Canadian Contractor - July-August 2015

VOICES
spot. Second, teach your staff why and how they should ask for
reviews. Often the difference between getting feedback and not
is in the way you ask for it.
It should also be noted that many contractors are wary of
negative responses. They shouldn’t be. Disappointing feedback
is simply a tool to improve the way you do things.
Jess Sugar
“Paper feedback cards no longer seem to work”
Oh, how I love client feedback. Funny, though, when you do a great
job, you get a brief thank you. But when you make a mess, boy do
you find out about it. The client will badmouth you all over the
place, but never send you a note telling you what you did wrong. A
phone call, yes, but never a note delineating the problem.
We heard once that a client was so very ticked off at our
service that they were telling all their friends about it. Then they
told one of our really loyal clients about this – and got stopped
in their tracks. Our loyal client asked our unhappy one, “Did you
ever call them to tell them what was wrong?” The unhappy client
answered, “Why would I do that? No one ever comes back to fix a
mistake!” The reply from our loyal customer: “They do! Why did
you not call?”
So the next day, the customer calls and reams me out. I pull the
file and note that there has never been any contact from the client
since we left her premises two months ago. I ask what happened
– and why did she not call? Apparently, after we left, her son tried
to light a fire (in the fireplace we worked on) and smoked out the
entire house and caused her to have an asthma attack. She had
not used it since. So I offered her a free service call to find out
what was going on. The finding? Her son had neglected to open
the damper. It was that easy to solve. But because we had had no
communication, we were badmouthed.
For many years we left feedback cards with our clients, along
with their invoices. We used to get 95 per cent of them back
regularly – but that eventually changed to about 5 per cent.
Maybe it is because we are doing a lot of repeat clients, I don’t
know. We have tried putting a feedback area on our website – but
hardly anything ever trickled in. Seems that clients do not want
to give feedback anymore unless they are really mad at you.
I think clients are so inundated with the auto-calling after nearly
every service they have done, that when they see a paper or
internet or mailing opportunity to give feedback they just toss it.
We do still receive nice notes and cards with any incoming
cheques from time to time and we really appreciate these as the
clients have obviously taken more time and thought than just
handing us a form they feel they must return. We keep these in
a book in our sitting area. We also put any feedback that we get
up on our website under testimonials.
Yvette Aube
“Whip out a tablet or mobile”
I think one great way contractors can get immediate feedback on
their work is to whip out a tablet or mobile with the site loaded
up and ready to go. Have the client rate the service of work right
there! This takes all the work out for the client, takes less than
30 seconds to do, and you can reuse those testimonials to market
your work – for years! Just imagine if you did that for every job!
Win-win!
Marci
THE LITTLE VOICE THAT SAYS ”NO“
Steve Maxwell posted online about that worrisome feeling
that some clients just can’t help giving us
when we are pitching our services to them,
or giving them a quote. We have all blown
past that signal in our guts. And we have all
paid the price. Here is one reader’s personal
experience…
“Ask all potential clients this question”
I think all of us in the construction business have had that
negative gut feeling about potential clients, but have ignored
the signals. One thing that I was taught years ago that has
helped me immensely is to ask this question of a potential client:
”Have you ever built before and how did it go for you?” In short
order, the potential client will tell you about their fears, past
experiences, and what they think of the construction industry.
One of my best examples of how powerful this question is
happened a number of years ago. We were building in an active
new subdivision and a potential client came over and asked us
if we could give him a price on his new build. It was a substantial
house and, of course, I said sure. Then I asked “The Question.”
He answered that, yes, he had built new houses twice before.
I asked how that had gone for him. “I had to take both those
“b_____’s” to court,” he replied. I said I was sorry to hear that
and suggested he contact me when he had his final plans put
together.
When he called back a couple of weeks later, I told him I was
booked solid. He burned the contractor who took on the contract
for a substantial sum of money. By the way, he was a lawyer.
Gavin Parsons
14 July/August 2015 www.canadiancontractor.ca