[Jim Gibbard]

Do we overlook the obvious sometimes because it is right in front of us, or do we endlessly search for something we already have.  Saying's spring to mind, such as "Can't see the wood for the trees" & " The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". 

We worry whether our websites are going to work for us, how do we maximise our Search Engine Optimisation, make sure we have the correct domain name.  Are our leaflets the best design they can be, can we get more enquiries by tweaking it here and there.  Are our Yp ads the best we can make them.  Shall we do classified ads this month.

We seem to spend most of our time ( if you are anything like me ) looking for new customers to fill our books.  Why don't we just get back to basics.  Spend the most amount of our time and effort on people who know what we can do, rather than try to convince people who have no clue to our capabilities.  Yes, I know, it's great to sell a £150 job on the phone, but we have to wait for that phone call.  That is rather reactive and perhaps more of us need to be proactive.

This was brought home to me recently in my second life in Internet Marketing.  The main theme throughout IM is; "The Money Is In The List".  In other words repeatedly selling to loyal customers who have signed up with you and who trust you.  Very similar to all of our past satisfied cleaning customers.

With this in mind, I called in to a social club we have cleaned before from top to bottom.  Had a chat with the secretary, asking what they needed doing in the near future.  He asked for a quote on 2 specific jobs.  I explained what we could do for him and promised a quote.

I quoted the 2 jobs,  £1,750.00 total,  ( of which £200 would be to hire specialist equipment ).  Got the work, without any questions, probably 2 and a half to 3 days work.  I am also fairly sure that there is more work we can get once we are on site. 

So, did it take hours and hours of leaflet delivery or £££'s spent on advertising, no, just a personal call on a previously satisfied customer.  Total time involved, initial visit 10 minutes, typing quote 10 minutes, personally delivering quote, 10 minutes.  Yes, just half an hour.  Boosted by this, I called on another past customer,  called at just the right time, needed £500 cleaning job done a.s.a.p.   

I keep records of jobs, but not properly.  I shall be from now on though.  In fact, I am thinking of getting a program purpose built to keep track of customers and maximise repeat income from them. 

I know you all probably do this already, but if you don't, you really don't know what you could be missing!!

Jim Gibbard

[Mike Osbourne]

Jim

Can I have a look at some of your IM sites, sounds interesting.

[Simon@arenaclean]

Great idea! This is just a little thing I do.

I keep a file of post cards on each job. I put customer name and contact details and anything I discovered about them during conversation, kids, ages, favourite food even the dogs name and details I need to remember about the job, what chemicals I used and results. When I go back I just refresh my memory. None of us can remember everything but it is really a help when you can ask how their daughter is doing at uni and say hello to Killer the doberman, just because you jotted a note down. It's also handy as my personal reference library.

It took me a long time to learn customers/people are interested in one thing. Themselves and their world. The most important thing we can can do is listen and learn.

By the way I learnt this technique from my wife's hairdresser. The missus always said how it was amazing how she could remember our kids names and their interests so I went to see her and she showed me her sketch file with notes on various customers. Brilliant and it works.

Simon

[Jim Gibbard]

Simon,
That's a great idea for customer info database, all customers info.  When they book a job, you just print out
that customer's  personal info sheet, and you impress them with your memory of their family details.  They will love you for it !!

Mike,
Working on a few sites at the moment, most in production stage. 
One  I have up and running is one promoting the new electronic book reader from Amazon.

http://www.kindle2atamazon.com

Jim

[Mike Osbourne]

Looks very good Jim.

Those devices are getting better and better.

re cue cards. Good idea.

I hate it when a custy rings up and says Hi it's Mrs So and so from Laburnum Grove and I just ain't got a clue unless I got my Outlook on.

[Buster Ingram]

Be very carefull what information you keep about people there is a law and its call data protection. if your client knew you kept personal details about them they could have plenty to say about it, in front of a man with a white wig on ( get my drift)
Now keeping details of work carried out and chemicals used is fine because that is part of what your doing in your work and is of help to you but anything else is a NO NO.

[Simon@arenaclean]

It's ok my cards self destruct But I follow your point, i'll eat after reading.

[Mike Osbourne]

When my notes say PITA it means they like Greek food.

[Jim Gibbard]

Dave,
It's not me you need to worry about, it is the law makers themselves, the government who sell off your personal information to the "Wheelclampers & Vehicle Remover's Club", and any organisation willing to pay them.  They are hardly in a position to imprison anyone who reveals Mrs. Jones' dog is called "Fido", and their last holiday was in Spain. 

The Data protection act obviously applies to everyone except the government.  They are not that great at protecting data anyway, they seem to make a habit of losing data discs containing the private information of every man woman and child in the U.K.  That's great data protection.  Hardly a shining example!!

I have yet to see a prosecution under the act in the news.

Jim

[Jim_77]

Hands up who's a registered data controller?  (I am)

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Go on then Jim, please reveal what a data controller is, sounds exciting.

Cheers

Doug

[daysdeepclean]

I'm quite possibly alone on this one, but if my window cleaner remembered my kids names, the dogs names and how many sugars I have in my tea, I'd feel a tad uncomfortable. This is just me thinking/talking from a consumers point of view and I'm sure that a lot of your customers love their carpet cleaner giving them the "This is your life" treatment.... Quite simply, in my humble opinion, it's creepy!

I do have a good raport (Is that how you spell it?) with most  if not nearly all of my customers and I can remember enough to have a conversation.

A hairdresser has to work "on" the person so needs to keep the conversation going, not that I've been to a hairdressers for many many years now!

This isn't a dig at anyone, like I said it's just my humble opinion  

[Bob Robertson]

The file system is a technique used by sales people I was taught that at an ADT training school. Another one was to put them into areas, that way when you were in that area you could drop in a leaflet or any offers you had. This was all about time management and saving fuel as you were in the area.


Bob

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

How can you be prosecuted for just remembering things about people?

Data protection is more about not sharing what you have with other people unless you have the original owner's permission.

Oh, and it doesn't matter how the information is recorded-it doesn't just relate to electronic records.

But this gets away from the main thrust of Jim's comment which was it is more profitable to service existing customers than continually be looking for new customers.

Servicing existing customers by definition you will go to more often and often the job ticket will be greater because they are confident they are getting value for money. Additionally you know how to get to their property, how you are going to set up and tackle the order of jobs and not having to spend time "selling" to them.

THis is something I have been banging on about in quite a few of my historic posts, so Jim, you are preaching to the converted but I'm really glad you brought the subject up again.

[colin thomas]

flippin' eck, some of you lot must be bored!!!  if you happen to remember the dogs name or the customers children by name how are they ever going to know that you made a note of it, i bump into people all the time who call me by name and i can't remember them for the life of me, i don't suspect that they have a file on me, i just assume they have more brain cells than i have!!

colin

[Jim_77]

Hi Guys

Go on then Jim, please reveal what a data controller is, sounds exciting.

Cheers

Doug

Not really, just costs you 35 quid a year to LEGALLY use the data you collect or buy and then store

The Data Protection Act requires all organisations which handle personal information to comply with a number of important principles regarding privacy and disclosure.

The Act states that anyone who processes personal information must comply with eight principles.

http://www.ico.gov.uk/