E: 88 Ryan Blackburn & Robert Smith w/ Prestige Contact Group - How To Gain A Prestige Advantage On Your Competition

You gotta listen all the way through to make sure you get those three measurements that you really need to pay attention to within your business so you know how to train your front end staff. I know you're gonna enjoy this episode, but we wanna hear from you two. While you're listening to it, leave a comment down below What was your favorite nugget from this episode? And of course, hit us up in the group facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed, if you're not a part of the conversation already Cheers.

There we go. All right. Welcome back to another H V A C success Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan, where we have good conversations with good people and any good conversation worth having is worth having drunk. So cheers, Thaddeus. And we have on Ryan Blackburn and Robert Smith from the Prestige Contact Group. Really excited to have this conversation today. We are stealing. Straight up, we'll give credit where credit is due.

We're stealing the intro side of things from our good friends, Tersh and Josh. We, it's just the two of us to start with. Doing a little bit of an intro for the show, introducing our guests for the week, talking about our show sponsors as we've got a couple of them now. So we wanna make sure that we give some proper credit to them as well.

And a big thank you for them, cuz without them, I mean the show probably would still go on, but it just is gonna get so much better because of 'em, so we'll give credit where credit is due.

And what they did was they put together a program that is engineered to be at the focal point of the introduction of the experience with the customer. And it's starting right on the phone. And so today they're not coming in here to try and sell you shit and why you should work with them by directly saying, You should come work with us.

They're doing it by delivering value, which is one of our core values, which is why we really align with them and why we're super excited to have this conversation with them. because they wanna deliver value on the customer experience, what that really looks like. They wanna deliver value on CSRs, working with a CSR, how to manage that from a business owner perspective, general manager, et cetera, Operations manager. How do you work with your CSR to help improve their numbers?

What are the numbers that you should be looking at, right? All of these things we're gonna get into today so that you can deliver a better customer experience from the front end of your business.

Everything that Victor has built within his business, everything that he built in the beginning and then realized he wasn't doing so well at, as he revealed on our podcast a couple weeks ago, almost went bankrupt in his business, to now being extremely profitable on his way to becoming a 50 million a year business in just four years. He's gonna deliver everything from setting up your P and l's SOPs for all year positions, call scripts, marketing plans, call processes, and so much more.

This product is gonna change the way you do business. To learn more about that, you can head over to Profit Rocket Business Blueprint dot paper form.co. It's a long ass url, but you can get on the wait list for that. And you can find out all the information when it drops at his event in Vegas. Coming up in a hot minute. Without further ado, let's get on with the show.

Both are great teachers and so kind of come, came to understand that specifically within the contact center space there really doesn't exist the kind of level of service that I would want as an HVAC owner specifically. And it just kind of grew from there.

And we grew it to about a nine and a half million dollar business in about four or five years. And, the thing that we found out and we discovered was it was the customer services, the customer experience. That was everything. That's what was the distinguishing, because if you remember back then plumbers and HVAC guys and things like that, there was a lot of interesting things going on in the home.

Everything from vertical smiles and things like this where people would sit there and go, oh my God, get outta here. But the point was, that we decided to really change how. That industry operated and that's what we did. We, looked at it from a standpoint, we're the first company to look at how to set appointments for people. We guaranteed to be on time every time we g we set actual appointments like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 o'clock, whenever it was.

Instead of being there from cuz at the time, oh, well we'll be there between eight and 12. Well, with two, two people working, living the American dream. Right. Who's home, right. Well, today that's a little bit different. But the point was, at the time it was like, what was the most important thing was everybody thought it was about money. Right. How much do you charge to clean a drain or whatever like that.

And it wasn't, it was time because we found out that most people wanted to know I got something going on in my house now I want you to be here. When can you be here? And so what we did was we guaranteed that we guaranteed to be on time or we're set, we're a minute late, you get $15 off the call. We over 15 minutes late calls on us, and we'll, do all the work for free and totally change the whole dynamics. And then we worked in hvac, we worked in plumbing, we worked in electrical.

I've worked in remodeling all, the different trades all over the place. So yeah, and I've built I've worked in about 200 different industries all over the planet. And I've got add severely and so I get bored really easy. So it was like I'd sit there. Okay. I nailed that one. Let's go do another one and let's go do these guys. And it was a lot more fun. And I built several companies and sold them and things like that.

But anyways, so and then when I met Ryan, We were we, were in a mutual business and, we started talking. And then when I saw this business, it was just something that was fascinating to me because I was sitting there going, I was looking around and we're going like, Wow, what's wrong? What's going on with customer experience and customer service?

