Customer Service is such an important part of every business. As window cleaners that rely on our customers’ continued service throughout the year, we especially have to be mindful of this. Of course, there is the simple “be polite” part, but what makes you stand out amongst your competition? How do you build your relationship with your clients, and how do you maintain that relationship?
I feel that customer service is easier to convey via a phone conversation as opposed to email. It is much easier to communicate with someone when you’re talking to them on the phone. My first step, when it comes to customer service via email, is to include a small thumbnail in my signature. It is a photo of me cleaning the exterior of a skylight. Our email account photo is our business logo, so I find that including the small thumbnail in my signature adds a personal touch by being able to put a face to the name. Our website includes photos of our trucks, some before and after of jobs we’ve done, and some of us cleaning windows. Including some photos helps our client know what to expect. When we get to the job, I always introduce myself and let them know what our plan for the job is, that way if they need to get any vehicles out of the driveway or if they have little ones home that need to take naps, we can be sure to work around that.
I’ve noticed that laying out the job plan and asking a couple of simple questions helps create a relationship with the client. The client then knows that if they have your company back, they can relax, knowing that you’ll work around the baby’s nap time, a conference call, or whatever the situation may be. We also let them know that they don’t need to worry about moving anything except anything fragile, that they wouldn’t feel comfortable with us moving, and that we will put whatever we move back when we are finished. Not all business models can do that, but it works for us. When we’re all done, I always ask how everything looks. We also let them know that if they notice anything that doesn’t look right, to reach out, and we can stop by and touch it up. Even if they get a bird dropping after we clean the windows, we tell them to let us come by, and we’ll clean it off at no charge. Of course, we can’t always get to them the same day they contact us, but we let them know when we can swing by. Those are just some ways our company has succeeded in building and maintaining a good client relationship.
Customer Service can be exhausting at times, but building those relationships with your clients is beneficial and can often make the job much more enjoyable. We have a handful of clients I don’t look forward to their windows, but they’re such wonderful clients that I look forward to their job. We have some clients that have homemade Christmas cookies set aside because they know we’re coming, or I have one client that always has a couple of small houseplants waiting for me each fall when we clean her windows. Customer service is important, and sometimes you receive nice “bonuses” for maintaining good customer service. ~ Grace Gerengher
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