Is your customer suffering from your growing pains?

Every year we have our exterior windows washed. It is one of several services on an annual maintenance plan. This year, it has been comical how difficult it has been to get our windows washed.  

Three months ago, we received a call from an account manager introducing himself and asking if we wanted to schedule gutter cleaning and window washing – the two services on the annual maintenance plan. He was unaware we were on a plan. When I inquired about an additional service, he took the hard sales approach, going so far as to ask what it would take for him to get the additional business.

After that interaction, I heard nothing until a confirmation email a week prior to the appointment. The day of the service, the gutter cleaners arrived. The window cleaners did not. I emailed to follow up that afternoon, then three calls over three days and I reached someone compelled to take action and got the washing re-scheduled.

The 2nd attempt arrival time came and went – nothing. This time I did receive a communication that they were late and would be there by 7pm that evening, to which I responded that would not work and was told my account manager would reach out to reschedule.

At this point, you can guess what happened – nothing. I did not hear from an account manager.

I was going to let it alone and find another provider, but while confirming details on the company’s website for this post, I noticed their chat had the headshot of an executive. I sent a chat message with my situation and immediately got a response. After confirming my details was told the senior account manager would call me. And sure enough, I got a call.

I am now scheduled for the third attempt to get my windows washed. I am not optimistic it is going to happen, but I will hold out hope.

This business is totally normal – they are experiencing growing pains.

As a returning customer, I am very frustrated and suffering because of their growing pains.

As a small business owner, I am empathetic. It is challenging to stay on top of the many activities of the business and keep the team working towards the same goals. It is difficult to set expectations for delivering at the level you once provided in that role.

As a business operations coach, I see opportunity. Below are three areas I believe attention is needed. These three areas are ones many small business owners feel challenged by and find putting a roadmap in place can help. Please note, these are all assumptions based on my singular experience.

• As the organization has grown, they have not kept pace with implementing accountability structures and tracking mechanisms.

 When you grow and add team members to make sales, manage accounts, schedule service, or invoice, it is easy for business owners to lose track of what is being done. Things move fast. Business owners need to create a rhythm of business, through regular meetings and huddles and tracking reports, to be aware of what is happening, what the customers are experiencing and where issues are arising. Identifying and tracking key metrics can allow business owners to quickly see how the day-to-day operations are functioning and monitor progress towards the business’ goals. 

• They lack a centralized customer sales and service database that would allow team members to know and address each customer situation.

Business owners often think they are too small to justify a CRM (Customer Relationship Management System). However, rapid growth, coupled with multiple people making sales and managing accounts makes a CRM imperative. Having a central database of customer data ensures every team member has the information they need to provide a positive experience and the business owner can see real time how things are progressing on the goals.

Technology can be a lot of work to get implemented, but once it is in place, it can save lots of time and headache. Whether it supports the sales, scheduling, or invoicing process, it all improves the customer and employee experience.

• They have incentivized their sales team to focus on new business, not retaining existing business.

What you measure your team on is what they will focus on each day. When we went on the annual maintenance plan, I appreciated that the business was focused on retaining my business. The pushy sales approach gives the impression of desperation for a sale or being more focused on additional sales than retaining a customer. If customer retention is important, then there needs to be incentives to maintain those relationships without jeopardizing future business. Business owners need to identify what will drive success and reward those behaviors.

Business owners going through growing pains are often overwhelmed and frantic as they move through each day. It does not need to be this way.

You may wonder why I am giving this company a third try. I fall back on the incredibly positive experience I had when I started using their services three years ago. They were small and eager to gain business and trust. That backbone likely still exists, and I hope to see it come through in the next effort. I also hope the owners will work on building their roadmap so they can achieve success on their terms… which may or may not involve retaining currently annoyed annual plan customers.