And, the truth was that especially from what we do there's a lot of missing pieces because we believe in building relationships if people really wanna be successful, super successful in the HVAC industry or any, home services business, it's really about building relationships. It's not about transactions. And so many people focus on the transactions, although they talk about relationships, but they pay lip service to it.

And we all know it because we buy those services and we're kind of going really like, you really want me to pay you more money for this? And it's something that I'm always fascinated at looking how, the dynamics of how businesses are grown. And that's what I'm really, I appreciate you having us on here and stuff, and hopefully the things that we can share will help your audience.

So in your experience, and you kind of alluded to a few of 'em right now, Robert, but and this is for both of you to answer cuz both of you are in this space. But when it comes to truly separating yourselves from competitors in terms of value upfront, how is it that you can do that before the phone even rings?

It's almost like we have clients that'll actually do the entire job. and they'll guarantee everything. And they'll guarantee to buy it back from you if it doesn't work or, isn't like that. And one of the things that people don't realize is, that there's so many, there's so many bait and switch companies out there. I'm gonna call trucks in a truck and they're all over the place and they say they can do these things.

And so from a competitor's point of view, when they look at what that's gonna be like, it's what does your client really, want? And you have to get down. And that's where the value lives and the value lives, and. If you want to call it unique value proposition or whatever that looks like is this just like being on time every time, you know that type of thing. Ask for details. If you actually offer that up and, tell people that, and then you sit there and you gotta look around the universe.

What is everybody else advertising, You have to take a look at your, you have to do the research and do your work and look at what all your competitors in your local market, because that's where you're pulling from. What are they actually really doing and how it is that, that, how are they gonna deliver their services? A lot of people say, Well, we're 24/7. Let me ask you a question or anybody on this call, when have you ever called those 24/7 services? It's absolutely amazing.

We did secret shopping with a bunch of these clients and things, which was really fun, and we found out that over 70% of these people that offered 24/7 services, they don't. And, well, we'll be to your house tomorrow morning. Or tomorrow afternoon. And I'm going, I don't need you there tomorrow afternoon. I need you here now. And they're going, Well, we have somebody out in the field right now, but he's on this job that's gonna take him all night.

And I'm going, Okay, so let me go to the next guy. And it's, and then what happens is, nobody answers the phone. I get answering, sir, I get an answering voicemail. I get this, I get that. The same thing goes with maybe how the experience is delivered too. I don't know. Some people are like, of they're of the size. They might be a four or $5 million company and after hours, is their phone answered by creative voicemail? Did they even consider.

Having an actor actually do their voicemail and making their voicemail interesting and fun and unique and we've done that for a variety of different companies. And those people that are on this call, if you actually look at creative voicemail and realize before you even talk to somebody, imagine you, okay? So you don't have you don't have a live person answering. Well, at least make the experience fun, make it enjoyable, make it unique And we've done that for a variety of different things.

You can have all kinds of construction noises, you can have all different types of things going on relative to the back noise and the backdrop. You can tell 'em Yeah, we're out there rooting a line, or whatever it is. If, you happen to be a plumbing company. And there's so many different things and a variety of different things you can do relative to that. So

If you were to put yourself in a customer's position in that situation more often they're not, really excited and happy to be calling a home service company. It's usually because shit's gone wrong, shit's gone sideways, and they're uncomfortable within their home. Whether they're toilets, flooding, powers out it's too hot, it's too cold in the home, they're uncomfortable.

And so if you were to reverse engineer the customer experience, what sort of value propositions would you want to have out there that would help you to stand out as a company that's really speaking to the needs of that customer? Well, you did hit one, so I I'll, give you kudos for, that right away.

And so I used to lead a call every month in front of 500 people and it was cold calling live. And if you don't smile, like you're never, it doesn't matter what you say, it's not gonna work. Nope. And so it's all about the delivery and how you go about doing that. In terms of and then I also, prior way back, I used to be a mechanic in. And I worked on small engine equipment and so people would bring their stuff in and that's never a happy transaction, right?

They got a $200 lawnmower and they come in and they go, What tune up is a hundred dollars? I paid $200 for this. And then you kind of gotta talk people down off the ledge a little bit and it's just the idea is people got stuff going on in their life and you never know what that stuff is. And even if it doesn't seem that big to you, it's really big to them. And that's all that really matters.

