This is the first of a weekly commentary on the operational, sales and customer service aspects of a service business in the equipment Industry.
The starting point for a service department is now, has been and will forever be an inspection. This is the most basic yet the most overlooked requirement for performing repairs and maintenance. How can you provide a quotation or even an estimate until you know what it is that needs to be done? Obviously you can’t.
Why don’t we perform inspections as a matter of course? I am sure by now I have heard most all of the reasons. We don’t have the time to do it – We don‘t have the space to do it – The customer won’t let me do it. I am sure you know the list of reasons as well as I do. But that doesn’t excuse our not performing inspections on most everything we do before we start the work. Imagine having your doctor, based on your diagnostics. go ahead and schedule for a bypass surgery without doing an inspection? Not going to happen.
If we perform inspections we can create quotations and time lines. These are two of the top four needs customers have from a service department according to surveys conducted by the AED – Price and Responsiveness. Yet also in those surveys customers say they want honesty from the service department. Doesn’t that tell you something?
On the inspections tthat I am discussed here there needs to be a specifically training inspector. This is not every mechanic. Not every mechanic has diagnostic skills. This is a one or two hour inspections that evaluates the machine not just the customer complaint. This will lead to a comprehensive quotation for the work to be done. This detail stays on the work order whether the customer gives you the go ahead to make the repair or not. That detail notes that the customer chose not to approve that segment of the work we found that should be done. It is inconvenient for the customer, in more ways than one, when that which we pointed out as needing to be repaired but they denied, actually failed or needed the work to be done.
How can anyone run a service department that deserves the customers’ loyalty that doesn’t do inspections? I know you agree with me on this so why not do it? The time is now.
Service Statements v1.0
This is the first of a weekly commentary on the operational, sales and customer service aspects of a service business in the equipment Industry.
The starting point for a service department is now, has been and will forever be an inspection. This is the most basic yet the most overlooked requirement for performing repairs and maintenance. How can you provide a quotation or even an estimate until you know what it is that needs to be done? Obviously you can’t.
Why don’t we perform inspections as a matter of course? I am sure by now I have heard most all of the reasons. We don’t have the time to do it – We don‘t have the space to do it – The customer won’t let me do it. I am sure you know the list of reasons as well as I do. But that doesn’t excuse our not performing inspections on most everything we do before we start the work. Imagine having your doctor, based on your diagnostics. go ahead and schedule for a bypass surgery without doing an inspection? Not going to happen.
If we perform inspections we can create quotations and time lines. These are two of the top four needs customers have from a service department according to surveys conducted by the AED – Price and Responsiveness. Yet also in those surveys customers say they want honesty from the service department. Doesn’t that tell you something?
On the inspections tthat I am discussed here there needs to be a specifically training inspector. This is not every mechanic. Not every mechanic has diagnostic skills. This is a one or two hour inspections that evaluates the machine not just the customer complaint. This will lead to a comprehensive quotation for the work to be done. This detail stays on the work order whether the customer gives you the go ahead to make the repair or not. That detail notes that the customer chose not to approve that segment of the work we found that should be done. It is inconvenient for the customer, in more ways than one, when that which we pointed out as needing to be repaired but they denied, actually failed or needed the work to be done.
How can anyone run a service department that deserves the customers’ loyalty that doesn’t do inspections? I know you agree with me on this so why not do it? The time is now.
Parts Ponderings v1.0
This is the first of a weekly commentary on the operational, sales and customer service aspects of a parts business in the equipment business.
I want to start with the most important people in your business, your heroes; these are the men and women who serve your customers every day. They struggle with the tools we provide them from the business systems to the telephone systems in a department that is like the equipment we sell today with little or no differentiation from the other dealers in the market with whom you compete. We have all become a “oneness.”
We have taken to heart the drive of TQM or CQI from the 80’s and we have improved the processes ad nauseum. To the point that now we are process junkies and not particularly interested in changing anything for fear it will all fall apart.
What is the joy of working in that environment? How can we continue to attract and retain the talented people that we need to do the work? This will become a very large problem in the not too distant future.
I have just completed two wonderful books on this very subject. One is by Gary Hamel called What Matters Now and the other is by Clayton Christenden called How Will You Measure Your Life. Interested people should read them both.
I am interested in how we can make our work magical as in Apple. How we can provide customers with experiences that they want to experience more of in their work? But that is a trick question isn’t it? It isn’t up to us if we truly think about it. It6 is about those wonderful men and women doing the job now. They know what is needed if only we would free them from the shackles of the processes in which we have them locked. But that is too scary for the moment. Not a wise thing to put off. We need to start making people want to come work for us above everyone else. We want an interview to be an event like at Southwest Airlines where it is like a casting call. Yes we can do that too. Think about your parts store and them go visit an apples store and note the differences. That is where we need to be. The time is now.
The blog going forward
After our first four months into the blogosphere and input from several respected people we are going to begin a more predictable and we hope a more useful structure for the blog.
We will continue with some of the staples such as Friday Folosophy and Book of the Week but we will begin to feature a Parts Blog, a Service, a Product Support Selling & Marketing Blog and a Management Blog. Each of them will be done weekly and will be on the same day each week. We hope you will enjoy and benefit from this new structure and we would welcome and thoughts you might have on it. The time is now.
Friday Filosophy #18
Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.
Plato
It’s easy to halve the potato where there’s love
Irish Proverb
Once you have learned to love, you will have le3arned to live
Unknown
WH Filosophy v1.1
Thought for the Day #4
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw
Thought for the day #3
“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.” John Maynard Keynes.
We are captives to our upbringing and education and have a hard time both hearing opposing thoughts or thinking them. One of the few times I agree with Keynes. The time is now.
Friday Filosophy # 17
Once the game is over the King and the Pawn go back in the same box.
Italian Proverb
Life isn’t about finding yourself it is about creating yourself.
Unknown
He who fears something gives it power over him.
Moorish Proverb
TED.com
This is a wonderful site. Everyone has something they will find interesting on here. Check out Rory Sutherland. The time is now
Thought for the day #2
The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.
Steve Jobs.
NEVER settle. The time is now.