Kevin Dieny: 00:00:00

Hello, welcome to the Close The Loop podcast.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:03

I'm your host, Kevin Dieny.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:04

And today we're going to be talking about customer service

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:08

is sales and what that means.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:10

Why customer service has anything to do with sales.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:12

And to help us dive into this rich topic is a special guest I

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:17

have with me today, Chris Lalomia.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:19

Chris left the corporate zoo to leap into the wild world

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:24

of small business ownership.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:26

And he started the trusted toolbox 14 years ago.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:29

The trusted toolbox is a handyman and remodeling company that's

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:32

based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:34

And currently has revenues of more than five million.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:36

He has also started another business called the Home Service Institute.

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Which is focused on training other home service companies on great

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:44

customer service by focusing on those employees and workers in the field.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:49

He is passionate about customer service and leadership.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:51

So I think he's a great person to be able to dive into this with us, welcome Chris.

Chris Lalomia: 00:00:55

Hey, Kevin, looking forward to being on.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:57

We're going to start to make sure we ground everyone here.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:00

Something I've been thinking about is like, okay, does everyone

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:03

think customer service is just customers returning things?

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:06

Customer service really is, to me anyway, the delivery point between

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:11

the business and the customer.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:12

Whatever the customer is, either buying the service that the business is

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:15

providing, questions that the customer may have prior to purchase, but it's

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:20

that it's some sort of a delivery between the customer and the business.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:25

And that's what we're focusing on is that experience, that the customer has.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:29

At least that's the way I look at it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:31

How do you look at it, Chris?

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:33

Absolutely, you're right customer service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:35

That's the, oh my gosh.

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:36

They're going to return something.

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:37

Oh my gosh.

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:37

They're calling to complain about my service I've delivered, but really

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:41

customer service is sales because you want repeat customers, whether in any

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:46

business you're in, whether you think you're a one and done type business,

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:49

that once they buy your product or service, once they're never coming

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:52

back to you, that's not the way it was.

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:55

Because customer service, taking care of somebody today could turn into a

Chris Lalomia: 00:01:59

referral to a Saturday, you know, from a satisfied customer to another customer.

Chris Lalomia: 00:02:03

And in my case, especially in homes, well, we're a handyman company.

Chris Lalomia: 00:02:06

We can do a lot of stuff, even if I was just a painter and I'm only

Chris Lalomia: 00:02:10

going to come paint your house once.

Chris Lalomia: 00:02:12

But if I paint your house once, and that was, I did a really good

Chris Lalomia: 00:02:14

job with great customer service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:02:16

I get another chance.

Chris Lalomia: 00:02:17

And if you move, guess who gets another chance to paint your next house?

Chris Lalomia: 00:02:21

And that's where people.

Chris Lalomia: 00:02:22

Really miss out on the customer service by being proactive about it

Chris Lalomia: 00:02:25

and really thinking about what you're doing to take care of your customers.

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:28

Yeah, that's a really great way to describe it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:31

And I looked up online like, okay, dude, are there companies that

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:34

don't have to worry about customers or is that, does that exist?

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:37

Is that something that's out there?

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:38

And the answer I kept running into was, well, if you're a monopoly, if

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:42

you don't have any competitors, No one can go anywhere else, but you like,

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:46

you have the only thing that that's the only hypothetical situation I saw,

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:51

but even then it's like, well, just like you mentioned, maybe it's not

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:55

necessarily, someone's going to be like, well, maybe I can do without it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:58

So I think in some, in some regard we're talking, every business needs

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:02

to be looking at customer service, but why Chris, do you think some businesses

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:07

find it hard to make that a private.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:10

We all say we want to do great customer servicing.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:12

You get a great point.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:13

There's a company out there called frontier communications, which

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:16

has the monopoly of landlines in rural Western North Carolina,

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:20

where I happen to have a cabin.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:22

I have no other options.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:24

Satellite got there.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:25

And now I can go because these guys are so horrible customer service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:28

I can get rid of them.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:29

So I got ya.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:31

But why do we do that?

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:32

It is so much sexier to talk about Google pay-per-click and how you can get

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:36

yourself out there on the internet and attract new clients and do all of that.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:40

Well, a lot of business owners, I talked to say, all customer service is number

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:43

one, but why do you spend so much money acquiring a client through various

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:48

marketing and advertising sources, whether you're putting billboards up

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:51

or you're doing the online thing or whatever you're doing, you're spending

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:54

a lot of money to get people and they shit they say out there and it's true.

Chris Lalomia: 00:03:58

It costs $5 to get a new customer and costs $1 to keep one.

Chris Lalomia: 00:04:02

So it's five.

Chris Lalomia: 00:04:03

So why aren't we working on customer service more?

Chris Lalomia: 00:04:06

Because it really is a better return on our investment and our spend.

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:10

I was thinking, why would a business let's say

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:13

delegated to a lower priority.

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:16

A lot of times I was like, well, maybe because they look at it

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:19

like, maybe we're doing fine.

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:20

Maybe we are doing great, but maybe we're not.

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:23

So, so I guess like an early way to, for a business to say to itself,

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:27

okay, how well am I doing it?

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:30

It'd be a question I have for you.

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:31

How do, how does a business figure out how well it's delivering on its customer

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:35

service to its ideal customers, to the customers it's had, the customers

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:39

has had a long time brand new ones.

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:41

How does it sort of evaluate and assess all that?

Chris Lalomia: 00:04:44

That's a great question.

Chris Lalomia: 00:04:45

And today I just talked about the big bag behemoth, speaking of a

Chris Lalomia: 00:04:48

monopoly, and we call them Google.

Chris Lalomia: 00:04:50

Google reviews, tell you exactly how we're doing now.

Chris Lalomia: 00:04:53

Before all that I had started my business.

Chris Lalomia: 00:04:56

You could pay companies, you could do, uh, surveys and assessments, and you could

Chris Lalomia: 00:04:59

ask people for feedback and you could have them provide feedback in a different form.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:04

There's a many of these review.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:06

Review aggregators, if you will.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:08

But the cheapest easiest way right now is Google reviews.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:12

So how else do you know that you're doing a great job?

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:15

Well, you can go out there and survey.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:16

I had one customer a long time ago, call me out and say, Chris,

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:20

I just want you to come on and take a look at what your guys did.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:22

And I got out there and he says, all right.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:25

Completely transparent with you.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:26

I run the Lexus car dealership, service lot a I'm the sales manager.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:31

He said, he said, but I told you I wanted you to do a great job.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:34

And I just want to see if this is the quality that you would accept.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:37

And of course I would not, and it was not correct.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:40

And he looked at me and he said, you know what, Chris, every once in

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:42

a while, as a salesman, you got to come out there and kick the door.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:46

So he made me come out there and kick the tires.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:48

But when that guy did that to me, what was I?