And so, approaching it from the perspective that you could make a difference in that person's day and really attempting to make every person that you interact with make their day better for having had talked to you. That's a mindset thing that starts before you get on the phone. And so that's, something that's super important. In terms of I'm not sure if I understood the question though, cuz you asked me about value, a value proposition and how it relates to customer service on the phone

It's just the actual, like personification of it. And so it needs to be, there needs to be consistency across every process, which is the experience that your customer has. That's what happens before a sale is closed, right? The, service that you give is what happens after the sale is closed.

And I think that there's a lot of che companies that they invest a, whole lot in sales training and, classes related to that sort of thing because the acquisition of new customers is so important and, it is like a hundred percent it is. Nothing happens until a sale is made in any business. So like a hundred percent. But the flip side of that is what happens? When after that what, are you doing after that?

Is the only time that you're ever reaching out to your customer base when you know you're trying to sell something? Are you doing. The happy calls like what, is it that you're doing within your touchpoint process that you have? Or do you have one where you're actually reaching out to people and providing value and not just some sort of scammy kinda sales pitch.

And so that's on the outbound and the inbound side of things, but yeah, I mean, just to, to reiterate it's, the experience that you give over the phone and that the feeling that you get from talking to somebody that you know, genuinely cares that you can tell when I have a trash service. I'm not gonna mention any names, but they basically have a nu a monopoly on that in my area.

And man, if I could hire a competitor, I would, because I can't get a person on the phone unless I wait on hold for 40 minutes. And when I do get somebody on the phone I, just know that they're making less than 12 bucks an hour. And they do, They're so dispassionate. They do not care about whatever the issue is. And you just don't feel appreciated when that happens.

And if you don't feel appreciated, why are you gonna wanna spend your money when there's however many other competitors in the same market?

I mean, if you're the only person answering the phone, well then record your conversation and then go back and listen to yourself and, look it through the lens of a customer and how are they going to experience that first interaction. If they're a repeat customer, they already have that trust, but if it is the first time that they're interacting with your organization, what is their experience like? And it's gonna be big. Right.

And you, I know Robert, you're talking earlier about 24 7 on there, and I wanted to get a clarification here from one of the questions in our group and that you said if you offer 24 7 to make a creative voicemail so you have an excuse while you can't go re-walk us through what you had mentioned there for the 24/7 services.

You're paying your CSRs maybe 15, 17 bucks an hour. So this is what you're actually saying. I'm betting a 5 million business on a $15 an hour person. That's what you're saying. It's, like gambling It's just like, really? And, Oh yeah. By the way, we kind of trained it we kind of trained her or him, whatever it was we didn't, It's amazing. He don't take the time in the effort. Oh no. We trained them once we put 'em through a class, I'm going, Oh, okay, great. What, two weeks ago?

And I said, Do you have ongoing training? If you're not training your people on a continuous basis, how are you gonna be able to manage these CSRs? Oh no, no, no. They'll pick it up. You don't understand. The more they're on the phone, the better they are. And you made a really good point than is relative to Yeah. The secret shoppers. Get five your best friends in business if you have any friends, but get five of those Have them call your business. Have them call your business and ask questions.

Ask the tough questions that type of thing. Because that's gonna give you some real true answers. Cuz they're gonna tell you, they're gonna go, Man, I'll tell you what I don't know what happened to this person, but it wasn't really a great exp but have 'em rate it from zero to 10 and pick out like five different categories. Pick out quality, equip pick out timeliness, ask them questions about the business. I, once we, we did this one time and I'll, go to the 24/7 did this, What do you do?

They said, I don't know, I just work here. And so you gotta think about what I just said. It's amazing. Ask them. So, so tell me more about your services. What is it that you do? How can you help me? Because that's why it is that you're calling from the 24/7 when you, when I'm talking about creative voice. It's like creative voicemail is designed for engagement purposes. That's what it's, to engage your heart.

We talk about facts and figures and, being a business scaler, I understand financials and all of that stuff, but it's really the emotions. How do you capture the heart of the person who's calling? How do you capture them emotionally? How do you, connect to them? Because that's really what you're looking for, because you gotta think about it. They're pretty emotional when the, when they're calling, if they're calling you after hours.

So if they're calling you after hours, you have to send the temperament for that. With the CSRs who's ever managing that? and or if you don't have the csr, at least have a creative voicemail that's on there that's been professionally produced. I mean, you got what a minute of a recording on there and then if you have to even give your personal cell, do it. It's like, what's the value of taking care of a client in a way that they know that, they matter? Because that's one of the problems.

