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Host Scott Lollar is a 35-year veteran of the painting industry and founder of Consulting4Contractors. The 'Success Beyond The Brush' Podcast serves as a touchpoint to painting contractors who have hustled, sacrificed, and worked hard to get their business to where it is today. Now, you need the guidance, expertise, experience, and team to make it into the multi-million-dollar company of your dreams. You'll hear stories and interviews from "Brothers of the Brush" and "Sisters of the Sprayer" who have been where you are and are charting a new course for their company's success. Listen in and go beyond $1,000,000!
SBTB Ep. 20 | The Forgotten Phase of Customer Experience: Pre-Production Mistakes Contractors Make
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[00:00:00]
Hunter Handoff and Brand Promise
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Sales vs Production Gap
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Scott: It's common for people to fall either into the sales camp or the production camp. But this in-between is really critical. The salesperson is the hunter. They just want to go kill something, and then once they kill it, they're like, eh, someone else is going to cook this thing.
Scott: And, it, yeah. Yeah. So you move on pretty quickly and I think that's actually appropriate. So one of the things, we really don't advocate is, salespeople being part of production because, eh, quite frankly, if they're really good at sales, then they're wasting time in production. But we do want to have a really clear next step for the client.
Scott: So we've done all the hard work to get the sale, right, isn't that kind of the hard part is getting the lead. They called you, you went out there, they saw value, they signed the contract,
Mark: Mm-hmm.
Scott: and that is really the hard part and it's the wrong time to show them your true colors, which is, yeah, we're actually terrible at customer service.
[00:01:00]
Welcome To Success Beyond The Brush
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Welcome back to another episode of Success Beyond the Brush. If you're a contractor trying to grow your business, you probably spend a lot of time thinking about sales. And production, but what about everything that happens in between? Today, mark and Scott are going to be diving into one of the most overlooked drivers of customer satisfaction, and that is the pre-production phase.
It's that period after the contract is signed out and before the project begins, and it can really make or break the customer's perception of your company. If you want to stand out as a premium contractor and create customers who refer you again and again, this episode is for you. Let's dive into this conversation with Mark and Scott.
I.
Mark: I got to pick the topic today, and it's one of my favorite topics and I've got questions for you and I'm very curious how you'll answer these.
Scott: All right. Let's do it.
Defining Pre Production Wasteland
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Mark: So the topic is a lot of us as business owners we're really good at one or two things in our companies, and I've noticed that a lot of owners are really good at sales. A lot of them, you [00:02:00] know, that's kind of their thing. I can land the contracts, I can get the clients, I can impress the pants off of them.
Mark: And then we've got those that are really great at production and they've put a lot of time into their processes and their teams. And man, we just knocked the socks off of our customers with our quality, with our detail, with our follow up and all that. So we've got kind of sandwich, sales and production really, really strong.
Mark: But there is a hidden in-between. And that is what we're going to talk about today. I'm calling it after the sale or pre-production. This mysterious wasteland where many customers go and are never seen or heard from again, where hearts and minds are changed, where maybe feelings get hurt, where customers feel lost and unappreciated and they just don't know what's happening.
Mark: And man, I know a ton of contracting companies out there who let people fall through the cracks in this wasteland of what I'm calling pre-production after the
Scott: [00:03:00] Yeah, Yeah. Let's do it.
Mark: Okay. All right.
Wait Times and Lost Clients
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Mark: I trust that you and all of your coaching and all the clients that you work with, that you see this problem as well.
Mark: I'm going to identify a few things. And I'm using my company as an example. We're the bad company in this example. Because to be honest, we don't do this well. We're a fairly small company. I run usually 13 to 15 people in the field during our busy season. It is not unusual for us to have a two to three month wait time.
Mark: And I know there's a lot of contractors out there that are freaking out. Because I've got friends who have a two week lead time. I mean, they just hand to mouth type of production rates. That's not typically how we do. And so once we finish a sale and we can collect the down payment, those customers can get put on a shelf, so to speak, you know, for months. Sometimes you, you experience that with other clients?
