How Communicating with Customers Helps Prevent Problems

By Todd Rose, ConcreteNetwork.com Columnist

If acceptance is the answer to all my problems today, then communication is the prevention of all my problems today. Talking to my customers daily just to let them know the progress or lack of progress put customers at ease. Calling just to say hi and we made our goal today does wonders in getting paid in full and on time. What we are really talking about is just building a relationship with our customers. It is much harder for your customer to not pay you if they like you and have built a relationship with you. Being friendly doesn't cost any money, and saying thank you means a lot to people.

I try and talk to my residential customers daily. Informing them of the daily goals and just having a reason to talk to them to say thank you for the job builds trust. Trust gets you paid. Now with commercial jobs this can sometimes be irritating to a large general contractor who is very busy and has 20 other subs they are dealing with. So, on large commercial jobs I write an e-mail at the end of the day letting them know any problems, concerns, whether goals were met, and if an employee of theirs was helpful I point that out. Everyone likes compliments and everyone likes to be thanked.

Anyone that has been staining or stenciling for any amount of time has had the following calls. "Hey your guys are staining my patio green, and I wanted brown", or "your guys stamped or stenciled my patio yesterday and it looks dull, dusty, and nothing like the sample". Obviously, I have failed to communicate the process of staining and stamping. I now inform my customers that the color of the stain in the bottle is not the color they will end up with. I also remind them that until we seal the stain it will look ugly, and I say ugly because I have had at least 50 calls from customers over the years just freaked out because they think we have created a patio that "looks like you poured a bucket of rusty water on my patio". Then I remind them that you can't tell what it will look like until sealed. I have had such frantic calls that I have had them pour water on their patio just to show them that it's going to be beautiful and what they expected. Communicating the process, even daily and repeatedly prevents these situations.

I am a firm believer that once you lose control of a customer's expectations you now have created an environment where they are looking over your shoulder and questioning everything you and your crew does. Constant communication and informing them of items you know they will question puts them at ease and builds trust. A customer at ease that feels important and taken care of pays their bill.

I used to get irritated when my customers would stand over us. Now I use the opportunity to inform and educate, but also get them involved in the project. I say, "hey you want to try and run an edger"? One time we were stamping a patio and a lady in her early thirties saw us on skid pans and said "wow that looks kind of fun". We told her to change out of her professional clothes and come try it, and she did! After about 5 minutes she got off the slab and said, "geez you guys make it look easy". We still get about three referrals a year from that lady. Make dealing with your company fun and different from the experiences most customers have had with other contractors sets you apart and will get you paid.