Make Sure Your Customer Sleeps Well at Night

Good morning, everybody, Dennis Engelbrecht with Digging Deeper.

Today, I want to talk about one of the hallmarks of customer service, and I heard this from one of our members several
years ago and it's always stuck with me the importance of this. But he said that he wants to make sure their customer
sleeps well at night. And if you think about that, what that really means is the customer knows that you've got it in
construction. They know that you're going to get it solved. If there's a problem, you're going to get it right. You're going
to do your job, and he doesn't have to worry about it because you've got it. So, I was reminded of this in the last couple
of weeks, because one of my clients got an email, which he shared it with me late on a Friday, and it's from a customer
and there's a problem.

And the customer has a problem going on at the job site. At least from the customer's perspective, the problem is not
being solved. He doesn't know the status. He hasn't heard back from his direct inquiries and in the end he's mad and
threatening. By the end of the weekend, he's threatening to fix it himself and bill the company back for not fixing it. And
this is all really wrong on so many levels, if you think about it. The first is, by contacting and senior leader clearly the
customer has lost his trust in the normal chain of command, the normal place he would go to get the answers to his
questions and get his problem solved. So, apparently, this is not the first time there's been an issue. Something has gone
on to create this lack of trust that he may have in the project team.

The next thing is, he doesn't believe that the problem has been addressed or solved. Now, it's certainly possible the team
has addressed and solved this problem, but as from where he sits, he doesn't know this and hasn't heard this. The next
issue is, he clearly hasn't been communicated with or communicated with sufficiently so that he knows this is happening.
And perhaps the project team has communicated with an underling and the underling hasn't communicated. But in any
case, he hasn't been communicated with, so that's a big part of the problem. The next issue, which is really even a little
deeper on the problem of the customers not sleeping well at night, is perhaps the team doesn't understand the
importance of this problem to the customer. So, if the customer is sending this email late in the day on a Friday to a senior
leader of the company, obviously, this is important to them.

And the direct line team, again, must understand what is important to the client. Whether they've had a discussion or not
about it, you should have learned earlier the nuances of this client and what would be important even if you didn't pick
up the importance in any direct conversation that you had. So, in this case, even if the problem is solved, there's really still
a problem. So, let's just pretend it's Monday morning now and we find out, "Oh yeah, the project team had it solved.
Somebody came in on a Saturday, fixed it. All's well." Well, no, all is not well because, again, the customer was not sleeping
well at night. So, whether you're a superintendent, project manager, senior leader in your company, if you want to have
great customer experience, great customer relations, keep that in mind. Make sure that your customer can sleep well at
night knowing that you've got it.

Again, Digging Deeper. Thanks for tuning in.