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:51

I was, I was mad.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:53

I was upset and I was also embarrassed at the work we had done.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:56

Of course we made it right.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:57

We got it all taken care of.

Chris Lalomia: 00:05:58

Cause again, it's just home repairs.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:00

I'm not doing her surgery.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:01

Nobody's going to die.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:02

We'll get it all taken care of.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:03

But those people are the squeaky wheels, the loud people that we react to.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:08

How do you find the people that just kind of go away?

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:10

They just kind of slink away.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:12

They went, you know what?

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:14

I wasn't really, overwhelmed with them.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:16

I was underwhelmed, but I'm just not going to tell them or refer them.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:19

And that's how you start to figure it out.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:21

When you start finding those metrics, because in a business, you've

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:24

got to figure out how much repeat business you possibly can get with

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:27

a product or service you've got.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:28

And then how many referrals you're getting from the old classic word of mouth.

Chris Lalomia: 00:06:32

And if you're not getting that, then there's something probably going on.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:35

Yes, you brought up a really good example of a

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:38

customer complaining, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:39

Which happens both online in online reviews and in person, or, directly

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:43

feedback from a customer or the service you provided, they give it to you.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:47

And the spot or afterward, or, you know, something like that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:50

So a company that looks at it like, well, every time a complaint does come up, I do

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:56

find a way to make sure that that's right.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:58

So is that all customer service is?

Chris Lalomia: 00:07:01

That's definitely not what all customer services that is reactionary,

Chris Lalomia: 00:07:05

customer service, taking care of the quote unquote sneaky squeaky wheel.

Chris Lalomia: 00:07:10

That is absolutely reactionary.

Chris Lalomia: 00:07:11

And that's.

Chris Lalomia: 00:07:13

I have found by being proactive in training and getting my team to understand

Chris Lalomia: 00:07:17

what customer service really looks like and why it can benefit them as

Chris Lalomia: 00:07:21

employees, because they can make more money, have a better transaction and have

Chris Lalomia: 00:07:25

a better customer be being proactive.

Chris Lalomia: 00:07:27

That's what customer service ought to be providing that consistent

Chris Lalomia: 00:07:30

experience every time they call or contact your company to do something.

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:34

So how would a business today look at.

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:38

I guess creating those processes, making sure that their teams are

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:42

trained in this aspect of it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:43

Cause I mean, a lot of businesses work off the principle.

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:46

Look well profit is, is king at the end of the day.

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:49

And customer services is secondary, but you're making the case as well.

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:53

Really good, really great customer service leads to more profits, leads

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:59

to greater revenues in the end.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:02

And that generates business that could come from an additional,

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:05

maybe a referral channel.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:07

So how would a business make that transition?

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:11

That's a great question.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:12

So when I started, it was me and one employee.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:15

So I had one other person to basically train in my process as well.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:18

Of course, I didn't have any because I was brand new and you don't

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:21

even really know what you got.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:22

So I was really at essentially a solo preneur, right?

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:25

So I'm a solo preneur, and I am the owner of my company.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:29

I know that I'm going to provide that same great, consistent

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:32

customer service because of.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:34

I'm the person answering the phones.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:35

I'm the one providing an estimate or a quote.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:38

I'm the one going out and doing half the work.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:40

But as you grow, you start to realize that you do need to have these documented

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:44

because everything that's in my head and the way I did customer service

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:47

was not translating well to my team.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:50

And that's a good example is every time I would show up, is it all right?

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:54

If I leave my shoes on, can I slip my shoes off?

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:57

I would ask that question.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:58

Every single.

Chris Lalomia: 00:08:59

I would call 30 minutes ahead of my, every one of my intended appointment times.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:03

And I would tell my guys, Hey, you got a call 30 minutes ahead.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:05

Now I don't need to no big deal.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:07

You're not, they know I'm coming.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:09

And then what happens when you get there is the transaction.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:11

Doesn't start off for a well, and now you're starting at a, at a deficit.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:14

You're actually starting behind the start line instead of being at the

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:16

start line to be the head of doing it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:19

So as you scale your business, you've got to realize that nobody's going to

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:22

do it like you, unless you train them.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:25

And then even.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:27

The adherence rate, probably.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:29

I mean, even with right now, with how great, I think we're doing, I'd probably

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:33

say I'm 60 to 70%, 60 to 70% of these guys are doing it the way I would.

Kevin Dieny: 00:09:38

Wow.

Kevin Dieny: 00:09:38

That's really great.

Kevin Dieny: 00:09:39

I mean, the fact that you've created a system where you've documented

Kevin Dieny: 00:09:43

things, which is, I think it must feel like a brutal, tedious thing

Kevin Dieny: 00:09:47

to pull extract out of yourself.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:51

Oh, it's the worst.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:52

Yeah.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:53

Yeah.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:53

Oh boy.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:54

That is that that's like asking me to go in and reconcile our books.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:57

Yep.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:58

That's absolutely good.

Chris Lalomia: 00:09:59

Poke my eyes out.

Chris Lalomia: 00:10:00

Please take me out now.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:06

Yeah, and you've managed to pull that out and then the next step.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:10

Okay.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:10

Training.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:12

Other people who have different views, different things are important to them.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:16

Some people are more introverted, extroverted.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:18

Some people are really great at certain things and really

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:21

not so capable at other things.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:24

There's a hiring, maybe a hiring market problems.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:27

So businesses are like, well, I could make a stink about this, but

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:30

then if this guy, or this woman leaves, you know, maybe I'm stuck.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:33

There's a lot of dynamics here.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:35

It threatens like this kind of the pretty look of this boxes.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:40

Like just go and do this.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:41

But I think like some of the things you may run into would be like,

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:44

well, first I got a document.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:45

Oh man.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:46

Then it's like on a train.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:47

Oh man.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:48

Then okay.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:49

Then I have to figure out a way to measure this or reward this or make

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:52

sure this isn't just a once and done.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:53

This is like a consistent, sustainable thing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:56

So I see there's I dunno, areas where there could be some.

Kevin Dieny: 00:11:01

Obstructions in your way to a business, wanting to just go and leap forward and

Kevin Dieny: 00:11:04

get this executed in a short amount.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:07

Yeah.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:07

You've hit on it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:08

It is a daunting mountain to go up.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:10

And when you think about it with all the different things you've got to do, when

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:13

I peel it back to how I first started, I built up to three or four handymen.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:17

And so do they have a document?

