Things like product quality, deliveries on time, marketing suites and so on are of course all important factors when it comes to running a window and door installation business. But perhaps the most important factor of them all is customer service. Without good service, everything else becomes irrelevant. In this age of immense product choice and increasing levels of business, customer service is the key factor for any business.
An example
At our place we are lucky to work with a number of great suppliers; John Fredericks, Solidor, Brisant, Evolution, Building Plastics Centre and Prefix. All give us great service we can rely on. It makes our lives that little bit easier when dealing with our home owners. And it was Prefix most recently that went out of their way to help us with a quotation for a home owner.
I had visited their stand at the FIT Show and saw their impressive new Verandah product. It caught my eye, and I’ll probably be having one for myself once my garden renovations have been completed! Once I was back at work, I went to see a home owner who was looking to replace their tired timber door canopy and supports. I immediately though of the Verandah product as a contemporary solution for the home owner.
However, for a door canopy, the Verandah product was too large to be condensed to create a door canopy. But Prefix didn’t let that stop them. Two guys called Steve Hoyle and Tim Harris and other within their teams got their heads together to create a bespoke solution that included design hints from the Verandah product, but in a condensed fashion that could be used as a door canopy. The end result was very sleek indeed, and the home owner signed up to have the work done.
Prefix could have simply come back and said no, they can’t do anything, sorry. And they would have been within their rights to do so. But they didn’t. Instead, they went out of their way to create something completely bespoke, something that at the time did not exist, in order to give us and the home owner an option. And it paid off with the home owner going ahead with the work.
Nothing else matters
This is just one example of how excellent customer service pays off. You can have the best products in the world, the best marketing in the world, the best sales staff in the world, but if you don’t have the customer service to back it up, then it doesn’t matter.
Poor customer service can ruin relationships. If reps never visit their installers then they can feel ignored. If suppliers don’t rectify their mistakes, both the installer and home owner can be left with a negative experience. If a company doesn’t constantly review their service, they can drift and let standards slip.
So often, quality customer service at all levels of business creates new business. It’s something that has worked for us for 35 years and has helped form a great reputation for us locally. Customer service hasn’t always been an area where our industry has excelled in. Perhaps if we all spent a bit more time and effort on this area of business, things would improve.
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