Scott: You're right. It's common for people to fall either into the [00:04:00] sales camp or the production camp. But this in-between is really critical. The salesperson is the hunter. They just want to go kill something, and then once they kill it, they're like, eh, someone else is going to cook this thing.
Scott: And it, yeah. Yeah. So you move on pretty quickly and I think that's actually appropriate. So one of the things we really don't. Advocate is salespeople being part of production because, eh, quite frankly, if they're really good at sales, then they're wasting time in production. But we do want to have a really clear next step for the client.
Scott: So we've done all the hard work to get the sale, right, isn't that kind of the hard part is getting the lead. They called you, you went out there, they saw value, they signed the contract.
Mark: Mm-hmm.
Scott: And that is really. The hard part and it's the wrong time to show them your true colors, which is, yeah, we're actually terrible at customer service.
Scott: So I think it's at that moment that somebody else picks up the mantle or the [00:05:00] baton and continues the brand promise of white glove or excellent experience. And I'm an advocate of that kind of concept, which is this is going to be an excellent experience. You've already seen it in the ease of appointment setting that we showed up on time, that we got you a well-defined, clear scope of work, easy to accept.
Scott: We had appropriate and on time follow up, so we fulfilled all of our promises to this point. Now we hand it off to pre-production to continue meeting our brand promise of this is going to be an excellent experience. This is going to be a white glove service. This is going to be an excellent experience. You're not going to have to manage us. You're not going to have to ask us a bunch of questions. We're going to be there every step of the way, and this is going to be fantastic.
Mark: And a little bit later in the podcast, we are going to jump into some particulars about some details and maybe some tech and data that can help us do this really well.
Psychology of Silence
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Mark: But before we get there, I want to talk a little bit about the psychology here. And I know that [00:06:00] most people listening probably aren't arguing like, ah, that's not important.
Mark: We all understand that it's important, but I need you to understand why it can affect you later in the customer's psyche. So to your point, we've had a great sales experience. Maybe they were referred to us, they've read our literature, they're like, yeah I trust this company. Our salesperson goes out, blows them out of the water, by the way, that's me in my company.
Mark: And they're just like, yeah, this is great. This is going to be wonderful. He's made all these kind of pseudo promises and, and just told me how this is going to go. And I trust him to do it. Here's what happens quite a bit of the time for us, especially if somebody has like a large exterior and they're going to wait for eight, 12, sometimes 16 weeks before we actually arrive.
Mark: What my team leads have heard the day they knock on the door and we have a little bit of, you know, communication the week before, like, Hey, you know, we're coming on Monday, we'll be there, but the team lead knocks on the door and they're met with you know, just game face, they're not happy to see us, like just [00:07:00] stone face business transaction.
Mark: And what my team leads have heard more often than am comfortable with is we're already disappointed. We've been waiting, you know, we had, we didn't hear anything from anybody from June when we bought the project to September. You know, when you're here, it's been months we haven't heard, you know, we're already frustrated.
Mark: It's been a long time, and what my team leads are telling me in our crew leader meetings is we have an uphill battle now to win that customer back. We will, because my team leads are great. They're going to love our quality, they're going to love our service, but we're fighting against you know, a current here that probably shouldn't be and they're exactly right.
Mark: Do you ever have that happen with other clients?
Scott: It's, It's exactly right, which is, it can be a very exciting event. Someone's doing a home improvement or a beautification. Oftentimes it's an investment, right? Someone's saved or, you know, it's a big expense and they're, it's exciting, you know, can't wait to see it. Think of something you've done as a home improvement.
Scott: [00:08:00] It's exciting and you're looking forward to it and it's a a big deal. You've vetted the everybody and I think that what you just expressed is exactly right. It's like, Hey, what got me excited when your fancy pants uh, salesperson was here, is worn off. It's tarnished. And I'm irritated.
Scott: And so now you're going to have to earn my trust back. And quite frankly, I'm probably going to be picky, right? I'm going to be like, eh, I'm going to, you know, I'm just a little irritated now.
Communication and Time Respect
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Scott: Anyone that knows me, knows I'm a customer service snob. But I have that same approach when people that come serve me at my home.