If you don't take care of that, or if you just ignore them or you just throw 'em off into voicemail, hell, and we all know what that's like. It's just like, or it goes into the ether somewhere, it doesn't even answer because your technology's so poor. It's just like you didn't invest in like even the most simplest of systems out there.

it's not that hard because when you really look at it, that customer that's on the other line, 24/7, and if he's calling you or she's calling you at one o'clock in the morning, they need help. And if, you can't help them, at least have a conver have somebody call them back immediately so that you can have a conversation. But so many times it doesn't occur you just feel like another number I dunno if that

But the point is, is that you hire a voiceover to actually do the get somebody to write the script relative to, so that's professionally done. And welcome people and thank them for calling and tell them after hours, we realize you're calling after hours and we totally understand that you're calling us because this is really important. Or you wouldn't be contacting us. Like, tell the truth about it, right? So that there's an acknowledgement and that there's a link to the conversation.

Not like, Oh, thank you for calling Joe's H V A C, We're glad you called you know, leave a message. We'll get back to You It's like, are you kidding? Now ask yourself, how many times have you called a business after hours? And that's what you heard. Right. As opposed to saying somebody calling up and and, saying that this is John's HVAC we realize that you're calling us after hours and we understand that there must be something very important you need to talk to us about.

Our system is set up that they're gonna contact us immediately and we're gonna get somebody to call you right back. We promise. And thank you very much for calling and just wait to hear from us in just a few minutes. Something like that, is so different and it's a different style of doing this, and with technology today, there's no reason why you can't get that managed.

I think that in the realm of anything that has to do with marketing, because in, in my opinion, I think there's a really good argument to make that the experience that you create for your customers is part of your marketing, because that is a huge part of either creating alignment with the brand image that you're putting forward, or you're people are calling you and they're having this experience.

With your company or your technician is coming out and that experience doesn't line up with the messaging that you're putting forward. And then you're it's, false in the mind's eye of the consumer. And that's really all that matters. But as far as that goes, like there's tools and then there's strategy, right? And so your strategy is what should dictate what tools you're using and when and where, and why.

And so I think that there is a little danger when it comes to some forms of AI because sometimes it's like, Oh, well we don't need people, we don't even need to list a phone number on our website. We don't need to do those things. And people can just email us. Cuz everybody loves emailing and everybody loves getting 5,000 text messages in a day where they feel like they're being spammed and they're just a number that's trying to be sold to obviously I'm kidding.

And, so like, there's a balance defined with that. Like in. Almost everything. You have to find the right balance. So as far as like text backs go? Yeah. That's awesome. Because if you can catch that person right away and they're on their cell phone and it's like they reached out to you and initiated things, then like a hundred percent. Yeah, I mean, that's a great idea.

I mean, people don't realize that this customer service, and this is really good with text, What are you saying? It's in the details. It's not the big picture. It's on all these little tiny touch points and that's a touchpoint and what are you saying in that text and is it something that, and how are you treating that person and are they gonna receive and read that in a way that's gonna touch down? So anyways.

Well, no, that's incorrect because if you're, if somebody calls during the day and, I'm thinking specifically the businesses that don't maybe necessarily have the capabilities to have a dedicated CSR answering the phone every single time, because there are those businesses out there they're, a one man operation and if they're installing an AC unit, they might not be able to answer their phone, but you can set up a mis call text back in a way to be able to phrase it so that it's beneficial to

that. Particular person. You can also set it up that when they, when it's outside of your office hours, they get a separate message and a separate workflow that goes in with it. And so if you have the voicemail that Robert's talking about now your text messages say, Hey, we noticed that you just gave us a call. You likely left us a message for some after hour services. Is text message better for you, question mark. Right? And now you can have a conversation.

Maybe they might like a text message and your on call staff can then text message back versus having a phone call. Right. There's different ways to do it. That's just one example on some of those things.

I know it's so frustrating to hear a voicemail right now when you are probably having an emergency and you need your air conditioner fixed. You have a plumbing issue. I promise we're gonna get back to you right away. In fact, we're gonna send you a text right after this in case that's easier for you.

So when what you just said was absolutely true, because When you acknowledge what's happening, then alignment occurs. They're gonna be pulled towards you more than if you just use something that's a standard, whatever it is that you want to use as far as communicating with people. Totally.

So it has to come also because then if you, and I'm gonna go back to this and and anybody on this call, I want you to get this one piece of anything we say that means anything today, and that you have to capture their emotional state. You have to capture that. You have to align with that. That's what it is that they're looking for. People remember how they feel when they talk with you. People remember what happened. It's, not the intellectual stuff, it's how they feel was I God, Do they care?