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:18

It's not really, I'm getting there.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:20

I was getting there where they doing things the way I wanted to probably not.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:24

But I'll give you a great example.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:26

Why it's important to go through us and you can start small

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:29

and get yourself up to it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:30

One of my best handyman, so Chris, I got you and I'm like,

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:33

yep, you, you got me, man.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:35

You understand what I'm doing?

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:36

And these are real extroverted guys are real good talker.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:40

And I was doing the training and he stood up and he.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:42

I always like to start my conversations with my customers when I show up

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:46

and he was saying my mind mind, and he would talk about how he would

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:49

compliment them on their home.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:51

And then they would take them through everything he was about to do.

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:54

And he was telling us all this great stories, right?

Chris Lalomia: 00:11:57

The next day I get a call from the county.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:00

And I get a call on the second I talk to the owner and I

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:02

said, yeah, how are you doing?

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:03

She said, Tommy was out yesterday and, and he's a great guy, but he's a real talker.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:08

And I really thought the job would be done earlier.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:11

And I thought you guys would just get after it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:13

So even with the guys who are doing really well.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:16

Now I had to go, wait a minute, I got to document this.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:18

So you have three to five minutes for a day long transactions to introduce

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:21

yourself, to get yourself going.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:23

And then you've got to get to work.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:25

You got to prove to them that you're the professional.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:27

And when you do that, they will reward you with either tips or a great review.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:31

So I had to take the guy who really thought he was doing

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:33

great customer service and say, man, can you just tone it down?

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:35

Just a little, just a little.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:37

So it wasn't a guy who was doing a bad job.

Chris Lalomia: 00:12:39

He just was doing a little too much talking in the beginning.

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:43

You bring up something that's really fascinating, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:46

Which is the possibly an assumption rolling through all this of what

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:50

great customer service really is, what that really looks like.

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:53

And to some, businesses that position themselves, let's say

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:56

you're a dentist and you're like, okay, I'm gonna work with kids.

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:59

That's got to look a little bit, you know, dealing with families and kids, then a

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:03

different type of business altogether.

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:04

Or if you're a plumber, but you only do specialty work, you know, maybe

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:08

that it had some much more white glove handled with care situation.

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:11

So there is a little bit of subjectivity that I think, in your case, the

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:16

owner of the business has to decide.

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:18

Here's the kind of service I want and what I want it to look like, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:21

I'm getting the impression that you are the ones that's going to decide and

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:24

dictate, what customer service we are going to provide at the end of the day.

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:29

Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:30

You've got to figure out who your target market is.

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:32

Right?

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:32

So that makes it even more of an analysis.

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:34

So anybody listened to this is probably going, oh my gosh, I

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:37

don't even know where to start.

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:38

And that probably is part of the reason a lot of us don't do this

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:41

because man, where do I start?

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:43

And then how do I get up the hill to do all of this?

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:46

But it's gotta be a consistent delivery.

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:48

You know, I brought up the story about Tommy, and I thought

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:50

he was eight, a one best guy.

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:53

And I realized that her service wasn't as.

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:57

And so if the next guy goes out and doesn't say a word to the person,

Chris Lalomia: 00:13:59

I'm going to get that call and have, and they're a little quieter, more

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:03

introverted, Hey, he was a great guy, but he just was really quiet.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:06

Then explained to me, like you guys usually do about what we do.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:09

And so you got to figure out how, how you set those expectations.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:12

So you can exceed those expectations and you brought up the perfect one.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:17

I mean, if you're a parent bringing your kid into the dentist and they actually

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:20

got to actually go ahead and do it, cavity fill, you know, there's going to

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:23

be some wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:24

So how does a dentist make sure that anxious mom and dad are

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:28

sitting out there listening to their kids, screaming or not screaming.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:31

So they have to figure out that they can't have the kids.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:33

I got, cause I I've actually heard this from a dentist.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:35

You brought this up, which is so funny.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:36

We did some work for a dentist on that.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:39

Is that, that was the bigger problem.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:40

Not the kids.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:41

The kids were all right.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:41

We could get them calmed down.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:43

He said, well, we had to make sure the anxiety levels of the parents was low.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:46

What it was was put back in place.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:47

I'm like, yep.

Chris Lalomia: 00:14:48

You got to protect them from mama bear.

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:50

Oh, that's such, that's so funny that that came

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:53

into place as I brought that up.

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:55

What we're hinting at too is, it's not just the point of delivery for

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:00

when your service comes out, right.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:02

Or after.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:03

We're, we're also talking about when a potential customer

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:07

starts to learn about you.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:09

Maybe the very first time they call or they, they visit your

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:13

location and then afterward.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:14

The service has been delivered, okay, afterward, how do we

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:18

want customer service to be?

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:19

Is there going to be a followup or anything?

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:21

So customer service isn't just that moment where the services being provided it's

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:27

it's a little more widespread, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:28

Chris?

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:29

Absolutely, a great example is, let's say you and I are

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:32

going to go out and get some lunch.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:34

We don't decide at 1130.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:37

I'm starving.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:38

And I got to get there and run to the restaurant and the

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:40

restaurant is not ready to service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:41

And now we're sitting there.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:42

We're mad.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:43

We're hangry because we didn't prepare for lunch, but we're sitting in front of this

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:47

restaurant going, you aren't feeding me.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:49

What's going on now, take it back.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:52

We learned our lesson.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:53

We got to make sure we plan and prepare.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:54

So we plan and prepare a 30.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:56

I'm like, Hey Kevin, we're gonna go get lunch today.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:57

Right?

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:58

Hey, where do you want to go?

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:58

We figured out where we're going to go.

Chris Lalomia: 00:15:59

We make a reservation.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:00

We get there and we get there.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:02

We still have to wait.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:03

Well, wait a minute.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:04

I knew I was hangry last time.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:06

Cause I didn't plan, but now I planned and now you guys

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:08

still aren't ready for me now.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:10

I'm even more angry.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:11

So w a lot of times when people get to you, that's a great point is they've done

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:16

some research in the grand world of the.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:19

Unless you are an emergency service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:21

They have done some research and even if you are an emergency service,

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:24

whether you're a plumber, a restoration company, if you're an electrician or

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:28

you're a, you know, an impulse buy, there still is a time period that

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:32

they expect to have that service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:34

But for many of us they've been researching and, and figuring it out

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:37

and just spending it depending on the size of what they're about to buy or

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:40

purchase, they've done a lot of research.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:42

And if you don't pick up on the research and where they are and

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:45

continue to help set that expectation, then deliver in a timely manner.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:49

Well, then you just blew it and I've, I've heard this.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:53

I've been waiting to get this done for two months.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:55

I'm mean you called me two weeks ago and we're out there now.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:59

Yeah.