Scott: And my mantra is try to not do anything. So anything that's done at my home is someone else. If they don't communicate with me, because I'm on a Zoom call six to eight hours a day typically. So it matters that you show up on time. It matters that you don't just. Not ring my doorbell whenever you feel like it.
Scott: So this communication and helping me understand what to expect. So even though I'm going to have to be interrupted because that's [00:09:00] when you're coming, I can be prepared and say to the client, I'm going to need to take a three minute break and answer the door because something's happening. But just that promise matters. And if you just show up and come whenever you feel like it, it really dishonors my time. And it says, know what, you're going to drop everything and do whatever I need you to do whenever I decide I need you to do it. And that's not service. We're providing a service, whether you're a painter, a plumber, you know, we work with contractors, we work with a pest control company, one of your friends there in Mount Vernon you know, and I, and we do work with their call logs and we see these back and forth connection with people when they're coming. And fulfilling that promise is really important because those are the agreements we made and it will help us downline when we need a little grace maybe, or you know, if something happens that we need a little bit of benefit of the doubt, we're going to have no credit in the bank if we've already used it up on the, Hey, it took me three months to get here. And by the [00:10:00] way, sorry we never talked to you in between.
Mark: I think that's the important part. It's not even really the three months. I mean, in construction, especially home construction, you could wait a year or two to get your house built or your addition done. It's not really the three months, that's the problem. It's the no communication.
Restaurant Waitlist Analogy
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Mark: And as another analogy, I love food.
Mark: I love going to restaurants. I've been to all kinds of restaurants where I have to wait. Right. Cracker Barrel takes your name and then they announce your name over the speaker, but you're just kind of milling around in between. But the restaurants that I love the most are the ones where they text you and then you can check your spot in line.
Mark: And I'm that guy. I'm sitting over in the corner. They tell me a 45 minute wait every three minutes I'm checking to see if someone left, you know, did somebody get bumped off? Where am I? You're seventh in line. You're sixth in line. You're fourth in line. And even though it may be a 45 minute wait, it feels better just because I have an idea.
Mark: I'm constantly being updated. I know where I'm at and I think we've got to come up with those systems for [00:11:00] our customers where there's a check-in every couple weeks. What do you think once a month just to check in to say you're still on the list and we had kind of given you a soft a date of mid-September, you're still on maybe even a little bit sooner.
Mark: That would help that customer a lot, I would think psychologically.
Scott: Yeah, it's a perfect analogy. Your uh, your spot on the waiting list. So the fact is it's bad news. It's going to be 45 minutes to an hour to get your table. Okay? That's a bummer. But they told you the truth, right? So we didn't lie to you. We told you the truth. You chose to put your name in and you saw that you are getting closer to your turn. you could see that people are, you know, and, and I know Mark, how do you do that? You know, you're looking like, Hey, I think I walked in before that
Mark: Mm-hmm.
Scott: And, you know, but I mean, as, as long as you can see that, that progressing, you feel pretty comfortable because they are fulfilling their promise to you, which is we're going to get you in here about 45 minutes and it, and so when that happens, you, you have no real right to be [00:12:00] aggravated because they fulfilled their agreement at that point. And from there on the next step is to have a good experience once you sit down.
Mark: I agree with that. Side note, and I know not all of our listeners will understand this, but I come from a very small community, very rural community, like most of us are related or know each other very well. And so we get in trouble all the time because just what you said. I know I was here before that person and they got sat before I did.
Mark: We get that all the time in our community because communities talk. I go to church with her and I just know the Men In White people were there and she signed after I signed, and it may have been the size of the job. There's a million reasons why her job came first, but we hear that all the time in our small community.
Scott: Yeah, we know you're from a small rural town, Mark, because you just referenced Cracker Barrel as a restaurant, so.
Mark: Wait it's like our steakhouse. That is the prime restaurant. It goes downhill from Cracker Barrel.
Scott: Yeah. Oh man. Well, I know that's not true. You've got some fine dining where you live.
Mark: That's true. I like to make it sound [00:13:00] worse than it is,
Scott: Yeah, I
Mark: although I did pass a horse and buggy today
Scott: no, you
Mark: our main road. We have a lot of Amish in our area, so.
