Published September 2007

Leave a Good Impression

By Steve Baie (page 18)

You may provide stellar service, but are your loyal customers satisfied?

In the portable sanitation business, the importance of loyal customers can’t be overestimated. If you have been in this business for a while and you have a strong company, I suspect more than 90 percent of your annual revenue comes from customers you have served for more than a year.

It is important to remember customers are always free to leave. And when customers are dissatisfied, they typically tell nine other people. In a service business, your reputation can be your company’s biggest asset.

I recently read a newspaper article on retail businesses. It said that by increasing customer retention a mere five percent, you could increase profits by more than 65 percent, and growth by more than 100 percent. I’ll bet those numbers are even higher in our industry.

Holding on to customers is obviously important. Losing them decreases profitability in a number of ways: It lowers what you can bill in a month; it decreases route density, which drives up fuel costs and employee time; and it drives up marketing costs as you try to replace lost business.

Therefore, one of the most profitable ways you can spend your time is working on improving customer satisfaction and thereby improving loyalty.

Satisfaction or service?

Customer satisfaction is often confused with customer service — the two are not necessarily the same. Satisfaction is how your customers feel about the service they receive and the people who provide it.

You can’t measure “satisfaction” the same way you measure “service,” with clear objective results that you can track. For example, you can find answers to questions like: Did the truck arrive on time? Was the restroom pumped? Was it clean and fresh-smelling when the driver left?

There is no guarantee that good customer service will create high customer satisfaction. For example:

Clean restrooms provided with a bad attitude can leave a customer feeling dissatisfied. Making an extra service call to clean an overused restroom is good service, but the fact that the unit was in bad shape to begin with may leave the customer feeling dissatisfied. Fixing or replacing a broken or vandalized unit is good service, but how long was the customer dealing with the broken unit before you became aware of it?

No business owner can prevent all incidents that lead to customer dissatisfaction; however, too few businesses make an all-out attempt to try.

The secret to creating customer satisfaction is to show your customers, through actions, how much you care about their satisfaction. Does the restroom look and smell nice and work properly? Are employees friendly, concerned about service and dressed in uniforms? Do you follow up with customers? Do you apologize when things aren’t right?

Encourage loyalty

I used to frequent a diner — George’s Gyros. The food was good. The service was friendly. George was a real character. Whenever you came into his joint, he struck up a conversation and made you feel welcome and important. George had great rapport with his customers and employees. He would joke with them and they would joke back, but they obviously hustled to get your food to you hot, fast and done right. George built a great business with a large customer base. Then he sold it and made a big profit.

The company that bought the business wasn’t friendly. Soon, many of George’s former employees had left, and the restaurant was just another anonymous diner, where nobody remembered your name. It went out of business within two years. The service and food were still good, but there was no satisfaction and no reason to be loyal.

Doing business with people you know, like and trust is so important that it can overrule almost everything else.

Like George’s Gyros, your business must have a culture based on sincere caring for the customer. Your employees need to feel empowered to do whatever needs to be done. George was good at both external customer relations and internal employee relations.

Make the commitment

Customer loyalty doesn’t happen unless there is a commitment from employees to own the relationship. This is a commitment to understand the customer’s needs, maintain effective communication and seek every reasonable way to satisfy the customer.

There are a lot of things business owners can do to encourage employees to own the customer. Meet with your employees monthly on the topic. Ask employees what they think. Ask for and reward creative ideas to enhance the customer experience, such as these examples I’ve heard about from restroom operators:

• Affix a plastic vase to the wall of special event units. Whenever the units are serviced, place a fresh carnation in the vase.

• Use twist ties to affix a toilet paper holder scent ring to the restroom’s vent screen. Air flowing through this restroom will keep it smelling fresh.

• Use paper welcome mats with your company logo and phone number. Place a fresh mat on the floor each time you provide service.

• Add a sticker on the inside of the restroom door with a toll-free emergency service number, inviting users with a cell phone to call if the unit has become unusable.

• Add a fresh paper ring across the seat after every service, like an upscale hotel, to show that it’s been cleaned.

Stress people skills

These are inexpensive ways to provide the “extra touch” that shows you care. However, people skills and friendliness may be more important than the restroom itself.

Find ways to reward employees for customer longevity. Many companies pay a commission for bringing in new customers, but how many pay service operators for customer longevity? It can be easy to create a pay structure for service employees by giving bonuses for each year that a customer stays with you. When employees understand how they fit into the big picture, it’s easier for them to improve their performance as they face a variety of service opportunities.

To achieve customer loyalty, management must genuinely want to track and improve customer service and satisfaction. There must be a sincere commitment to creating a powerful vision that helps employees achieve their loyalty goals, and a measurement, monitoring, reward and recognition system that aligns with them.

Implement a process that enables you to hire people who will stay with the company and who can perform at the level needed to deliver on their promises. Create an ongoing customer satisfaction discussion group for all levels of employees.

Seek customer feedback

Anyone in a service business must be willing to ask customers how they can improve and what changes they might like to see. Ask how the service technician is doing and what can be done to improve service. Ask customers if they have a preference for deodorant scents. Ask if they would like to add upgrades like hand sanitizers or sinks for an additional fee.

Your sincere interest in their feedback helps create customer satisfaction. It builds your relationship and it leads to loyalty.

Finally, don’t forget to tell customers how much you appreciate their loyalty. Send an anniversary or holiday card to celebrate another year of doing business together.