Chris Lalomia: 00:16:59

But I meant to call you earlier, but we really need to get this done.

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:02

I can't believe you guys.

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:03

So we know that customers are anxious when we're showing up.

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:06

So we actually have processes in place to lower.

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:09

The anxiety level of the customer, because for us, we're going into people's

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:12

houses, which is the most personal space that anybody can talk about.

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:16

It's where you raise your family.

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:17

It's usually your number one asset.

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:19

So the anxiety levels already been up a little bit.

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:22

So we, we train our guys to understand that.

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:24

Look, when you get there, they're excited to have you there to fix

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:27

their home, but they're really apprehensive that you're going to screw

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:30

it all up and leave it with a mess.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:34

Right, wow there's so much more to it than, you

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:36

know, than I would think.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:38

So here's just a quick curious question.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:40

Since you've been talking about this.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:41

In the last, I don't need to age you, right.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:44

But like let's say in the last two decades, decade, five years,

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:46

whatever you want to talk about, um, how has customer service changed...

Chris Lalomia: 00:17:50

Oh, don't worry, I'm not old, I'm seasoned.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:56

How has customer service...

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:57

Drastically or slightly changed or has it been the same it's always been?

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:02

I think it's changed a lot because more

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:05

importantly, you hit on something.

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:07

I grew up in a time period where I had a rotor dial, wrote a dial phone.

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:10

Right.

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:10

And if I called my friend and he didn't answer at his house, what did I assume?

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:15

Well, I assumed he wasn't home right today.

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:18

If I send you a text message, Kevin, what do I expect a reply?

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:23

And I expect a reply.

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:26

So our customer service expectations have gone through the roof and the

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:30

people coming in line and starting to buy services and products from people.

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:34

We call them the bad word millennials, but they grew up at a

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:38

time where it was instant service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:39

We all have that instant gratification mentality now.

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:42

And I don't want to go back to that rotary dial.

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:45

I did not want to be sitting there trying to, I want to text you

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:49

and I want an immediate response.

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:50

So our customer service has got, has, has, has had to improve greatly

Chris Lalomia: 00:18:57

not only in terms of delivery, but in terms of time and community.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:01

Because we all have an instant gratification mentality in today's world.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:06

And we also have the, the awareness and the education is at least what we think.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:11

So is from the internet on what's supposed to happen when I call you

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:14

to deliver your service or product.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:17

So we have got to work with people who feel like they're hedging.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:21

But maybe uneducated in your product or service, and you've got to educate them.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:25

You got to work in a timeline that is far quicker than it used to be.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:28

And when I started my business, I used to say, guys, you had to have a phone.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:32

I just needed them to have a cell phone.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:34

And most of them have flip phones when I first.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:36

And we had to use GPS to get to places and some guys would still use maps, but

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:41

you look at it today and what we have, we can actually deliver the service quicker

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:44

because we know where our guys are with locators and everybody has tablets.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:48

So we can deliver the service quicker.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:49

We can do it, but the expectation has gone up of time of service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:55

And the quality, I think probably has been the same, but it's that whole

Chris Lalomia: 00:19:59

setting of the expectations and the education of the customer and what

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:02

to really expect when we're coming.

Kevin Dieny: 00:20:05

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:20:06

And that's really fascinating how you've adjusted it for okay.

Kevin Dieny: 00:20:10

The need for more gratification or responsiveness or coverage,

Kevin Dieny: 00:20:16

or, the ability to connect with someone quicker and faster is

Kevin Dieny: 00:20:20

looked at as a very essential thing in customer service these days.

Kevin Dieny: 00:20:24

I think that's really interesting.

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:25

Yeah, that's, that's a huge part for any company right now.

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:28

What's even worse is that when we don't have enough people and you've

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:31

called some of these big monopolies that I won't name Comcast, but, and

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:35

you can't get anybody on the phone to answer and you you're, and then you

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:38

get put in a queue for 25 minutes.

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:41

What do you think I'm doing when I come out of that queue?

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:43

Well, I've learned a little bit, you know that, Hey, look, it's not your

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:46

fault that you're holding on for 25, that I'll hold on for 25 minutes.

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:50

But usually if I've been pent up for twenty-five minutes in a queue and I'm.

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:54

Into a call center agent.

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:55

Most of these people are not hearing, oh, thank you so much for taking my call.

Chris Lalomia: 00:20:59

They're like, oh my God, can you just please answer my questions?

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:06

Uh, yeah, so, so you bring up another interesting thing

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:09

about customer service, which is a business has to be looking at.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:13

The channels that it wants to operate in for customer service, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:18

So the phone is one of them call center.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:21

You mentioned text as well, reviews through, you know, an internet board or

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:25

through Google Reviews or whatever it is, is, you know, a possible another channel

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:29

for a business to, I guess, assess the reviews, but also to handle them with

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:34

have a connection to the customers.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:36

Maybe in the past, the business would say, well, the phone is how I'm going

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:40

to, you know, distribute and connect with customers and, or in person, but

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:44

there's other ways other forms now.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:46

So are they all making an appearance in the world of customer service?

Chris Lalomia: 00:21:52

Absolutely, for us, it has changed.

Chris Lalomia: 00:21:54

Now I'll give you an example.

Chris Lalomia: 00:21:56

When we first started, it was me on the phone and now I have

Chris Lalomia: 00:21:59

four ladies answering the phones.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:00

Well, I have a website and I have a backend to my websites or CRM system

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:04

where we can track our customer.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:06

Our CRM system is integrated into our website, so I was very hesitant to

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:11

turn on what we call online estimate.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:14

Because I was afraid that yeah, we wouldn't be able to

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:17

service them the right way.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:18

So we, we dipped our toe in there.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:20

We got it going.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:21

I got my very first one set up and the lady did it at 200.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:25

What kind of crackpot is setting up an estimate at two o'clock in the morning,

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:28

I said, I'm going to do this one myself.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:30

Right?

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:31

I'm figuring this chick came home from the bar she's hammered.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:34

She probably broke her door down and she wants me to come fix it and for nothing.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:38

And I'm like, this is going to be just a total waste of time.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:41

I went out there.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:42

Sure enough.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:43

She was a third shift emergency room nurse.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:47

And during her break, she was able to go out there and set up an online.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:50

For our estimate and we won that job.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:53

So we were able to show customer service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:55

And so we opened up that channel even more.

Chris Lalomia: 00:22:56

So today you can serve up a home repair request either through the,

Chris Lalomia: 00:23:01

through the internet, on the, and do an online and not having to talk to any.