Scott: you
Mark: Yeah.
Scott: All right. Well.
Fear Reduction and Liaison Role
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Mark: So another aspect of psychology that I wanted to talk about is a lot of times there's a lot of fear surrounding a major purchase decision, like painting the house or part of a remodel.
Mark: The homeowners can be timid about the process and they are begging professionals to walk them through a process they want us to, like, I have bought from you. I trust you. What comes next? They're expecting us to tell them and kind of feed them through the process. And again, when you have a period of time, whatever that is for your company, whether it's two weeks or two months of this in-between production time, I think it, there's a lot of opportunity for us to soothe those fears.
Mark: And to, again, make them trust that guys, we've been through this a hundred times. I can help you through all of your questions. You had talked about maybe a liaison or somebody from our company [00:14:00] who takes control of that project. Probably isn't the original salesperson. It's not in my company. We have a production manager that that's handed off to, and he does a great job of introducing himself and clarifying the scope.
Mark: Which I do want to talk about. That's probably step one. Just answering any questions, making sure their color selections are right, and just leaving them with that sense of this company knows exactly what I want. So if we were going to continue our food analogy, now I've been sat after I waited for 45 minutes.
Mark: This is the idea of that server who, okay, we've had this customer who's been waiting in the waiting room for 45 minutes. Now they're finally sat and I am here to deliver this great service and experience for them. I'm listening to them. I'm chatting with them, making them feel comfortable. In our company, that's our production manager who's just, I want to verify your order,
Mark: I want to make sure I bring you exactly what you wanted, how you wanted it, how you like it, and maybe a little bit more. Now, it's still [00:15:00] going to be a little while that server doesn't go cook the food immediately. You could have another 45 minute wait in a nice restaurant from there, but they feel very heard, very understood that this guy knows.
Mark: And then he's dropping by the table with the bread service or refilling drinks or getting them something from the bar. He is checking in with them periodically. And that's something that admittedly we don't do very well. I imagine we, we should probably be using our CRM for more of that. Like, Hey, it's been two weeks.
Mark: Let's go touch that person and just drop by and refill their drinks, so to speak.
Scott: Yeah, exactly.
Automation and Pre Production Systems
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Scott: What I think should happen is we should hand it off to an internal production department. So depending on how big your company is I think that production managers typically can be external, so they're out, you know, engaging with customers and subcontractors and painters staff.
Scott: And that's what they spend a lot of their time doing. Whereas a lot of this pre-production is really internal. It does not [00:16:00] need an expert in our industry. It can be done in a, at a somewhat of a administrative level. So, we would advocate of course a estimating program. When a client accepts the estimate, inside of that program, you can create a native automation that immediately triggers an email response to them that says, we've received your acceptance. We are excited to do this work with you, you'll hear back from our pre-production team within whatever, 48 hours, 72 hours, doesn't even matter if you said a week,
Mark: amount of time.
Scott: So give them the next step and just put their mind at ease. You know, this is the day of the you know, Amazon and such. You ever you know, thought you did the final click and you didn't, or whatever, right? So it's the idea of going, hey, we got your order standby for next steps and so put their mind at ease.
Scott: I think the next communication, and I advocate all of this is electronic. Anytime I hear someone say the word I [00:17:00] called, I cringe because calling takes time and it's quite frankly, an intrusion. I don't even want to talk to you and I'm 61 years old, so I'm actually very comfortable with electronic communication, whether that's text or email.
Scott: But I would send this email that gives all the information that they need to know and that we need from them. A lot of people, I feel in their storytelling of how they do pre-production, it's a spoon feeding of, here's one thing, and, oh, now I need one more thing, and, oh, now I need this, and now, and it's a whole bunch of little things and I think it's better to go ahead and get everything out right away, out front, even if it's
Scott: incremental steps or different things. I think of it like a choreographed dance. Like there's going to be a dance. I'm leading the dance. I know you're the customer, but I'm going to, I'm going to be in charge and here's what I need from you, and I need this and I need that, and I need it in this timeframe.
Scott: And here's what you can count on for me. And then I always give them [00:18:00] some, engagement or understanding of what I understand that from the salesperson. And I typically make a little joke, like if there's something that, you know, Mark didn't let us know, he's a crazy person let us know.