Do they really care about what's going on? And when a situation like that occurs, that's immediate what you were just talking about. So yeah, Absolutely indeed.

And like yeah, you're checking your gauges and your, and everything. So you're not like fully immersed in the experience as much as if you were go tandem, but it's then you're solo. Right? And way better.

It's just like we had 110 stalls that we had to clean and my brother and I, and then we had a couple ranch hands, but they would always make us do these just unbelievable. I mean, it was just, yeah, it's as organic as you can both imagine that. Like a shitty job.

And basically you, you scoop it up with the front end loader, you dump it into the manure spreader and then once the manure spreader is full, you drive out to the field and you turn it on and you're spreading Cal at all over the field. I couldn't get that smell out for a while, so.

So what is it? What does your process look like? What is it that you would say is an ideal process for a company to have either internally or to hire someone like you to come in and do it that is gonna add the most amount of value to customers? And what kind of return are they looking at in terms of brand experience, exposure, and then ultimately sales at the end of it?

And so if your actual goal is to provide as much value as you possibly can for your customers, and this is any business and you set out to do that and you do the right things, then the money is a byproduct of that. And it sounds cheesy. And I know that is like such an overused metaphor or whatever, but it's true.

And so if your mindset is that I am going to help as many people as I can, ensure that they get the proper maintenance on their systems so that they can reduce the likelihood that they're gonna have issues in the future, You're gonna go out, you're gonna help a bunch of people, and you're gonna provide a bunch of value. And in the process, you're gonna find a bunch of things that are wrong with the units that you're going out to service. You're gonna go through your.

Tune up process, your turnover process, and when you have a great sales process that we were talking about before, then you're gonna be able to capitalize on those opportunities. But I think it's the mindset behind that really matters because ultimately people can end up kind of seeing through that. If, all you're after is money, then that's how you're gonna behave. And people kind of have a radar for that sort of thing and they can smell it.

So in terms of providing the value, it just comes through with understanding that you're the expert in that area, you know what you're doing. And they don't know anything about how their system works and what's necessary to keep it running properly. And they might pretend like they do. I mean this is kind of going back to me being a mechanic.

People will come in and they tell you all sort of things about what's going on with their lawnmower and it's like, Yeah, but you brought it here for a reason. Right. Cause cuz you don't actually know it like next time before you take it apart and can't put it back together bring it to us first. So it's less expensive kind of thing.

And I think that when it comes to what we're talking about as far as outbounding and, and setting appointments whether you're setting complimentary tuneups or you have a fee that you're charging for that there's nothing wrong with charging for your services. The entire point is that people need it and they might not know that. So if you have that proper mindset and frame going into that conversation, then you can approach it in the right way and it's not gonna be salesy and, anything else.

Cuz you can own that and internalize it.

He showed me exactly what was going on and he wasn't like pushy and didn't try to sell me. He just educated me and then he was like, Here's kind of what your options are, and then I just pick one. There's a huge distinction between that and the, pushiness. So but the happy call ensures.

You're, connecting with them and knowing what the experience is because you, might not know exactly what's taking place out in the field as far as outbounding setting tune up appointments when the demand, when the weather breaks and the demand isn't coming through from some of the marketing that you're doing. Then how are you gonna fill up the job board?

Well, you're probably gonna wanna look to help people get their furnaces ready for the winner that's approaching, and so instead of that person having their system breakdown and then being a week or two out from service and having to deal with the cold, you could, they could have you come out and do a maintenance and ensure that everything's working properly. And like, I know everybody listening to this understands this, but like when you do that, it's not like, Oh I'm, dialing for dollars.

It's I'm, actually trying to help people. And to me maybe there's some people that disagree with that, but I think that foundationally that sets the tone for how you're actually gonna engage with the people that you're talking to and the way that they're gonna be treated as a result. And I think that when you're looking at like, Okay, I'm gonna outbound my customer base so I can bring money in, Like, yeah, that's a result of that and, helping cash flow.

But the other thing is you're getting in front of that target audience that you have your, customer base that's already spent money with you. And it's always easier to do business with somebody that's already done business with you in the past. So, much focus is put on new acquisitions where you're going out and you're, wanting to acquire new business. Super important obviously. And everybody talks about it.

What they don't talk about is how do I increase the lifetime value of the clients that I already have so that I can therefore even further increase my bottom line. Because what, if you could increase the money that's coming through your business from people that are already spending it and every new acquisition that you get was worth that much more. I mean, what would that do for your business?

