As moving companies, complete customer satisfaction is everyone’s dream. We all know that with different customers come different expectations, and in reality, it is impossible to please everyone. However, standards should be kept high throughout the entire moving process. From the initial estimate right the way through to the post move follow up it is important to strive to win your customers satisfaction. In this month’s ‘From Our Blog’ we are going to look at ways to get customer satisfaction which will in turn lead to repeat business and recommendations.
Initial communication between you and your customer is an important one. First impressions are insanely important! Your sales staff need to reply to your customers’ inquiries quickly and clearly as this makes your company look professional from the get-go and is a huge factor regarding successfully securing the customer’s business.
Surveys are also extremely useful when aiming for customer satisfaction. It is important to use the data gathered from surveys to fine tune your moving operations as that data is priceless as it comes directly from your customers. Surveys can be used during any part of the moving process and can be used to measure your strengths and weaknesses. The problem that can occur with some surveys is that no customer is going to want to fill out pages of questions and let’s be fair you don’t want to be reading through pages of answers!
A pre-move customer satisfaction survey is a good one to start with for your customers. This can be included with your estimate or with the invoice to you customer. You can use this short survey to gauge how well your sales staff and your company’s communication has been. It will also give you an idea of the customer’s satisfaction levels so far. Make it short as you don’t want to scare your customer off.
- How would you rate the communication between our sales staff so far?
2) What can we do to make our estimating and invoicing clearer in future?
3) Are there any questions that we can help you with regarding the moving timeline we have given you?
Also include a question regarding the up-coming move which will help you see their expectations and get you ahead of the game with the chance to personalise the service to suit that customer!
4) What is the most important quality you expect from our moving team when they carry out your up-coming move?
It is also important to understand your customer early. This is where your team needs to be gathering as much information as possible about each customer from the start. If you send out a member of your estimate team to do a home visit it is a great chance to gather some important information – take advantage of it! Maybe your team member who makes the home visit notices that the house is spotlessly clean. This is going to tell you that that customer is house proud and tidy so the important message to pass on to your packing team will be, ‘Don’t make a mess!’
A post move survey is just as valuable! These can be harder to get though as your customer is busy settling into their new home. A great way to do this, as mentioned in a previous edition of The GEM Movers Magazine, is by giving your customer a care package! Imagine this, the family has just gone through the move and watching the moving company pull out of their driveway. They look on their kitchen table to find a small basket of treats left by the moving company. This is going to make them happy! Even if it is only some potato chips, a couple tins of soup and a jar of coffee it is going to put a smile on their face! Then in this basket sitting on top of the treats is a postcard (with your logo and branding on it) and on the back of this postcard are a few questions for your customer to answer. Make sure that the postcard has a stamp on it, and I can guarantee you now that the short survey on the back of the postcard will be completed and posted back to you!
The important thing to remember is that each customer’s needs and expectations will be different. No one customer is the same, so you need to handle each customer as an individual and be willing to identify what they are after early on and be willing to change the direction of customer care to match each client.
Written by Matthew O’Hagan