Scott: You know, so it's not uncommon for you to say, we're going to be there June 1st, and then you get this raging phone call that says, I can't believe you idiots. That's the baby shower, I told Mark, right, you get this. So this idea of here's what we understand, we're planning around. If there's anything that we need to know, let us know.
Scott: Like, you know, you have the people that have boarded their dogs and they have taken time off of work. And then you've called and said, Hey, we're not going to be there. And they go, you know, so I'd like to know that. You know, tell me what kind of things you're doing that I need to be aware of as far as timing and how things work.
Scott: And then I would, you know, give them a soft date. I think that when someone buys something from you, you should give them a some kind of timeline. A lot of people just say, I'm not even going to tell you. We're going to tell you we're coming when we come.
Set Expectations Early
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Scott: I'm like no. They [00:19:00] need, there's an expectation here.
Scott: Give them some sort of soft date out there in the future. And then tell them we will let you know if that date changes significantly because we want you to be able to plan. And that's where I would leave it and I would just be done then, right there. And let give it all to them. From there, Mark, I think you're correct. Maybe. I think two weeks is about right. Maybe three.
Stay In Touch While Waiting
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Scott: You could even ask the people, how often would you like me to reach out to you? And just, you know, they might say, I don't need to, you know, but you, I think about every two weeks you should in your CRM saying, Hey, I.
Scott: Let's send them a quick email or text just to let them know you're still on our mind. We're planning, we're excited. We can't wait. It's going to be worth the wait, whatever. You could be cute, you could be clever. But that just helps people you know, just feel connected to you.
Painter Story Communication Gap
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Scott: I, the house that we're in now we've been in a little over four years, but we bought it in November 1st, but didn't move until [00:20:00] January.
Scott: So I hired a painter that I knew for many years through PCA and he's and I, and they did nice work and I wanted to work with them. And he said that their schedule would, Allow them to paint for us if they could do it during the Christmas, you know, section there where nobody else wants to get in their house. And the house was vacant. I said, yeah, that'd be great. That's fine. So I had a deadline. We have other things going on. There's car, there's a hard, you know, flooring and such.
Scott: And so after six weeks, I haven't heard a word from them. And I'm like, boy. I sure hope they are coming because I've got movers and so I had to reach out to them and me, even knowing the way the process works, it was frustrating that I still had to reach out to them.
Midshow Break
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We're going to take a break. We're about halfway through the show here. And if you're listening and realizing that maybe your customer experience could be stronger between the sale and start of production, you are not alone. Most contractors focus [00:21:00] heavily on generating leads and. Delivering quality work, but they often don't have a clear system in place to guide their customer through the entire journey.
And that's where Consulting4Contractors helps service businesses the most. They're going to implement proven systems that improve communication, customer experience, and operational efficiency. And not just for painting companies, but really for any company operating. And the service industry space. So if you want help building processes that increase your customer satisfaction and drive repeat business, go ahead and visit us at www.consulting4contractors.com.
There you're going to be able to schedule a free discovery call with Scott. He's going to go over all the different details about your business, specifically related to their customer experience, and help you understand how you can do better by them. Let's jump back into this episode with Mark and Scott.
Scott: so, so I'm in the industry. I know how it works, but I still had that moment of discomfort of going, [00:22:00] shoot. I haven't heard from them in a long time.
Scott: I I sure hope they're still planning on helping me out here soon. So I think just putting people at ease is really great. And then and again, by the time you show up. They're like, yeah you've communicated. And so that's what I would do.
Pre Production Email Template
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Scott: I would just send a one massive email. Here's how it's going to work.
Scott: Here's what I need from you. Here's what you can count on from us. You know, we will connect with you every few weeks. If anything changes, we're looking forward to it. You know, and just let them know that silence is not a bad thing here, right? And so, I think that's what I would do because that's going to elevate your this experience and set you apart from anyone else that could have hired.
Scott: The worst thing that can happen is that they said I had different options and this company was the highest price option, which all of us here, right? I went with the highest price because I really thought I was going to get a better experience. And the fact is, it's the same experience as the chuck and a [00:23:00] truck, I should have just gone with the lowest guy because the experience is the same.