Chris Lalomia: 00:23:06

You can email us and you can chat with us during working hours while we're here.

Chris Lalomia: 00:23:10

Now we do not yet set up the text messaging for setting it up.

Chris Lalomia: 00:23:13

But what we do after that though, is what we do is we now email and then text the

Chris Lalomia: 00:23:18

confirmation of what we're doing, using those channels to serve those up for

Chris Lalomia: 00:23:22

the service once you're into our system.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:25

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:26

Wow.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:26

That's really, that's gotta be, I mean, I'm imagining myself as a customer, right.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:29

And the customer shoes, it's like the more out, the more ways of access that I

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:34

have to do something the more comfortable.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:37

I think I just am.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:38

I'm imagining myself through.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:39

I feel like because I can choose whichever method or format seems to suit me best,

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:43

you know, finally have a few minutes or I do have the time to pull up the call,

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:47

or if I feel confident doing that, that does seem appealing to me, especially

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:52

like going through the whole process of having a survey six secluded and completed

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:55

that the more, I guess, attuned the businesses to me and making sure that I'm.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:02

I don't necessarily look down on communication, over texts, over emails.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:06

It just to me is the business, making sure, you know, I know

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:09

everything, everything that's going on, everything to expect.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:12

And it does make me think of, wow, this business is a bit more professional or

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:17

knows what they're doing when the level of communication has increased so much.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:23

That's the way I am.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:23

I mean, it's just how I'm thinking about it right here.

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:26

Yeah, and I think I'm right with you on that.

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:28

It's age dependent, with very interesting, the older you are, the

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:31

more you want to pick up the phone and you want to hear somebody on the

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:33

other land and make sure that they're not a fraud and they're not a scam.

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:37

And you want to tell them that you got three doctor's appointments

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:39

and you've got to get over here and you've got to do this.

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:40

Then you've got to get your dry cleaning done.

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:42

And yes, us older people do like to ramble on and do that.

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:46

But with that younger set, that's becoming our client.

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:50

And it's that bad word, millennials.

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:52

They are used to, being able to serve without ever getting served without ever

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:57

having to interact with a human being.

Chris Lalomia: 00:24:58

Think about Uber.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:00

If I would have told my dad growing up, Hey, dad don't need to come get me.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:04

I I'm sorry.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:05

I drank too much at this party and it's hypothetical by the way.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:08

Yeah, but I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna call some random dude and

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:11

they're just going to bring me home.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:12

He'd be like, ah, no, that's called hitchhiking.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:14

I'm going to come get you right now.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:15

What are you thinking?

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:16

And now today, Well, they're all vetted.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:19

They're all background check.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:20

They're all safe.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:21

So we all believe it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:22

Well, yes, they put those processes in place.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:24

But now if today you didn't have an Uber you're sitting out there

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:28

you're slamming your phone and you're like, I can't believe I

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:30

can't get a fricking Uber driver.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:32

And then what are you gonna do to go get on your phone and call somebody?

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:34

Well, no, I'm not going to do that.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:36

I'm going to keep waiting.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:37

So now we'll even resist trying to talk to people.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:40

So serving the customer up the way it's going is going to continue to change.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:45

And I'll give you another great one, then I know I'm going

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:47

out, but this one's great.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:48

So I didn't believe in texting before, the, estimate appointments.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:52

And so I'm training all my guys and one of my guys, this is going

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:54

back three or four years ago now.

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:56

And he said, Chris, why w why did you just leave him a message?

Chris Lalomia: 00:25:59

Because we're running ahead of schedule.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:00

I'm you know, I'm Hey Tom, I'm gonna get there a little early.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:03

I said, I left a message.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:04

He goes, well, why don't you text him?

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:05

I said, dude, this guy is 84 years old.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:07

I've done a lot of work for him.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:08

He's a great repeat customer.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:09

That's why I'm coming out to see him.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:11

I said he doesn't do texts.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:12

He goes, get a shot.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:13

I text the guy back 84 year old, right.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:16

Run a little early Tom, can we show up a little early at your house?

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:18

Take a look at this.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:19

He writes back NP.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:22

No problem.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:23

I'm like, oh my God.

Chris Lalomia: 00:26:23

I just got an NP from an 84 year old.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:30

uh, I know we're seeing it more and more.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:32

And we're seeing, I mean, we're call tracking company.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:35

So we see a lot of stuff involving the phone.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:37

We also handle a lot of the texting stuff.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:39

And so we see, okay, cross channel or cross medium, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:42

Someone goes from phone call.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:43

Now they want chat.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:44

Now they want texts or they want to go be able to go back and forth.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:46

They want ability to do that is increasing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:51

That is something I think that has surprised a lot of people that are

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:55

a lot of businesses in that, if a business is going to stick to be a

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:58

certain way, because this seems to us the best way to deliver the service,

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:03

the customers are going well, maybe I'd like the text or the email or both,

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:07

or the ability to jump around or, get immediate response when I expect it

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:10

like a text or call, to have a more lengthy conversation when I desire it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:15

So that, that does mean a business.

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:18

I mean, I'm looking at it from like a company that provides tools like this.

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:21

It's like, well, does that mean a business needs to have people to

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:24

answer the phones and we need people to answer the texts and we need

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:26

people to answer, chats on websites.

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:28

We need people to respond to reviews.

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:30

It starts to be like, wow, is this is customer service going to be so

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:34

expensive for businesses to maintain?

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:38

Yeah, that's a great question on whether or not

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:39

it's going to be more expensive.

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:41

I think it's going to be a necessity.

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:43

You just hit.

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:44

If you aren't, if you're providing a service, you'll need to have all

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:47

three of those available to you.

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:49

And, and you'll have to be able to know that monitor those

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:52

channels and you're right.

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:53

I know I'm thinking about it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:54

I was like, well, in one respect, it might be cheaper because when I

Chris Lalomia: 00:27:57

turned on this online booking, we were getting inundated with calls.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:01

And at the time I only had two people answering the phone.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:03

So I'm up to four now, but what I found is consistently we watched these,

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:08

number one, are they quality leads?

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:09

Yes, they are.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:10

They're quality inquiries.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:11

We're actually closing just as many of them as ones who call in.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:15

What I found is that right now, 15% of what we go look at for online

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:20

estimates is coming through the online booking, meaning they never talked

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:23

to one of my ladies in the office.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:24

So in some respects, I'm like, does that mean I've saved another head count

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:28

or I've saved a call center expense?

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:31

Maybe.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:31

I don't know.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:32

I'm still trying to wait out myself.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:33

I don't, I wish I had the answer because you said that I was like, I don't know.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:36

You're right.

