Want to be a Market Disruptor? Become a Continuity Expert
Plant For Profits Column, Leslie F. Halleck
Jump the Low Bar
Want to be a disruptor in your market? Think you need to invent a new product or process to get ahead? Nope. These days all you might have to do is simply provide continuity of information across all your customer service touch points to stand head and shoulders over your marketplace.
This week I had sudden failure of one of my landscape irrigation zones. Then, by the next day the entire system stopped responding. There had been an app update that week for the system I use, so I thought it could be a controller or compatibility issue. I contacted Weathermatic (I use a SmartLink controller), they responded promptly that day- while I'd replaced the original air card a few years ago, a newer version was needed for the system update. They got a new controller panel and air card delivered to me by the next day without charge. Each additional employee on the chain, including the shipping manager, worked together to meet my expectations. I installed the new components myself, got the new air card activated, no problems; and the rest of the system started responding again, easy peasy. Great customer service. BUT that one zone just still wasn’t pinging. So, I figured I’ve got a bad valve.
Now, as a professional, I’ve maintained and repaired this irrigation system myself for more than a decade. But, I’m spinning a lot of plates right now, and I don’t like to deal with wiring so it just makes more sense for me to have a pro irrigation contractor come out and deal with this issue. Not to mention, I have a lot more irrigation work to hand out that I don’t have time to do; including a full system audit, a new rain/freeze sensor installation, several swing pipe repairs, and possibly adding another zone. Not to mention, the referrals they would then get from me as a result. It’s a nice little chunk of work, and getting this one value replaced was essentially the interview for the rest of the work.
I contacted a well-reviewed company that stated it took urgent calls, with a detailed request of what I needed and then said I had a bunch of follow up work. I told them the valve work was the urgent need this week as I have a business trip scheduled and new plants in the ground. They responded promptly, and scheduled me for a technician visit the next day between 11-1 on and said the tech would call me an hour ahead of time. Great! I thought…a big worry and to-do off my list. So far, so good.
Monday 10am rolls around and I get a call from the assigned tech. He says he wants to discuss my repairs then immediately says “Because it’s too cold to do any irrigation repairs now and you just need to shut your entire system off for the winter. “
Um..WHAT?
Mind you it’s still 80F degrees in Texas mid-November. We had 1-2 day cool snap this past Monday so it was around 45-50F in the morning but will be back up in the 70-80s again for the next 10 days. Dallas has a year-round growing climate. Our ground doesn’t freeze here so it’s not a requirement to drain your entire system and shut it completely off. If your lines are improperly buried too shallow then you could have problems when it freezes, but if they are installed properly winter weather isn’t typically an issue. I insulate my main line and backflow preventer in the box for winter, but that’s it. You should turn off the scheduled program runs and only run the system manually as needed when temps aren’t freezing, but you don’t need to shut everything down completely as “winter” may only happen for a few days here in Dallas. I manually run my system or certain zones through the winter (when temps are above freezing) as I not only grow a lot of cool season veg and color, but we have dry winters and trees and shrubs need intermittent supplemental water.
So the first problem is that what the tech told me was wrong. Now, if I were most homeowners and didn’t have advanced knowledge about irrigation or landscape, I may have taken this statement at face value. I’d be left with a broken system I couldn’t use all winter, and the company would be out the work. In reality this was just baloney that read to me “it’s too chilly for me this morning and I don’t feel like working”. The second problem is that the company scheduled me the day before and clearly had access to the forecast…so if Monday morning was going to be “too cold” to do any repairs then why schedule me?
My response: I’m a professional, I know how my system works, I just need you to come fix a value. And yes, I will continue using my system so I do need it fixed now, I can’t wait until spring. Him: Well, I mean if it’s above freezing I guess I could come look at it. Me: (I’m standing outside) Well, what’s the temperature right now because I’m outside and it’s not freezing? (it was 48F), Him: I have no idea. Me: Then how do you know it’s too cold. But no problem, if don’t want to come do the work I can find someone else - but my time is now tight. Him: Well, I guess I could. Me: I’m getting the distinct vibe you don’t want this job. Him: No, I’ll be there in an hour.
Needless to say, I was no longer feeling confident about this situation.
Is Management Aware?
The important question here is does company ownership or management know that their technicians are turning away business by telling customers they won’t do repairs for the next three to four months and instructing them to turn everything off? Clearly not, or they wouldn't have scheduled me in the first place. My second question is why not respect your customers' intelligence? Assuming homeowners don’t know anything at all about their property right out of the gate doesn't inspire confidence. There’s clearly no continuity of information here between admin, scheduling, and the technicians, and I instantly lost all confidence in both this technician and the entire company.
He did show up, shivering with a coat on and hands in his pockets (I was outside barefoot), and then immediately and confidently spouted off more incorrect information about my system that I had to counter. We did then figure out the valve just needed a replacement transmitter wire because the previous one had come loose. He fixed it, so it’s working now, but I won’t be calling them back to do the rest of the work, which will add up to quite a bit more than this invoice. I do wonder if I’d been assigned a different technician from the same company, would I have had an altogether different experience? Not dice I want to roll.
It doesn’t matter how good your marketing is…if there’s no continuity of information and service you’ll lose consumer confidence. If all of your employees aren’t trained across all customer contact points with the SAME information and policies, you will look like a mess to potential customers. Whoever picks up the phone at your company, handles online scheduling, orders parts, manages the property, makes the service calls, drops the deliveries, loads product into cars…whatever the job and whoever the employee, they all need to say essentially the same thing to your customers. If you aren’t training all of your employees to be on exactly the same page, then the mess that was my irrigation service call (and subsequent loss of business) is the unfortunate result.
The lesson here is, the bar has gotten pretty low when it comes to clear human communication these days. All it may take for you to outpace your competition is continuity and clarity in your customer communications. How confident are you that your all employees are all telling your customers the same story? More importantly, are they tell the same stories you are telling?
