Customer Relations, Operations, V7I5

The Shrieker … and Customer Service

(Photo courtesy of Icons8 Team on Unsplash)

So I’m going to start this article with a story. This is a shed-hauling story from back when I owned the whole mess. 

Debbie Gordon and Shane Byler were witnesses to this one. Well, Debbie caught the last half, and Shane caught all of it. He didn’t much enjoy hauling sheds, especially with his old man, but he faithfully did it a long time.

Anyway, this was somewhere along that time when I was knees and elbows in the shed business. It was nuts. Twice a week we would leave at 4 a.m. and drag in at 11-12:30 that night.

One day we did 11 deliveries, four pickups, and a move job. Debbie was selling like hotcakes. She would call and say, “Sold another one boss!” After six to eight in a day, you lost count.

So on this particular day, we had done three or four off the Seneca lot and were on the second or third off the Anderson lot when the whole thing came to a screeching (literally) halt.

Debbie will tell you, as will Joseph Miller, when I get in a groove, you just leave me the hotter-than-blazes place alone. Don’t get in my zone. You’re going to regret it.

We had loaded up this cool little porch building for this little grandma. Debbie even warned me.

“She’s a sweet little thing,” she bravely told me when she handed me the paperwork. 

“Yup,” I said and was gone. 

I felt a tad bit of trepidation driving the couple of miles across town. Debbie’s words were echoing ominously in my head.

Sure enough, she was a sweet old little lady. But man, her yard—it was awful! There were more shrubs, bushes, weeping willows, gardens, peeing statues, fences, benches, swings, birds, and water fountains than you could wrap your tiny brain around. 

“I want it there,” she half-beggingly said. 

“There?” I pointed.

“Yes, please,” she said. 

No way. Not only would it take me the rest of the day, but I would have to cancel my other two deliveries. I resigned myself to the fact that this was a cash customer (not rent-to-own), so I might as well do it. 

Shane never said a word. He hardly ever did. I showed him the path we were going to take, and we did our thing. Straight in. Wiggle waggle wiggle wiggle waggle. And presto, in one shot, there she was. BOOM. Grandma was tickled. 

“Debbie said you could do it!” she cheered. 

I grunted. It was time to deliver this baby and get gone.

Well, till the Chevy pulled up in the street. I barely noticed the guy get out and walk over. I did notice enough to recognize that the female stayed in the truck. Hmm. 

It was the grandson. He was there to “help.” He helped all right. We spent an hour pushing and shoving that stupid building 2 inches one way and then right back the other. Finally, it was right perfectly in place.

HALLELUJAH.

Shane had the jack ready. I jacked up the back and he popped a couple of blocks in. Left side and we were done! Grandma was happy, happy, happy. The grandson was beaming. 

“Need someone to work for you?” he was begging.

“Nah, not really,” I said, throwing the jack on the truck. 

“Well, I’ll run get you my card,” he said and headed toward the house.

Now right here is the part all y’all been waiting on. You’ve been following along about half invested, but I’m telling you, wake up because it’s about to get good.

Remember that little gal in the truck? Well, she decided it was her time to shine. Before anyone even noticed, she was standing right beside gramma and she was trilling about the building being too close to the weeping willow. 

“It’s going to kill that little tree, gramma,” she shrilled. Abruptly she turns and looks at me and commanded, “Move it over.” 

“I’ll do no such thing,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

“If you leave, you take your building with you!”

I paused. It was a hot day. A very small breeze stirred the dust just a little. Time stood still. I heard Shane on the other side of the truck. His hand was on the door handle. I could feel it. Somewhere off in the distance, a train wailed. Tick-tock, tick-tock. I winced. Man, it was hot … and turned around. Where was that dude with his business card? I hated to just leave him. I looked at gramma. 

“Well?” I asked.

Gramma was stuck and she knew it. She shrugged helplessly. 

“If I touch that building to move it, I will load it and be gone,” I growled. “She (pointing at the girl) watched us the whole time and waited until I was done to come play the fool.”

The girl shrieked.

