Contractors Guide to Five-Star Customer Care

Whether you’re a sole multi-trader or a principal contractor, five-star customer care is essential for the success of your business. If customer satisfaction is your north star, you will always be busy and expanding, and you’ll be open to recognising and addressing anything you could improve on.

If you’re a sole trader undertaking property repairs and customer care on behalf of national housebuilders with high expectations for finish, customer care and record keeping, just read this article and write your clear and easy customer care checklist. Done.

So many construction professionals and companies focus entirely on technical delivery, doing minimal admin to keep overheads down, and grumbling about customers and other trades on site. These individuals and companies won’t be recommended or invited back for the next project because they are not easy to work with, even if they’re the cheapest, which they will need to be to have any chance of repeat business. These people are always struggling, there is always an excuse and unforeseen difficulty, and they’re usually embroiled with dissatisfied customers. I bet you can think of someone like that, or maybe you sometimes recognise aspects of that in yourself or your company.

Trust and trades

In this industry, so many customers are anxious. They speak about bad experiences with trades, so trust is a precious thing won by communicating what we can offer and then over-delivering. Of course, some customers may never be satisfied, but that’s another story. Whilst many trades just wander from one job to the next, it pays off for even a sole trader to think through and record a customer journey in a structured way so that they are more likely to have a happy and fulfilled customer. Then, if anything goes wrong, you have your records to refer to or, in the worst-case scenario, to show in court or HSE.

The complete customer journey and how to lose a customer without knowing it

It can be hard when a customer is complaining or threatening legal action, but at least you can learn from and address those types of verbal feedback. The real cost to your business of poor customer care is the quietly lost customers who don’t like to complain but would be happy to give your competitor a go on the next project or would hold back from recommending you to a friend.

A structured and recorded approach will help you to consider where you have opportunities to improve your customer journey and how to reduce that sinking feeling that a regular customer has gone quiet. It is essential to have an efficient system in place to track your customer journey so that at any time, any member of staff can review the customer’s journey and help that customer to progress happily through the system.

Think about where you have contact with the customer and which of your staff has that contact. For example, the first point of communication may be your website or one of your operatives out on a job that gets chatting to a neighbour who needs some work done too. Either way, we aim to funnel that potential into an efficient customer management system which helps them get the information they need to decide whether to place an order.

Once they place an order, their customer journey continues through technical delivery, closure and payment, and beyond into the warranty period. We should think through the characteristics and opportunities of each stage and which of your staff will be involved in that interaction.

First contact and getting contracts in place.

A potential customer may find your website by searching online, or they may have received a recommendation from a friend or relative for your services. They have work that needs doing, and their problem is that they don’t yet have somebody to do it for them. You first need to hear and understand what they want and then offer a solution. They may vanish or quiet if they feel you don’t understand them. Perhaps someone else provided a better solution, or they decided to wait, or their circumstances changed. Your mindset should be that of a project partner offering value from the start, including an appropriate level of impartial information and sound advice.

There’s a balance between being responsive and helpful whilst keeping in sight your business’s needs and the capacity you can offer. If a customer is pushing hard to reduce the price, or shorten timescales, think carefully to ensure that you only take on projects that you can over-deliver on, and don’t be afraid to stick to your final offer. If you take on a project with a pushy customer and subsequently struggle to deliver it to their expectations, the costs will spiral for you, and you’ll get negative customer reviews too.

Don’t fight to win a project at all costs: If they don’t like the price and the solution you can offer, you will almost certainly struggle to fulfil their expectations, and it’ll drain your workflow and most likely result in poor reviews.

Delivering on site: Making it easy for you and the customer

Now that a customer has entrusted your company with their money and project, day one on-site can be a source of anxiety, which we want to turn into excitement and relief. A project manager can have a checklist to ensure that the basics are covered.

The customer should know who will come to the site, when to expect them, and whether scaffolders, materials delivery, skip a delivery, or anything else could occur before your site team arrive. We reduce anxiety by reducing unknowns and surprises for the customer. For example, they will know the names of all your staff on-site on the first day, and when they arrive on-site, your staff will say hello and introduce themselves by name. It’s common courtesy, but it’s so often lacking that customers find it a pleasant surprise when tradespeople are friendly and forthcoming.

The customer should know which team member on site is the most senior and whether they should call the office or speak with this onsite staff member if they have any questions or concerns. The key is that they know this before the team starts on-site to reduce the risk of convoluted communication unfolding. Ideally, you should have one site operative who will be the customer’s point of contact during the on-site phase of the project, and they will be on-site, or at the very least reachable by phone, at any moment whilst your team is working on site. They should be able to manage any issues as they occur, including resolving or taking responsibility for any breakages and mishaps, or discussing any unforeseeable additional work, either on request of the customer or due to unfolding circumstances, such as removing floorboards to find surprising rotten floor joists.

Beyond that, they should clearly understand what days the staff will be on-site and when they will finish work in the afternoon. How often have you heard a customer say, “and then we didn’t see them for the rest of the day”, or “oh, they’ve gone”? Your site team should clearly understand the smoking policy and other aspects that could erode your customer’s trust and good feelings. This self-awareness by site operatives reduces the risk of the customer or their neighbours being offended or put off by inappropriate language or other behaviour, which can lose customers. It’s so obvious, isn’t it: if your customer or potential customers over the garden fence perceive that you or your team are friendly, decent and professional, they’ll be on the phone with you as soon as they have a project that fits your services.