Scott: It's all garbage. This is, I thought I was going to, I went with the legitimate company because I thought I was going to get a better experience. And the fact is, you didn't give him anything different than the chuck in the truck.
Mark: Yeah, that's true. So to go back to our analogy again maybe it's because I'm a country bumpkin, but I like it when the waiter writes the order down and I really like it when they read it back before they leave the table. And so I think for your analogy, that's what we're doing is the order's been taken they've accepted the contract.
Mark: Now somebody from my internal team is reading the order back to them. Hey, just looking really forward to bringing this to you, but I just want to make sure. You got the chicken, you got the salmon, you got blah, blah, blah. So I think that's a great point and we're big Paint Scout fans. Shout out to Paint Scout.
Mark: Love the system. There's so many templates we can build for emails and so again, for people who are thinking, well, I don't have time to type out this long email, [00:24:00] that should be a template. Most of that information is going to every customer you can minorly adjust it to customize for each particular contract. But you shouldn't be typing that whole thing either. So we love the customization of those templates in Paint
Scott: I would advise you to make templates in your Gmail account as well, or your email server and just say, Hey, this is the pre-production email. And then you open that up and you send that with some edits and you'd be good to go.
Mark: I also want to make sure people understand I confessed to this earlier, but this is exactly how I am. I am the salesperson, I am the hunter in my company. But guys, after I get an acceptance we kind of have a internal fist bump. Like, yeah, we got that big contract. I never think about that customer again.
Mark: I am onto the next. Pure hunter. That's my job every day is to go get the next, I'm trusting my team. I've also been honest in this podcast that we have some work to do on our internal processes to make sure we don't have upset customers.
Scope Colors Materials Prep
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Mark: But the next thing technically that I want to talk about is identifying some of the other [00:25:00] key things we've talked about probably verifying scope of work.
Mark: But also colors can be a very important part of this in addition to sheen and proper primers, there's all kinds of technical data regarding the material. Now, as the salesperson, I usually dictate that in my original quote, but there certainly are times where it's like, Hey, we're going to need a little bit of
Mark: rust preventing primer for that little bit of, I may not designate a particular product. I think that's another thing that our internal team is doing is gathering that either equipment, specialty items and specialty materials to make sure we're truly ready for this job.
Scott: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think that can happen right off the bat. And you're pre-planning in that front end. Sometimes there's long lead times for something specialty, whether it's a wall covering or a, or you have to schedule a carpenter, you need to schedule a power washer or there's, you know, but it's often, a lot of people in certain areas are delivering a portable bathroom and that needs to be ordered.
Scott: And so there's lead [00:26:00] times in some of these things that really are not possible to do at the last minute. You know, try to call a carpenter the day before, right. And it doesn't happen. So some of these things are really critical. Now, to your point about the color selection, I am a, an advocate that customers aren't supposed to be experts at sheen.
Scott: So I would suggest that the salesperson should be dictating that, in the proposal with the customer after they've gotten some feedback as you know, what washability, what sheen, and so that we don't have to guess, but we would ask the customer to give us the manufacturer, the number and the name of the paint.
Scott: And then we would be in our worksheet, good to go with our initial order right from that based upon our estimate and some of that lead time and identifying what are the things I need for this job? To your point, I, do I need a bathroom? Do I not need a bathroom? Do I need a, is this a RRP job or not an RRP job. Is there a special designation to, if you know people that are doing commercial work. Who's getting invoiced? When does the invoice [00:27:00] go out?
Scott: And do I need a COI? Are we going to give a, is there an additional insured? Do we need bond? You know, there's a lot of things that depending on your business, you might need, and this is the time to get those ducks in a row.
Scott: Not when you're scrambling, trying to get the work started.
Mark: We're a little bit old school in our company. We still offer color consultations, especially for our residential customers who just aren't sure or need some help. I think that's something that we have done before where we'll actually schedule the color consult for a month or so down the road, and it's really just to spread out their wait time.