Chris Lalomia: 00:28:36

Maybe, but, but I don't know.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:39

Yeah, no, we've seen that because we look, we look at it like this.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:43

If you have someone picking up the phone, that's a person who's on

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:46

the phone, but they can't be on the phone with three people at once.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:48

They can't even be on the phone with two people at once.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:50

So they're on the phone with one person at one time.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:53

And we look at that as like, Hey, that's a coverage limitation.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:56

And obviously being so focused on that one call does deliver a real time, very

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:02

personal experience for the caller.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:05

And so that's maybe what thereafter, but texts chats, risk reviews, emails.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:12

There's a little bit of a delay, but simultaneously you could be responding

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:15

to two or three, you can have multiple conversations happening at the same time.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:20

Maybe your web inquiries, you can have one come in and the texts come in, you

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:24

can be like, Hey, respond to the texts, go right back to the inquiry versus a call.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:27

I'm all in on this call right this second.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:29

And if I do get distracted, 'cause I'm trying to be on the call and answer

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:33

to answer texts or web inquiries.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:35

I mean, some people are very talented multitaskers not to diminish that,

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:38

but it does, it does mean that the call has become secondary.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:43

So I think you're on, I think you're on to something.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:47

I think when you do allow all these other channels, it makes it so that maybe if

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:52

there was only one channel, there'd be there have to be less going on there.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:56

And the channels that you can do in tandem or simultaneously to respond

Kevin Dieny: 00:30:01

to two texts or two chats at the same time, I think that represents like a win

Kevin Dieny: 00:30:05

for the business in terms of coverage.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:08

Yeah, I, I, I, it is, our first foray into it was

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:11

really allowing the chat messages.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:13

So the lady answering the phone, I could, at the time I had two, and I

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:17

only gave the chat feature to one.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:20

I saw her on the phone and chatting with somebody at the same time, back

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:23

and forth on the web, because there's always that delay back and forth.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:26

Please give me your address, I can set you up.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:28

And I remember watching the transcript after she was done, and it was funny.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:33

You could tell there was no way this person was gonna call.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:36

There there's no way.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:37

And cause you know, they're trying to explain their project and she would

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:40

ask a couple clarifying questions and come back with two more paragraphs.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:44

I'm like it probably would have been done quicker on a phone call in this situation.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:49

But there you knew there was no way this person was going to call you.

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:52

And the example I give is how many times have you ever pulled up to a gas station?

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:57

You go out there and you take your credit card and you put it

Chris Lalomia: 00:30:59

into the credit card pump and it says card invalid, go see cashier.

Chris Lalomia: 00:31:03

Nope, I'm going to try another card.

Chris Lalomia: 00:31:05

Nope, all right, then I'm going to somebody else, but I'm not

Chris Lalomia: 00:31:07

going in to see that cashier and talk to somebody one-on-one and

Chris Lalomia: 00:31:10

say put 50 bucks on pump three.

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:14

I know that's that's, that's something.

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:16

I only thought younger people did.

Chris Lalomia: 00:31:18

Yeah, Yeah, right?

Chris Lalomia: 00:31:20

Nope, not Mr.

Chris Lalomia: 00:31:20

Impatient.

Chris Lalomia: 00:31:23

That's what I tell people.

Chris Lalomia: 00:31:24

I'm the oldest, the oldest, uh, gen X guy you've ever met almost baby boomer.

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:30

So let's say around customer service, you got all this stuff going now.

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:35

Who's responsible for that in the business.

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:37

You know what I mean?

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:37

There's a lot of different businesses out there, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:39

There's a lot of small businesses, local businesses.

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:42

There's lots of business types, but generally speaking, customer

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:45

service being important.

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:48

Who is who should be responsible?

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:49

Should it be like a dedicated person or is that like an owner in a lot of cases?

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:53

How important maybe is that to have as a dedicated person, own customer service

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:58

experience, stuff like that in a business.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:00

I think it's size dependent for sure.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:03

And you can, when you're a small business, you don't have that many resources,

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:06

you're number one, you are the number one girder of your profitability and

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:11

number one, cause you got to have many hats, but you're really okay.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:14

So number two, you guard your customer service and customer experience

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:18

with your life in the beginning.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:20

So the question I would go back and answer is how do you begin to delegate

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:23

the responsibility for customer experience in different types of.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:27

So my first, my first touch call, uh, superstars are

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:31

the ones who make it happen.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:33

Where that first phone call.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:34

When my guys go out to do a sales call and do an estimate they're number two.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:38

And then when my guys who actually go out there and get the work

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:40

done, get things knocked out.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:42

They're the ones who are number three.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:44

I put incentives in place to make sure that they all understand that

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:48

we're there for customer experience.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:51

And that is the hard one to get across again.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:53

You got to really hit after.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:55

I think I built a culture, that we're all in it for the customer.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:57

We're a customer first organization.

Chris Lalomia: 00:32:59

That's right on our, our mission plaque, which is in our training

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:01

room, but they all have it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:03

So the incentives for the ladies in the office, that answer the phones and

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:07

actually do the scheduling is how many estimates they can or how many jobs

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:11

they book right out of the office.

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:13

And they get an extra bonus.

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:15

My, sales guys are out there in the field.

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:17

They're 100% commission.

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:18

So I think we figured out how there, I think we'd have how they're motivated, but

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:22

with our technicians, I actually pay them an extra 25 bucks for every good review.

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:27

They get.

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:28

And I'm not paying for bad review.

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:30

I'm not paying people to put fake reviews in cause that's not what customers do.

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:35

But I know if I see a review that comes in off Google, that's worth me

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:39

spending thousands of dollars with a company to go out there and do a survey.

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:43

Because if you're willing to put your fingers on a keyboard, when a

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:46

person finishes a service for you and take the time to go on your

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:49

phone and open up Google and actually put a review in for them, you know,

Chris Lalomia: 00:33:53

that that customer really believed that guy or that lady did a great.

Kevin Dieny: 00:33:57

This is really important, I think.

Kevin Dieny: 00:33:58

Cause how you manage it, who's responsible for it right at the,

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:02

at the smaller you are, definitely.

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:04

I, I, I see that too, we see that too.

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:06

Oftentimes being like okay the owner maybe as it expands, there's someone who's in

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:11

that role or more responsible for the experience of certain, maybe the phone

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:15

handlers, maybe the technicians, the teams that are more interacting with customers

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:19

in some way or consumers and other ways.

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:21

So, yeah, I can see as growth happens, maybe there's dependent roles there too.

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:27

So the idea of the incentivizing is really, really, really clever.

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:32

So, do you find that incentivizing for customer experience or customer service?