And so it's not just that you're hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna set up this system where I call everybody 20 times a day and spam 'em to death until they buy something. It's like, set it up where you go through and you do that strategically and you're reaching out to the right people and you're doing it in a way where you create an experience that you'd be happy if somebody called your mom that way. that's, kind of the idea.

And so we were talking with clients about it, and I got to dive in and, chat with a few around what is your bottom line cost per acquisition that you need to have within each of these services? And it was very, insightful. Diving in with clients who have a dialed in follow up process and what they believe the lifetime value of a client is versus the shortsighted, Oh no, like, we need to make money on this call or like, it's not worthwhile for us to get this lead.

And it was a phenomenal insight into the mindset. Of a business owner and what it is that they look at when it comes to this new lead is a new opportunity for us to get a, change out in seven years or in 10 years from now. And for us to overpay upfront is worth it because we know we're gonna blow them away with experience over the next 10 years. So that when they need to change that system in 10 years, we're the ones that they're dealing with.

Yeah. Versus reactive in your business, sitting around saying, Gee, my phone isn't ringing. I guess I'm not having really good success in business. That's reactive. Yeah. Making some outbound calls, checking in, doing happy calls, staying top of mind. Proactive, and that's how you're gonna be able to do that. Now by the way, I know we, we talked about Sera A. Little bit earlier, if you don't have the ability to Yeah, it's right up there.

Sera's systems and we will have the link in the, show notes to check it out. But they have uniquely built into their system that capability when you bring them into their, to the membership that you can now have this data of how old your units are inside your membership base. And it's, a different way to look at the business versus just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.

They're very new customer driven and churn and burn. Which is a big part of the reason why we had the idea to start prestige is cuz that's what we noticed. And if, you can focus in on the experience, then you're gonna set yourself apart from your competition in such a massive way that like, the idea is to make somebody so wowed by their experience with you that why would they wanna call somebody else?

Why they wouldn't, because they had such a great experience and they know the person in the shop, in your office by name. And they just, there's a difference there. A distinction that is, it's really like, it's palpable for people Like we, we think we're in this age where everybody just wants everything they want when they want it. And that's true. But when you can slow it down and like Robert was saying, meet people where they're at emotionally, that goes and it sounds cheesy, but it's, true.

People have their stuff and they walk around with it and they carry it. And if you can kind of like, meet them where they're at and make them feel good about that interaction, they're gonna remember that

They're, in an instance of pain and you all you care about is your marketing. So I do that. He had a great longer snippet and a longer answer on that. But on the short side of things, make sure you're not asking that question and you train your staff appropriately to be able to meet the mayor that emotionally

If he told me to do something and I asked why, and he said, because I said, so I'd be like, Well, that's kind of a shit reason and, so then like I wasn't actually motivated to follow through and do the thing, or maybe I'd do it, but kind of go through the motions and like, So as far as the mindset thing goes if, your CSRs understand why they're doing what they're doing then they're gonna be that much more likely to actually be motivated to do.

If, they're actually, if they know why and they're invested in that, and then making them a part of that process of creating that experience. Like if you build something yourself, like running your own business, nobody's ever gonna work as hard in that business as you are. Right? But if you give your people autonomy to be a part of the creative process, putting that together and building it, I mean, that's where you get investment and motivation. And so that's a huge part of it as well,

Culture starts with small business and culture starts with leadership. And it's like if you walk around with that mindset that we produce extraordinary customer experiences for each of our clients, not just for our clients, but for every one of them. That everybody that calls, no matter whether it's a vendor, by the way, a vendor is a, customer of yours And same thing with a, client, a team member. And it's just like they're part of this whole idea of being able to be of service to them.

And if we actually really believe that from a mindset point of view, that, and what Ryan was saying was, mentioning too about extraordinary customer services delivered by its creators. Because if you look at it from the people that, if you have a methodology to be able to, instill that mindset in them and have them invent the way about how to do that we had a problem one time with one of our companies my company, and that we had some people calling about our phones were being managed. Right.

Well, that's really kind of, and that's was a different company. But, so I asked my team, I said, Look, here's what I wanna have happen. I said, I want everybody to feel delighted. when, they call and when they get off the phone, that's all I want. That's what I want as a result. So you guys go and vent it. So they actually went away for a couple weeks and then came back and they said, Robert, Here's our headline. And our headline is everybody's smiling. That was their headline, right?

