Unlocking Customer Happiness: What to Know, When to Act

Make Happy Customers Into Returning Customers

Sup guys,

We’re almost through April—Can you believe it? These quarters just blaze by and it almost feels like there isn’t enough time on the books. Luckily, it’s also been a month full of excitement and cool things happening around Wilson HQ.

We’re also in full swing with our new recording space and creating a lot of cool things. Ads, commercials, and… uh…. outtakes that I find out about later from the team via Slack message.

The curse of being loved by the camera, I suppose. You know what else is a curse? Not taking advantage of the chance to get into a room of likeminded, growth-focused business leaders. You’ll want to get in on our Breaking $5 Million: Scaling Your Home Service Business Workshop.

Join us from June 4th-6th, 2024, for the Breaking 5 Million Workshop! This workshop is specifically crafted to help you take your home service businesses to the next level.

Hosted by yours truly, the event will take place at his brand new headquarters in Stow, Ohio.

Over the course of two days, you'll gain access to invaluable content designed to equip you for success. Expect actionable insights and a clear roadmap to guide your home service business toward reaching the milestone of 5 million in revenue!

The March workshop was a whirlwind success, as we welcomed plumbers, HVAC, roofing, fencing owners and more to the Wilson HQ. Connect with your peers, have some fun, and get a clear roadmap to grow your biz to the $5M milestone.

You’ll be happy you did!

And speaking of being a happy (I’m nailing these transitions) we’re looking at that very topic today in regards to customer retention. Customer service is absolutely the most important part of any business. Treating a paying person poorly or leaving a bad taste in their mouth is the quickest way to closing your doors forever.

But what does “good customer service” mean? It sounds like an intangible concept. However, there are ways to measure that success and create follow-through, as well as a clear pathway to making happy customers into returning, dedicated ones.

Let’s do it.

_{Forward Owned and Operated to a friend, then Sub for more!}

• Understanding Net Promoter Score (NPS):

  • NPS is a ranking of customer experience from marketing through to post-service feedback, aiming to create raving fans who promote your business.

  • My own experiences with NPS

• Importance of Customer Journey:

  • NPS measures the entire customer journey, highlighting areas for improvement like call center interactions and service quality.

• Focus on Customer Satisfaction:

  • Addressing pain points like hold times and booking efficiency to enhance overall customer experience.

• Continuous Improvement:

  • Emphasizing the need for ongoing improvements based on customer feedback to drive long-term satisfaction.

• Use of Data and Technology:

  • Leveraging software like Service Titan to gather and analyze data for informed decision-making and process optimization.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes and 50 seconds

What does good customer service mean to you? Head over to my Twitter and give a shout. I love a good Twitter convo.

Alright, time to put on my teaching hat for a moment, because we need to create a baseline of knowledge. What is a Net Promoter Score (NPS)? Simply put, it’s a way to measure customer satisfaction and how likely that person is to recommend your business to other people. Being measurable is a key aspect to the whole deal, as that gives you metrics to work with and the ability to set up KPIs.

It’s a simple question: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague?"

Based on the score given we can place customers into one of three categories.

1. Promoters (score 9-10): These are customers who are highly satisfied and likely to promote your product or service to others. They are considered loyal enthusiasts.

2. Passives (score 7-8): These customers are satisfied but not enthusiastic. They may not actively promote your brand but are unlikely to speak negatively about it either.

3. Detractors (score 0-6): These are customers who are dissatisfied and may potentially harm your brand through negative word-of-mouth.

Neat little boxes, right? Maybe it’s unfair to say a detractor is potentially someone who gives you a 6, but I’m working off the American educational system here: Cs are bad and a B- is barely getting by.

After that, you subtract your percentage of promoters versus detractors.

NPS=Percentage of Promoters−Percentage of Detractors

I know, math. It’s not our friend, but in this case it helps us to understand the strength of your overall customer base and if they’re a megaphone or a bad agent. And based on my own business wants, I’m looking at keeping that NPS score somewhere above 80%.

After all, the goal is you're trying to make raving fans. You want people that will promote you to their friends and to their family. How do you have such an amazing customer experience that they do that?

It’s all about the journey.

A World of Pure Satisfaction

The numbers churned out through your NPS surveys should be guide posts for how you can improve the customer service journey. Not to mention, the great thing is the malleability in the question. You can actually grade NPS on every aspect of your business for as long as customers are willing to give you honest feedback.

Call center? Marketing? Dispatch? Technicians? Feel free to get super granular and really find out if there’s an aspect of the customer service journey where things stumble or falter. We call these pain points, and they typically tend to be a reoccurring flag—Sort of like a sore knee or a cut that won’t heal.

If you keep poking at it or abusing the part without resolving the issue then it’ll never heal. Some paint points are easier than others.

For instance: Call Centers will always be the toughest aspect. It tends to be a high turnover job with a lot of emotions. Customers call with worry on their mind, money is involved, and as humans we all get frustrated easily. It leaves the position open for disaster.

It sounds hokey, but that’s why I love hearing our call center folks answer with a simple “How can we at Wilson make you smile today?” It frames the conversation as one of help, not adversarial. And that’s just one part of improving the process.

And on the topic of processes: Another way we can improve is by learning from our peers. Networking is a vital aspect to this business, and it affords us the luxury of not having to go it alone. To that end, I’ve put together a new group for daily discussion, sharing of ideas, and being a general sounding board in the HVAC, Plumbing, and Electrical spaces.

We’ve already had a terrific response to the group, so click the link, come join us, and break that cycle of being a lone wolf.

We Have Technology!

Tracking metrics and keeping tabs is absolutely vital to understanding—and increasing—your NPS. This is where software like ServiceTitan serves such a valuable purpose. it allows you to easily track the reasons for things like recalls and understanding what it is the customer really needs.

You’ll also focus better on the words between words—We had a customer that wanted to talk to a manager, but we also understood that what they really wanted was someone to fix their problem and not start another dialog.

That’s another pain point, but one that with proper tracking can be solved. Analyze your data, know what is important to your customers, and turn those passives into fanatics.

On the Pod This Week

What do you know, the podcast is talking about another aspect of customer service today in the form of scorecards! Funny coincidence.

Meanwhile, we also spoke to and interviewed Johannes Hock of Austin to talk about the artificial turf biz, expansion, and what growth looks like when you’re not faced with a lot of competition.

In newsletter news, the referral program is on the way. Look for ways you can earn some cool rewards simply by sharing the newsletter, all in the coming weeks.

👊👊👊👊

Cya,
John Wilson