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:39

It works?

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:40

Do you see that, that, that is a good method, maybe a good way to that

Kevin Dieny: 00:34:43

businesses could consider doing it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:34:45

That is the result.

Chris Lalomia: 00:34:46

That is not the motivator.

Chris Lalomia: 00:34:48

The motivator has gotta be you, your training and your culture

Chris Lalomia: 00:34:52

building a hundred percent.

Chris Lalomia: 00:34:53

Do I believe that if I took away those incentives today, I think

Chris Lalomia: 00:34:57

my team would still do everything that they would do because they

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:00

take self-pride in what they do.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:02

And this comes into the leadership around customer service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:05

And if you put the onus on them to say you are responsible for the company, and we

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:10

actually have that on our mission plaque that says you are the face of our company.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:13

When you're interacting with the customer, it's not Chris.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:16

It is you.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:17

And you're leaving your personal legacy with that person.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:20

And when you're saying that to people, if you have people who really care about

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:24

themselves and want to go home at night and go, yeah, I did a good job today and

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:28

I have now self-actualized and I feel I am now fulfilled on what I've done, because

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:34

we all have been through those days and know those people who just go in there

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:37

and punch the clock and can't stand it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:39

And that's of course dating myself as well.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:42

But because I did actually punch a clock at one point in my life, but you

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:46

know, you go home, you're not fulfilled.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:47

And now an unfulfilled unhappy.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:51

Is now going to start taking it out on customers.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:54

So they're fulfilled knowing that they're taking care of people.

Chris Lalomia: 00:35:57

And then the result is they get a few extra bucks in their pocket

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:01

because now that's, what's in it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:02

For me, I'm taking care of my own family.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:04

One of the things I preach all the time is if, what you're thinking about at

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:08

9:00 AM, 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM is how much money I made in the last hour.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:12

Then you're not thinking about your life, the right way, not your

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:15

job, your life, because our life is a lot more than just making.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:19

It is about doing the best you can do at the thing you've been asked to do

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:23

and leaving a legacy, your personal legacy and what you've done that day.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:28

And when you get those kinds of people bought in like that, because

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:31

I've done it, you know, I I've gone out there and met, you know, when

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:33

I first started the business, oh my God, I didn't sell that job.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:36

Oh my God, how am I going to make the ends meet?

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:37

I go to the next job and I basically give it away.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:40

I didn't do it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:41

Right.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:41

I just gave it away so I could get the.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:44

Well, that's not doing your job the right way.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:45

Cause I didn't guard my profitability.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:48

And if I was, and again, there's only three of us in the company

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:50

at the time I'm giving stuff away.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:51

I'm like, well, if I'm the number one gardener of my profitability

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:54

and number two customer service, I didn't do either of that.

Chris Lalomia: 00:36:57

When I backed off and said, man, I just knew right by the customer, I'm going

Chris Lalomia: 00:37:00

to give a customer first experience.

Chris Lalomia: 00:37:02

Guess what starts to happen?

Chris Lalomia: 00:37:04

Good things started to happen that check every week.

Chris Lalomia: 00:37:06

And then the check every two weeks starts to pay off because you're doing

Chris Lalomia: 00:37:09

those habits and taking care of things.

Chris Lalomia: 00:37:11

And everyday you go home and go, you know what?

Chris Lalomia: 00:37:12

I had a good day today and maybe I had a bad day today, but I overcame,

Chris Lalomia: 00:37:15

I adapted and I got through it and tomorrow is going to be better.

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:18

the thing that really stood out there to me too, is

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:21

like happy employees, well managed employees, employees in an environment

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:28

where they are motivated besides the, you know, like obviously.

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:33

Once monetary things.

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:35

And that's important to, to find compensation that way, but is motivated

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:39

also by like doing a great job or following the process, or there's lots

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:43

of things people can find joy in doing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:45

But if you have that employees who are more motivated, happier, more satisfied,

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:50

they, they see their future going in the right direction or something.

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:53

You may be creating an environment where we're great customer service

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:56

comes out of just who the employees are.

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:59

So that that's, that was really interesting that you.

Kevin Dieny: 00:38:02

You mentioned that to me.

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:04

That's such an important point back to customer service.

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:06

Customer service is sales.

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:08

And if we go back to this, when I said, when we first opened

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:11

up, it costs $5 for every.

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:14

$5 to get a customer, $1 to keep them.

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:17

And that $1 I'm spending is on employees and making sure that things are happening.

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:21

And of course, I'm spent a lot more than that, but the point is happy

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:24

employees make happy customers, make happy transactions, and I

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:28

can prove to you, you can't use.

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:29

The balance sheet or you can't show it in the P and L statement, but I can

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:34

guarantee you that repeat business that I've got has come from happy employees

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:38

and people doing things the right way.

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:40

And they take great pride in having people call back and say, I really want to talk

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:44

to Cindy in my office, and I really want to have Greg come out and do my estimate.

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:48

And please, can you have Diego do the work when he comes out?

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:51

And so when they're naming them by names, and I talk about that with.

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:55

You can tell you everybody just kind of Wells up with a little bit of

Chris Lalomia: 00:38:59

pride when they're in a group setting.

Chris Lalomia: 00:39:00

So that's the leadership, leadership and customer service is the right way.

Chris Lalomia: 00:39:05

So is your company got a party going on or is it a more going on?

Chris Lalomia: 00:39:09

Cause you don't want to be working in the morgue.

Chris Lalomia: 00:39:11

I mean, no offense to people who have mortuary science.

Chris Lalomia: 00:39:12

I know it's very important.

Chris Lalomia: 00:39:14

You know what I mean?

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:17

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:18

Yeah, no, no, that's fantastic.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:19

So I guess the big lingering last question I'd have here is for leaders of businesses

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:27

who feel like they're struggling with this, what strategies tips, what things do

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:33

you think you could give them in the next minute or two minutes or so, or whatever

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:38

it is that they could take and feel like, okay, this is like an actionable thing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:44

I can go back.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:45

And have some confidence that maybe I could fix this,

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:48

or maybe I should fix this.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:49

Is there any way you think you could provide something for a struggling,

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:53

a business who's struggling with customer service and how

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:56

they could resolve or help that.

Chris Lalomia: 00:39:58

Regardless of size, the first thing, they call it line of

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:01

sight and aligning your, your ideas.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:04

And what's in your crazy head and getting line of sight from your

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:08

employees to where you're trying to go.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:10

We all want to be part of something bigger.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:12

That's part of the human element.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:13

We all want to know that we're part of something bigger out there, and they want

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:16

to know where you're going as a company.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:18

And you've got to know you are the one who's putting us on that trajectory.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:21

So line of sight, and it's as simple as.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:25

Getting everybody together for just one hour.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:28

All you have to do is just take one hour, take one hour of them off the field,

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:31

off the phones, away from making money.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:34

And guess what?