So cuz they gotta sell it back to me, right? Everybody's smiling and I'm going, Oh, this ought to be interesting. And so then they went through this whole program and so I had them like actually build the program to present to me and they built this thing based on the things that they could deliver and things. And I said they said, Look, we know that these three got people are out at lunch and stuff, so how are the phones gonna be managed that way?

And they went through every little facet of what's gonna happen. And then finally at the end they said, And we probably need a new phone system in order to be able to, do this. I said, Great, let's do it. But the point was, that when we implemented that, they did it a hundred percent of the time. They did because it was their program, but it satisfied the strategies that we wanted as the owners of the business by allowing them to be able to invent in. So I don't know if that helps at all.

The next thing which is in that business is get your three Ss. At the end of the day, what is it? Do your most important thing that you need to do on a daily basis. That's it. If you can do those three things on a daily basis, you're probably gonna succeed at an extremely high level. When we look at our CSRs, the get your three yeses part, the do what it is that is extremely important to you, I think, of the KPIs.

So when you are looking at, your team, what are some of those KPIs, those key performance indicators that you are looking at, what are those benchmarks, those measuring sticks to determine whether or not your team is achieving success for your clients?

Because if you're just putting up there's companies that give that talk about, well, it's all about volume and you wanna put volume up, and it's you know what your numbers are and when you get your guys into a house, you're gonna close X amount. And it's like, yeah. But not all calls are created equal. That's pretty freaking obvious if that person has no idea who you are and why you're coming.

It's gonna be a pretty uphill battle for your technician to climb when they get to the house and they're going, Oh, well I'm with such and such hvac and I'm here to do the service on your system. They're gonna be like, Nah, can see you later. And obviously that's an extreme example, but when you're setting it up properly, people are, gonna be that much more likely to be warm and receptive to you coming and doing your thing.

Their walls are down, or at least there's not a second wall that they've now created around that. So that would be the first thing. The second is on the connected calls that you have, you should be converting 30% of those into appointments And if you're not, then what, is going on there? And and that's something to dive into.

If, they're gonna go ahead and build their own customer service or customer experience program, use a process called synnex. Synectics means to bring incongruent parts together and make all, it's a process that was actually used for by FedEx, by several other startup. And that was when they were a startup company. and they actually use this process. I've used this process many times and it's, it works every time.

So I just thought that some people are gonna go, Yeah, well that sounds good, but how do you do it? And so it's like, so this actually gives you the tools in order to implement something like that. And if somebody gets stuck or something, or wants to know, just have 'em get ahold of us and we'd be happy to help them point 'em in the right direction and give them those type of tools as well. So I just thought it might be a good resource.

This is how you get more shots, right? If you don't have the puck in your hands, you can't take a shot. This is what is setting up your sales guys in order to make an opportunity to make a sale, right? So that's why this is so essential. If in case anyone missed that in the last hour and four minutes that we've been talking, that's why we had this conversation. So really quick, what is it that sets you guys apart? Why is it that someone needs to get on a call with you? Go?

The problem is that there are so many vendors that are out there that are it's, set up where it's like, Hey, we'll pay you per, like, you're gonna buy a certain amount of minutes and it's gonna be X amount per minute unless you go to this level, and then it'll be a little bit less per minute. And, it's like, Yeah, but what is that actually mean? What is that gonna do for my business? I'm gonna spend that much. And then what you're like, how is that process gonna work?

And who's gonna be talking to them? What are, who are these people and what do they know about my company? And I think that the focus for us is that we don't just give lip service to being a brand extension. We actually embody that. Where we actually dive in on your company, we learn exactly who you are, what makes you tick, your brand story, your involvement in the community, the people within your company that are in positions of leadership.

Your CSRs names, your technicians names, and when your customers are connecting with our customer engagement specialist, that's the title for our call agents, if you will. Our customer engagement specialist is gonna know everything there is to know about your business, just like they would if they worked in your office and the people on the other end of the line. Our goal is that we're gonna do a better job than you will internally.

That's our standard, but they're not gonna know the difference because it's gonna look and it's gonna sound and it's gonna feel like that's who they're talking to is your company. And, that's really the idea. There was a study done by Forbes and it was like something like 96% of customers after a poor service experience. Are not gonna do business with that same company ever again. And so Robert was saying like, you're betting the farm on somebody who's making like 13 bucks an hour or whatever.