The customer should also have a clear idea of what may affect the schedule to manage their expectations and reassure them that any delay is no cause for alarm – for example when a task is only possible when it’s not raining or dependent on when the DNO engineer or another external factor attends site.

The customer should have reasonable expectations about how your staff will leave the site each afternoon. For example, it may be agreed that they use one room to store tools, offcuts, construction waste, materials etc. Still, the key is that it is agreed upon before your operatives get to the site on day one to make the situation as easy and efficient as possible for your team and reduce any risk of surprise or annoyance to the customer. Most customers are flexible and keen to make life easy for your team, but ill feeling is common if they feel their home is not well cared for.

Another common flaw- is tradespeople blaming the previous tradespeople, or factors beyond their control, for poor quality workmanship or delays on site. It’s ok to inform the customer, but it should always be solution focused. The customer wants the project resolved and delivered, and the truth is that many trades spend all day dragging their heels and making excuses. The customer may be willing to listen politely. Still, they’ll get the feeling that nothing is simple for this builder or tradesperson and that, somehow, the project appears more problematic. The customer needs to be informed, but they need to feel capable of addressing and fixing anything to get us wrapped up in good time to a high standard. If a customer thinks that can-do approach, they’ll be keen to recommend you or ask you to quote on the next project.

After site work, or at least all but snagging

When site work is concluded, the customer should clearly understand how and when snagging will be concluded, and they should know who their point of contact is. At this stage, it is typical for a member of your office team to be the point of contact to coordinate any snagging.

Hopefully, by this stage, you’ve achieved successful delivery, and the customer is satisfied that the job has been done well and snagging has been resolved. Unfortunately, neglecting this customer journey phase is a common error, as builders and trades often focus on winning and delivering new projects.

To avoid losing your customer’s trust at this point or the opportunity to leave them wanting more, you should have a specific customer flow, including feedback, checking in, and payment.

Check-in by phone or in person immediately after site work is complete and before you submit a feedback form with your completion documentation and final invoice. By checking in, you give the customer a chance to air any issues and resolve them satisfactorily BEFORE you ask them for written feedback or final payment.

You should have a specific feedback strategy or flowchart to address and learn from constructive feedback and use enthusiastic feedback to enhance the website or bring future customers. This could include incentives such as 10% off labour on the next project if a customer brings in another project. However, this requires careful consideration regarding project values and other factors.

With all payments, snagging, and feedback concluded, you might expect to hear from the customer again when they have another project for you. However, you may have invited them to follow you on social media or receive newsletters, and there’s always the chance that a query or fault will occur down the line.

Whatever the status of the product or workmanship warranties, when a customer contacts you with a fault or any query about their installation, you have a precious opportunity to ensure that your reputation is enhanced by managing the issues quickly and effectively. So many customers talk of installers who vanish once the work is done, sometimes becoming hard to reach and not returning calls.

You should have a clear written protocol or flowchart for managing post-job faults, which you can immediately email to the customer so that they know the problem will be handled professionally and fairly. It should include a timescale for resolution. You shouldn’t immediately claim full responsibility before proper investigation, even if it seems likely to be your fault, as sometimes another trade came on site afterwards or something else happened of which you weren’t aware.

From your customer journey record, any office team can quickly refer to the warranty status and job history to help the customer. Your team should adequately assess the issue before claiming responsibility for any technical fault. Still, sometimes it’s cheaper to order and install a replacement part than spend more time investigating in depth. The customer just wants it resolved, and then the principal should be that whatever caused the fault, you can fix it fairly and amicably promptly. Being a total pushover can be costly, so having your process in place protects your business, too, particularly when a staff member feels cornered by a miffed customer with a flooded kitchen.

Five-Star Customer Service on Home Snagging Repairs Work on Housebuilds

Suppose you’re working for a national housebuilder, doing snagging or property maintenance work. You must be aware that you are representing that company, following their requirements, and asking them for clarity when unsure. They probably have their customer care system, and you might have been supplied with an app or tablet to track your work.

TAKE THE INITIATIVE to deliver and record excellent customer service because the housebuilder wants the homeowners to be satisfied at minimal cost, the homeowner just wants their problems fixed, and you want to build up a reputation locally as a problem solver, both for contractors and homeowners.

Reflect on the following areas. Ensure that anyone who wears your shirt on-site realises how important these are to their job security and career development. Sit down with your team and ask them to consider where you as a team could improve. Develop this awareness in your team to grow your business because if your team feels like their input is valued, they will take it on board and bring you new customers, through their workmanship and attitude, and you’ll get fewer silly and costly mistakes.

Address all of these areas for your five-star snagging service.

● Service
● Quality
● Efficiency
● Reliability
● Customer Focus
● Communication
● Preparation
● Clean & Tidy

Customer Focus

A customer focus throughout a job’s three phases (pre-site, on-site, post-site) will naturally bring out excellent quality and repeat business. Your customer flow checklist or flowchart should now ensure that every customer receives 5* customer service.

With that in place, ask yourself and your team, “how do we want to be remembered by our customers in a year or five years?”