The first sign that a company is struggling with service issues is when you see a survey from them entitled “How’s our service?” At least that was my recent experience with a prominent  Mississauga dealership.

I trade cars a lot and I’ve always been partial to sport cars and European styling. Now that my young family and mini-van days are behind me, I’ve spoiled myself over the last few years and currently own a BMW hardtop convertible. I tend to buy used and off season, so that I can experiment without taking too big a hit on depreciation.

Anyway, with this car you just need to change the oil once a year, although I’m not sure why. I put it in for that annual service recently and they said I was also due for their 100 point check. I asked the cost and at a $133, I said go ahead. Other than a service last year, I haven’t put a dime in the car since I bought it last February, so I expected they would find something. I was surprised when it got a clean bill of health.

I bought the car last year from a dealer in Hamilton. It was a big price advantage to buy a BMW at a Toyota dealer, as they don’t know the car and typically move them at a better price. As a matter of fact, when they showed me the car they didn’t know how to start it or operate the roof. The initial service was a precautionary measure and I was charged just under $150 at the Mississauga dealership in question.

Fast forward to present day. I went in to pick up my car and in addition to the $133 they quoted for the 100 point check, the same oil change was $200 this time. I politely asked why it was different. The service gal had no answer. I asked “if it wasn’t too much bother to bring up the bill from last time, I would like to see if my memory was correct”. It was but instead of acknowledging a possible error she proceeded to say that last time was less expensive because it was a low mileage oil service. When I asked the difference between a low mileage service and a high mileage service she nervously directed me to who she introduced as the service manager at a nearby desk.

I got a similar skating exercise with the person I was directed to and decided to leave it be. When I got back to the office I had an e-mail asking me to complete a customer satisfaction survey from the same dealership. I couldn’t resist. After a couple of emails with more awkward stick handling on their end, the chap stated, “I’m a service advisor not a service manager, I have no power to address your complaint and I just want you to respond to how I performed as a service advisor.”

I sent back a quick note saying that he was certainly very nice and asked him for the service manager’s name and a breakout of how the 100 point check was uniquely different than the oil service check and why the charge was significantly higher than last time. I haven’t heard from the dealer since, except for another request to fill out their survey.

My long winded story has a point. We started developing marketing for a growing transportation provider recently. As a part of their growing pains, they have discovered some cracks in their customer service such that they were immediately losing several new customers that sales had brought on.

As long as I have been serving the transportation industry, this has been the main sore point between operations and sales. It continues today, to the point that the some senior sales people I know tend to babysit their new accounts through the initial start up phase to keep a screw up from happening. From an operations standpoint, the feeling may be that the sales person has over promised what can be done as part of their standard process, from a sales perspective, the sales person promises what they need to, to win the day…so the historic feud continues.

We all know that how you handle a complaint is critical to maintaining a customer relationship. I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes over the years that have cost me business. It took me a while to learn that it’s never about being right or wrong. It’s all about communicating that you care what your customer thinks and showing that concern in person where possible. E-mail is great for documenting but may be the worst way to resolve a service complaint.

At the end of the day, the BMW service advisor was more concerned about how he looked in the survey than resolving my concerns or protecting the reputation of the dealership. They have a service process in place but have missed some critical steps along the way.

The transportation company I mentioned thinks better communication and training is the answer to improved customer service. It’s certainly a big part of it. Getting across the point that real success is a team effort, not how successfully you divert blows as an individual or point fingers as a manager… now that’s the ticket!

Lee’s quote for the day

“I have a tendency towards getting defensive and taking things personal when I feel the quality of my work or ethics are being questioned. It’s a hard habit to break but I know it’s the wrong approach and something I need to keep working on. I might install a reset switch when brain surgery becomes more affordable.” 

Small business performs best under tight deadlines. It adds focus and higher level communications internally and with the client.
It’s what small companies do best. 

We’ve grown and are at the point
that we need to add more structure and streamline our processes. We provide a great service but I believe we can reach higher.

We’ve hired a champion whose expertise is project management and we are starting down the road once more, to elevate
the performance of our company.

What I’ve learned from past experience will help us on this journey. For anyone else looking at this, here are 5 common sense tips as a reboot for you… and myself:

1. Don’t introduce too much change at once. Make one new behavior a habit before implementing the next
2. Don’t create process to address the exceptions. It will bog you down unnecessarily. Focus on the 80% that drives your business on a daily basis and address the things that fall outside the norm individually
3. Appoint the right person to manage change.  Give that person the authority they need to make things happen
4. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Try to have quick stand up meetings that address details as they come up. Get to the bottom line, make decisions and move on. Addressing the issue when it’s fresh is the way to go. Avoid long, merry go round meetings that accomplish nothing
5. Find a way to pull out people’s strengths. If you have a great thinker that is lousy at follow up, get someone else on the follow up and let your thinker, think. Too often we focus on what’s wrong with someone, not what’s right

Lee’s quote for the day

“We can always improve and turn disappointment into opportunity. A healthy first step is consciously flipping that internal switch from ‘I Can’t’ to ‘I Can, I Will and I Must’. More importantly, down the road when the circuit breaks (and it will), flip it on again and again and again…” 

There are notable advantages and disadvantages related directly to the size of your organization. As a small company, it would be helpful at times to think like a bigger firm and have more processes and procedures in place. The opposite is always true; with larger companies favouring process over the kind of entrepreneurial decision making that made their companies a success in the first place.

It’s basically a spin on the economic theory of marginal utility. What are you willing to give up of “A” to get more of “B”? There is always a trade off. I think it would be an interesting exercise for employees, managers and owners alike to put on a different thinking hat the next time a decision has to be made.

I had occasion to do this in a small way a couple of weeks ago. We had to decide whether to replace or replenish an $8,000 colour laser printer. The consumables on the 4 year old printer were getting expensive and there were 3 costly imaging units to replace. We also had a number of supplies for the existing printer we couldn’t return. The decision, see if we could sell the existing printer and supplies first on eBay. The result, there wasn’t much demand or value for either. The end game, we discovered there were plenty of supplies for our existing printer on eBay, at a fraction of what we had been paying…making our existing printer viable to operate again.

I had put on the hat I wore when I started the company. A time when every dollar counted. I believe it was the right decision and sends a message within our company that if we can save money (with the very important condition of not compromising quality or wasting valuable time)… it’s the right way to go.

My job has allowed me to chat extensively with transport carriers of all descriptions and sizes. I’ve heard lots of stories like this (on a much bigger scale) where hundreds of thousands of dollars have been saved by putting on a thinking hat that was more common “back in the day”.  The recession has forced the survivors to get our “mojo workin”…  and it’s good for business big and small.

Lee’s quote for the day

“A recession is a great teacher if you choose to listen closely and take your seat at the front of the class.”