acceptable behavior.

Reasonable Price. Obviously, the customer wants to feel that they are getting their money’s worth. We can get any price for any job if we do one thing – convince the customer they will get what they pay for. They must perceive they are getting value for their money. It then is imperative that we deliver the goods! We also need to justify any price increase before it takes effect.

Trustworthiness. The customer expects us to show up on time and to do what we say we will do. Getting to the account on time and then not delivering what we promised tells the customer that we are interested only in the money – not in the service we provide. The customer expects us to be honest with them. They expect the truth when they ask us questions. If they suspect or find out we are being less than honest, they will neither trust us nor continue with our service.

Environmentally Safe Practices. The customer expects us to identify their pest problems and take care of them in a professional, environmentally safe manner. This includes conducting a thorough inspection, selecting the proper materials for the job and handling those materials carefully and professionally.

Knowledge. Modern-day customers are hungry for information. They want to know about the products we use and the pests we’ve found in their home or business. They want to know about regulations and our service practices. What will we do? How will we do it? What will we use? It’s imperative that we are able to provide them with honest, informed answers.

Consistency. Consistency in what we do and how we do it is imperative. Doing it right once earns us a second chance to impress the customer. Doing it wrong twice may get us fired by the customer. Consistency is the key. Lack of consistency results in loss of trust, which results in customer turnover.

THE $64,000 QUESTION. Is the customer always right? Up to a point, yes. But there are times when the customer is just plain wrong. We should always be ready to go the extra mile for our customers. But if that "extra mile" involves something that is legally, ethically or morally wrong, then we must decline. If they insist on a particular service that we know is inappropriate, then we must either dissuade them or cancel their service. As long as they are our customer, we have an obligation to do everything and anything we can to satisfy them. If we cannot, or should not, then we must be willing to no longer have them as a customer.

As we aspire to become more successful, we must always bear in mind that the customer is the sole reason for our existence. Without them, our business collapses. We may have the best product or the best service on the market, but without someone to buy it, we have nothing. It’s the customers who make us and it’s the customers who can break us. Our world revolves around them.

MOMENTS OF TRUTH. Anytime we interact with a customer, we have an opportunity to take all the good things that we’ve ever done for them and have them cancelled out by a single inept act. By the same token, we have the opportunity to make a disgruntled customer happy. These are our "moments of truth."

Moments of truth are make or break points of crucial customer contact. They occur when a customer appears, calls or agrees to see you. They occur when the customer is angry or has special requests. They occur when the customer can’t make up his or her mind or raises obstacles or objections. They occur when the customer buys or refuses to buy your service. And they occur whenever the customer complains. The speed and manner with which we handle these "moments of truth" will determine our ultimate success or failure. Seven out of 10 customers will do business with us again if we resolve the complaint in their favor. If we resolve it on the spot, it rises to 95%. On the other hand, a typical dissatisfied customer will tell eight to 10 people about his or her problem. One in five will tell 20. Remember too, only 4% of dissatisfied customers actually complain. The other 96% just quietly go away. Those are rather sobering figures, aren’t they?

Many books have been written on customer relations. Each has its specific recommendations for acquiring customers, for interacting with customers and for retaining customers. But perhaps the best example of what a customer actually is can be found displayed on a poster that hangs in the corporate offices of L.L. Bean, the highly regarded supplier of casual clothing. Though written as a definition of what a customer is, we can think of these as commandments by which we should judge, handle and satisfy our clientele.

The average customer today is more highly educated, more affluent and often more concerned about what we do in their home or property. One thing, however, has never changed: THEY ARE THE CUSTOMER. As such, they are as vital to our success as any employee on our payroll. By always keeping the customer in the forefront of our thinking, employing the five ingredients of customer loyalty and following the 10 commandments of good business, we can insure that our business succeeds.