As far as what we do, we pay our people really well and we ensure that they have ongoing training on a weekly basis. We have a program built out for 52 weeks out of the year. So they get that on a weekly basis. Much like the BVM stuff, we did training all the time. That's the same thing here. But it's the true brand extension where we can be a real advocate on behalf of your business. Operating as your business. We do inbound as well as outbound. So it's after hours and also overflow.

And we book those appointments directly into your crm. If we don't know how to o operate within the CRM that you use, we'll learn it. That's part of our onboarding process. But we work with all the major ones that are out there. So no matter what you're operating with, we can work with you and book that directly in so you're not getting a answering service that leaves you a message that your CSR then has to spend 15 minutes worth of work following back up on. And by then, who knows?

Are they still interested? Do they call somebody else that got to him and booked the appointment? We take all of that out of the equation.

We promise you if you're using, an outside service, we know this industry and we've studied it and so we actually built a financial formula that actually not only supports what it is that you're doing but it supports everything that your whole company actually is engaged with, which is very, unusual from the standpoint of actually understanding the financial models of this, which is why we can offer this extraordinary guarantee, which we think is really different and unique.

And that's, why I was really excited to have you on the show was cuz I knew that you had that true, compassionate heart, fun loving spirit that you could bring to the business and ex share it Really quick, the services that you offer, so outbound calling obviously, so calling current client lists are you doing inbound as well? Do you offer after hours as well? What is it that you offer?

And the best part about the outbounding side of things is that your customer engagement specialists is specifically assigned to your business. We don't have 50 call agents that know nothing about you that might be calling for you today and won't be tomorrow. And there's new questions to, for them to ask and for you to answer all the time. We got somebody in our onboarding processes.

They have homework that they have to do on your business, and then we meet with you and we dive in on details with that so they can get the full picture and the full story. Know who to contact about specific issues within your company if they don't have the answer. And that, and then be able to set up proper warm transfers if that's necessary.

We really dive in so it's not just like, Hey, do you want this like average call center service where we're gonna like take a message and send it back and kind of just go. Good luck with that. And our we, wanna retain all of our clients. We're looking to build relationships so our philosophy and mindset around how would you be best successful within your customer service reps and, the mindset that they should have. It's the same mindset that we had when we were building this company.

And I think that at every aspect of what we do that's embedded with it is, it's, its relationships. It's not transactions. Cuz that's that just, I mean, I don't want to chase my tail. So that's not what I'm interested in.

And it's something that we really take seriously and we practice it every week. And so I wish more people would talk and ask us questions about that as well.

But to me, and I don't want to sound like a broken record cause I know I've talked about this quite a bit, but I think everything, it's like the, premise from which you're gonna build everything else is what is the reason, what is the why and what is the reason, so like, it's the mindset behind getting on the phone. Like, how do you do that successfully, repetitively, all day long? And like some people have a great time and then other people don't. And it's like, why? And it all starts in your.

So I think to me like that's the most important piece of this. And it's kind of an elusive thing for people to grasp because it takes some time to get to understand, but once you do, then it's a big deal.

And if it works for the Navy seals when they're lives on the line, I guarantee it'll work for the home services.

I loved diving into why it is that you, as a business owner or as a manager, as a general manager, as an ops manager, whoever it is that's working with your CSR team, your front end staff, why it's so important for them to understand why it is that they do what they do, why it is that what they do is so essential to the rest of the business. It's the first interaction that a customer has with your business. Why is it that an HR business doesn't pay attention to this more? I have no idea.

what about you, bud?

not everybody can, but everybody gets given the same opportunity when that first phone call rings, if they don't know anything about your business and to just the, the fascination behind understanding what your client really wants. Also understanding your unique selling proposition, your USP, to be able to then communicate that from the top down all the way, it's csr, marketing, csr, dispatch technician, loop that back around and keep going in circles on that and making sure that.

Everybody knows about the customer journey and the experience that they're gonna have on every single customer journey. when I say loop that back around, I don't. One of the things that we, we didn't really get into, and I kind of wish we did, was what happens after? The technician is done, what are your CSRs doing? I mean, I guess we did kind of get on into it with the open happy client call and just that whole notion of just reaching out and saying, Hey, how is your experience? Right?

How many businesses actually do that? Not many. Not many. So adding that in, like, it's just this, this customer experience, and the customer journey is just, it's, it's 2022 and it's the new battleground.

I mean, I'm sure there's lots of different aspects in, gender managers and then, and people helping people out, but keeping that main thing, the main thing and making sure that it's the top down to have that customer experience.

That's what we're here for, is to over deliver on value. We'll see you next week, and until next time, cheers.