Mark: It, here's a little something that's going to happen in, in a month and I don't know, a little tide you over while you're waiting type of thing. So I like to schedule those out even though it's important of course to have all the information together in one spot as quickly as possible. I don't know.
Mark: That's a small touch that we do as well.
Scott: Yeah, makes sense.
Avoid Last Minute Scramble
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Mark: Are there any other data items that you feel like is really important during this pre-production time that, that we need to make sure that we're not thinking of?
Scott: Well, of course that also gives the [00:28:00] pre-production department chance to organize work orders, links into the places that you're going to distribute them to your subs or to your employees. You know, getting all the work orders together with the colors and all of that data. You know, that's just the time to get that all organized.
Scott: It's shocking that no matter how much time people had before it was go time, they still are scrambling at the last minute to order a material
Mark: the
Scott: to, you know, you know, or, oh gosh, they're out of that base. I mean, we've heard that all time and time again. Like, how could you possibly not have ordered the material?
Scott: These, this job was accepted two months ago and they still wait till the last minute. So, I think getting ahead of that, whether the material's being delivered to a shop or to a site or whatever, you know, there's no reason. And you know, it was classic where you're trying to get them to call it to deliver the material, you know, immediately, you know, like what, there's just no reason for it.
Scott: So, you know, just getting all the ducks in a row so that when you go [00:29:00] live with production, everything is ready. It's there, it's gentle, it's easy, it's not hurried, it's not chaotic. One of the things that you can do for your team, whether you're run a sub model or a W2 model, is to, to try to make their world stress free. They don't like chaos. I I know you like chaos and I like chaos. If it's, if there's not chaos in my life, I get sleepy, but they don't like chaos. So we have all this time to make it easy and, you know, we and we don't. So that's where that pre-production, that internal administrator,
Scott: can really help you with all of this stuff behind the scenes, because it's not urgent, it's important. And that's the time quadrant you want to be in anyhow.
Mark: That's exactly right.
Day One Walkthrough Handoff
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Mark: Alright, I'm going to dip back into our analogy one more time. We are wearing out this analogy, so, so now the kitchen has done their thing. I have waited 45 minutes in the waiting room. I've waited 45 minutes at my table, but I have confidence in my server. I'm not upset from the wait experience [00:30:00] thus far.
Mark: Now the food's coming out. And you and I have talked about this before, it drives me nuts when that is not my server. It is some teenage food runner who comes up with a tray full of food and he is like, who had the salmon? That frustrates me to death. But unfortunately we have been guilty of doing that to our customers as well with either bad work orders or like you said, we rush the process.
Mark: My team doesn't really understand what we do, and some of this, of course, is on the team leads head. We call them crew leaders. The crew leader has to be mature enough to be able to handle this in a good way. But you cannot ring the doorbell on day one. Say, Hey, we're here to paint something. Well, okay.
Mark: You're here on time. On the day that you said you would be, but I now I've lost all confidence. You don't even know what I ordered.
Scott: Yeah. Yep. And it's I also hate that because now I feel like now the restaurant now is now making me go to work. I
Mark: Where's my [00:31:00] apron?
Scott: Where the food goes now because you know you don't know. So I'm going to give you my order again.
Scott: That's not service. That's not service at all. So I think that all the way up to live, that's your final that's your final moment in the pre-production, and that's the handoff now to, to production. I think when I talk to people about project management and how, you know, they, I get all these questions, how.
Scott: How often, and you know, blah, blah, blah. It's the bookends of the job that we have problems. We don't start them well and we don't finish them well, what happens in between? I hope you don't have subcontractors or crew leaders that need daily visits. I mean, I just think that's just a little overkill.
Scott: Maybe every three or four days, especially you know, Rick Holtz C4C coach and they work in a tighter geographical area, but he likes the customer to see the project manager. And it's not just so that they're directing traffic, it's that so that the customer can feel like they're getting their [00:32:00] value from what they bought. But, you know, this walkthrough is really the launching pad, then the beginning of the fulfillment, which is I just want to confirm that what we think we're doing is exactly in line with what you're doing. So we're going to walk through together. I'm going to read the scope of work. We're going to look at color placement, and we're going to help you understand how we're going to approach this and make sure that works with your life, whether it's an interior or exterior, o
Scott: These types of things. So, you know that walkthrough is critical to me, and you have to plan that with the client. You have to be clear. We really need to see you there at this time on day one. Will that be possible in your schedule? Because what we hear is, did you do a walkthrough? No. Why not?