When the grandson walked out of the house two minutes (his words) after he went in, he was shocked to find out I was gone. He was even more shocked to find out the building was gone.

Debbie was waiting when I got back to the lot. I backed in, hit the winch release, and the building was unloaded on the lot. I could tell someone had already called her, but what made Debbie great was, she always had your back. She knew something bad had to have happened.

About that time, that Chevy pickup rolled up in there with three people: grandson and shrieker, with gramma in the middle. Shrieker went straight at Debbie. The grandson came over to me. He was floored. 

“How the (expletive deleted) did you get out of there so fast?” he asked incredulously. “And don’t worry about her. She’s my wife, but she’s nuts! Here’s my card.” 

I stared at him. Right then, my phone started ringing. Weird, I thought. The shrieker is calling someone and my phone is ringing. I answered, 

“Hello, this is Sam.”

You ever watch hot air balloons? Especially when they let the air out? You know how that big massive balloon just goes flat in a heap? I love hot air balloons. They are amazing, but when they lose all their air, they’re just a floppy mass of nothing. SWOOSH. They are done.

Well, when I answered my phone, that’s what happened to the shrieker. Swoosh. And she was completely deflated.

See, while I was talking to grandson, she was berating Debbie about her awful delivery driver and demanded to talk to the boss. The owner.

So, Debbie, naturally, did her job. And gave her the boss’ number.

There is a God. I got my other two deliveries done and a couple of days later, took gramma’s building out again. With another delivery fee, which I made shrieker pay in cash herself. Grandson promised me. And then I gave it back to gramma after setting her building back up again, with no sign of shrieker/triller/shriller anywhere around. 

Grandson begged me to hire him. He said he wanted to work for the man who finally figured out how to shut up his wife. I politely declined.

That’s a funny story to a shed hauler. Sure enough.

It was even funny to my sales team because some days, you’ve just had enough. It was great for morale. They knew the boss had their back.

But let’s study it a bit. It’s not so great for customer service. Customer service is what I wanted to talk about. Customer service can make or break your company, from a variety of different angles. 

First, if you always give everything any customer wants, it doesn’t take long for the word to get out. Good or bad. You will soon find you have customers that are there because they know that you will take care of them. This could be in many different ways, from delivering a great product to warranty work or going above and beyond. A great product is a core foundation.

Never settle for less than the best. Apply the  Golden Rule: Do as you wish to be done to. It’s that simple. Same thing with the warranty. Above and beyond is where it can get messy. Ask any hauler. Any builder. They will tell you.

There comes a breaking point. A point where one has done enough. Been fair enough. Customer service should never be about being taken advantage of. And yet, a lot of times we still do it. And word gets around. They will do anything. Ask a hauler. He will tell you. Builder, too.

Here is the key. Never ask someone else to do what you won’t do yourself. Feel like the hauler should do an up-n-over and not charge for it? Then you pay him. Feel like the builder should go back and add a window that the sales guy forgot? Or move it? You pay him. Or, go do it yourself. 

See, it’s one thing to let someone take advantage of you. It’s a completely different thing to let someone take advantage of someone else—especially someone on your team. You don’t want that done to you, right?

This applies to the whole team. Not just one area.

This brings me to my next point. You want the best customer service of everyone out there? I’ll give you a secret. It’s not found in taking care of your customers. It’s found in taking care of your team. 

I grew up in a world where the rules were, No. 1, that the customer is always right. If the customer was wrong, see rule No. 1.

And guess what? We were constantly trying to keep customers happy. Know why? Here it is: Because the team didn’t feel valued. They didn’t care about the customers because we didn’t care about them. We cared more about the customers.

Want happy customers? Build a happy team. Instead of focusing on the customers, focus on your team. And guess what, they will take care of your customers, from the beginning. I see this everywhere I go and more and more are getting it. 

Customer service starts with your team service. Take care of your people, and they will take care of you. And, then the customers will be taken care of much better than just you can. 

I don’t care what part of the team you are. It falls on you to start. You be the solution. Not the problem. Haulers. Builders. Sales. Owners. Every one of you can make the change. 

Find exceptional service by building an exceptional team. You can do it.

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