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:35

That was a hard part for me in training too, was taking them out of making money.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:39

And I started to see the returns.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:41

And so we would talk about this is where we're trying to go.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:43

Right, right now we're a $5 billion business, but we want to get to 10 and

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:46

here's how we're going to get to 10.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:47

And here's how you play your part in that.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:49

Yeah, everybody asks what's in it for me, but they want to know

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:52

they're part of something bigger.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:53

Give them line of sight and then follow up with them and always

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:56

praise publicly and correct.

Chris Lalomia: 00:40:59

One-on-one so doing those things early on is big.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:04

And then you can, you can process and you can incentivize all you want, but you

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:10

gotta get healthy, empowered employees to start taking care of customers and

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:15

doing that by first off, just do it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:17

That's number one, number two is asking them how they think

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:21

we could serve our customers.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:24

And then when you hear that, boy, I heard I get, I'll give you a great one.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:27

It just happened yesterday.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:28

I had a, my technician advisory board and every one of them said, can we

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:32

start taking payments at point of sale?

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:34

We need card swipes because customers are looking at us going

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:37

well, this is kind of weird.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:39

I'm like, you know, I didn't do that in the beginning because man,

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:42

we're just a handyman company.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:43

I mean, I, I thought now these, our customers are expecting it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:47

And my guy said it would be a lot easier for us.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:49

And I took that all out of their hands in the field saying I don't

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:52

want my technicians and my handyman to have to worry about taking payments.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:55

We'll take care of it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:56

So we're actually going to implement it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:57

I'm working on it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:41:58

Started a meeting this morning.

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:00

So ask them, how do we serve our customers better and be ready to take

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:04

it to cause as leaders, sometimes it's kinda hard to take some.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:09

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:09

So, you know, this is a topic I'm sure there's an entire pot,

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:12

there are entire podcasts on there's entire books written on.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:15

So there's, this is like a very deep topic and, and someone who's listening, I

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:20

think may, is, may have found some really great insights, some tips and some ideas.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:25

Maybe they've been able to relate with a lot of things that you've been

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:27

able to say, but is there anything.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:30

You felt maybe through all this that we haven't hit on or

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:34

that you'd want to add to the discussion, uh, before we close out?

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:39

Yeah, the probably the one thing I would talk about it is hard.

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:42

We talked about this big mountain to go up, but start with something small.

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:46

My training started ground up and I said, in the beginning I wasn't

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:50

going to train the technicians.

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:51

Cause you know, I was up to five, six guys.

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:53

Now I have to bring them in.

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:55

I'd take them off the field.

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:56

The training was up to me.

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:57

It was too much to do.

Chris Lalomia: 00:42:58

I was doing it on Tuesday nights, doing it on Wednesday mornings.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:03

Just do it start.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:04

And I did.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:05

And I started with literally a piece of white paper on an easel,

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:09

and that was my initial training.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:11

And today I've got, I've got special effects.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:13

I've got.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:14

TV.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:15

I've got a huge colorful room.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:16

We got music pumping.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:17

Everybody comes in.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:18

We've got it really down now, but it's just took me 13 years to do

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:21

it, but you can always start small.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:23

So what can you do?

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:24

You can start small, start with just getting together.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:28

And if you think you need some help, I mean, you know, you're going to put all

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:32

this stuff and show notes or ping me.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:33

I'll tell you how to get it started.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:34

Cause it's just an easel.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:35

That's all you need an easel with a little piece of white paper.

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:38

Based on that, Chris and since you've just mentioned

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:41

it too, but let's say someone's listening to this episode and they

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:44

want to be able to reach out to you.

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:45

They want to connect with you.

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:46

They want to learn more about what you do or your company's, uh,

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:50

what the Institute is all about.

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:51

How can people find you and connect with you?

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:54

Yeah, so you can find me, uh, first of all, it's

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:56

customer service dot freak.

Chris Lalomia: 00:43:58

I'm on Tik Tok believe it or not, and Instagram I'm also on Facebook.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:02

That's my name, Chris Lalomia.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:04

You can always just email me, chris@thetrustedtoolbox.com.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:08

Happy to talk to anybody for 30 minutes about this topic.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:11

Do it all the time.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:13

You know, we've done a lot.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:14

I actually started my own podcast just to help people get into the.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:17

World of small business ownership out of corporate America.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:20

So I have a phone with that, but love to talk to anybody about all of that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:44:24

What's your podcast name?

Kevin Dieny: 00:44:25

Just so in case anyone's curious.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:27

Yeah, it's called the Small Business Safari and it's, that's

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:31

my leap from the zoo to the wild.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:32

And I have a lot of fun with it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:34

As we like to say, it's gritty and insightful.

Chris Lalomia: 00:44:37

But there's more grit than there is insight.

Kevin Dieny: 00:44:43

Uh, that's fantastic.

Kevin Dieny: 00:44:44

Well, thank you, Chris.

Kevin Dieny: 00:44:45

Thank you for coming on for diving into this topic with us.

Kevin Dieny: 00:44:48

I think, you know, for a lot of people who are listening, at least the things

Kevin Dieny: 00:44:51

I was hoping that people would walk away from was how important and essential

Kevin Dieny: 00:44:55

customer services for businesses, how much of a priority it can.

Kevin Dieny: 00:44:58

It is.

Kevin Dieny: 00:44:59

How much just like the title, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:01

How much customer service can impact sales, how much it can

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:03

impact your, your profits that the business needs to put in place.

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:07

Even if they start small, like you've said, Chris, with trainings, with

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:11

processes, they need to value it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:12

They need, they need to know what the business is all about.

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:15

And finally, you know, This is something that if you need help,

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:21

you may need help with, right.

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:22

So maybe find other businesses, find contact, Chris, find

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:26

others that are doing it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:27

Well, I'm sure it's something that people would want to talk about and share.

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:29

Yeah, this is how I overcame the other problem with achieving this or ask your

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:33

team, like you mentioned, Chris, see what ideas they have for customer service.

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:37

So I think, all in all, this was a really great episode and I hope

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:41

you've gotten a lot out of this.

Kevin Dieny: 00:45:42

And again, thanks Chris for coming on.

Chris Lalomia: 00:45:44

I really enjoyed it.

Chris Lalomia: 00:45:46

Hopefully it comes across.

Chris Lalomia: 00:45:47

I'm pretty passionate about this subject and have a lot of energy around it.