Scott: Well, the customer wasn't there. Did we tell the customer to be there? No one did that. And we always hear that at the final is, you know, [00:33:00] there's one little thing, everything's great, but there's one little thing, so we send someone back. It's a big time waste. Why did that happen? Well, we didn't do a walkthrough.
Scott: Why don't do a walkthrough? Well, well, they were gone. They took the kids to soccer practice or whatever. Did we ask them to be present for a final walkthrough? We could have done it at noon, maybe. No, no one ever communicated with them. So that's really a, that's really about, again, what I'm talking about is tell them how the dance is going to go request, give them warning, give them up.
Scott: We're going to be done tomorrow. But that first walkthrough is really. The final step in pre-production, and then we can let the onsite personnel handle the customer from there with just a little bit of management and that, that clarification, that company you know, driven, we're going to make sure we're clear and understand and everything you're looking for and all your nuances and get there, you know.
Scott: You know, you can see what bothers them and what they look like and what restroom we can use. And these types of things are really important as you [00:34:00] begin now to be in their home. We're talking about residential jobs now, but the same can be said for commercial work too. It just, it helps with the experience.
Scott: It helps, you know, you can talk to them about how do you communicate to us when something's frustrating you. We really want to know, here's how you communicate with me. You know, I really want to know. Would you please promise me that you'll tell me? Because my goal is that you have a five star experience here.
Scott: So it's every step of the way that we're upholding this white glove experience that we're hoping they're going to go, that was a fantastic experience. That was a fantastic company to work with. I can, it was worth the money we paid for it. It was worth the wait. I would do it again. That's what we're hoping.
Scott: And to your point, when you do it the other way, they go, eh, I'm not sure I'll call them again.
Mark: Right.
Scott: And I'm kind of bummed out because I think I paid a premium and I just got an average thing. And that's what we're trying to avoid.
Mark: That's right.
White Glove Service Mindset
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Mark: And the goal of this podcast is to remind every one of our listeners and [00:35:00] ourselves when we talk about these subjects, that every single one of us is actually in the customer service business. It doesn't matter. I not that none of it matters, but we don't need to argue about the technical details of how you paint this way or use that roller versus this. Every one of us, our goal is to deliver excellent customer experiences every time.
Mark: And unfortunately, in the trades, a lot of us get tunnel vision into thinking, a lot of us are task oriented in our brain. We just want to check it off. I have 12 customers, I'm going to check them off and I feel good. Yes, maybe you painted the house and you got it the right color in their timeframe. To you, that's a successful experience.
Mark: But from the customer's perspective, from the time they engaged your company to the sale. Especially the in-between times while they are waiting, while there is silence, while there is a break in between the doing of the thing. This is also speaking to their experience, and I think you said it well. A lot of people will say, yeah, they did a great job.
Mark: I don't have any [00:36:00] complaint about their quality. I probably wouldn't call them back, and that should give you pause. You should be thinking about those tasks and that's kind of what our goal was for today.
Scott: Yeah.
Thanks For Listening to Success Beyond The Brush!
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Scott: I hope people that are listening to this, if you don't have a process like this, that you create one and assign it to the people and they own it because it doesn't happen by accident.
Mark: That's right. Appreciate your insights as always, Scott, thanks for joining us today. Hope you join us again on the next podcast. We're looking forward to it.
Scott: Thanks, Mark.
Well, that wraps up another episode of Success Beyond the Brush. Thank you again for listening. If you found value in this conversation, go ahead and subscribe so you don't miss future episodes where we help contractors grow more profitable, more predictable, and more professional businesses. And if you know another contractor who might benefit from hearing about this, improving their own customer experience, go and share this episode with them.
As always, check out our show notes or video description for resources, links and additional tools mentioned in today's episode. [00:37:00] Thanks again so much for listening to Success Beyond the Brush. We'll see you in the next one.