Emergency Call-outs - Do's and Don'ts

Ken O’ Shea, Technical Sales Manager, PULSAR DIRECT, outlines his top 10 DO’S when it comes to gaining credibility with your customers on emergency call-outs.

1. Put the customer's mind at ease regarding their immediate difficulties within the first few minutes. Address the situation that prompted the call first. Then you're the hero and their mind will be relaxed and open to whatever else you have to say. Develop a calming, comforting and reassuring tone of voice when explaining the problem, how quickly it can be repaired and the cost to do so. Don't walk in the door and bring up additional products or services until you've put their mind at ease regarding the original problem.
2. Once you've put their mind at ease, follow up with a full inspection of the system. Check everything over. The more stuff you look at, the more broken things you'll find. You'll quote more work on every call. The more you quote, the more you'll sell. The more you sell on every call, the more profitable you'll become.
3. Pay Attention. Customers want to be listened to. You must acknowledge what they've said, and show that you've heard them and understand their concerns. You do this by: Standing and listening, without doing anything else, while they're talking; Repeating back to them what they've just said to you (even if it is completely out of context to the problem in hand).
4. Make eye contact. People respond positively to eye contact and associate it with honesty. Plus, it shows confidence, which is extremely important. They want you to be confident. If you're uncomfortable with eye contact, practice by staring yourself in the eye in the mirror, pupil-to-pupil for about five minutes per day for a while.
5. Create a good first impression. This is crucial, small things can make a big difference. Ideally, you should base your personal appearance on what will appeal to the widest variety of people possible. This includes the proper footwear, headgear and workwear, as well as your tools. If you're selling "quality," you better not be using cheap tools. That sends a conflicting message.
6. Be organised. This relates to everything from your presentation, to your appearance, to the way you use your tools and even your van. From the moment you greet the customer, it must be obvious that you are:  A professional; Successful at what you do; Have done this before and have a standard procedure that you follow in this type of situation; and Competent enough to be trusted to take this job and get it done without being watched. Customers want you to be confident and know what you are doing at all times. The customer doesn't want to see things thrown about randomly in your truck. Try not to create too much of a mess, talk to yourself, or make grunting or "struggling" noises while working on the problem. Leave the work area as clean as you found it.
7. Get the customer involved. It's ok for the customer to leave you alone while you're investigating the problem. It can be very off putting to have someone looking over your shoulder as you try to locate the problem. However, when you have worked out what the problem is, it's best to talk about the problem in front of the problem.
8. Speak in simple terms. Don't try to impress your customers by using a lot of big words. A confused mind always says "no." Keep your explanations short, simple and to the point.
9. Do the whole job on the first visit. Unfortunately, for many plumbers, they try and fit in as many calls as possible in a single day. This means that they often deliberately overlook any further repairs that would benefit the customer but are non-essential. This type of "tunnel vision" approach can cause callbacks, and one call back can suck the profits out of an entire day's work. The concern should not be the number of calls run per day but an intelligent compromise between the number of calls run per day and profits. Doing everything that needs to be done while you're there reduces (or even eliminates) callbacks and cuts down on travel time, which actually frees you up to see more customers.
10. Do neat paperwork. Neat, legible paperwork that simply outlines the work you did goes a long way toward eliminating those annoying phone calls from the customer questioning your work and the final cost. Pulsar direct. Your success makes a difference to us! Ken O' Shea, Technical Sales Manager, PULSAR DIRECT, outlines his top 10 DO'S when it comes to gaining credibility with your customers on emergency call-outs.