Customer Service & Dispatching Alignment: Part 1
Is your dispatching team in alignment with your technicians? Do your front-line employees provide service that creates loyal customers—or are they just moving through calls?
When the summer rush hits, your team’s ability to communicate clearly and deliver a seamless experience can make or break customer loyalty. Clients don’t just want fast service—they want to feel seen, understood, and confident that your company is on top of it.
On this week’s episode, Weldon Long sits down with Gary Elekes to talk smart dispatching and quality customer service. Learn how internal communication, clear processes, and small personal touches can transform your operations—and turn every service call into a powerful trust-building opportunity.
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Audio Transcription (in beta, please be wary of typos)
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;08;06
On today’s show, customer service and dispatch.
00;00;08;09 – 00;00;27;01
Now, as you know, the customer service team are the first people to come in contact with your home owners. So it’s important that we spend the time and energy to train them in that area. Today we have some special content from yours truly and Mr. Gary. Alex, my dear friend on the customer service and dispatching process. Take it away, Gary.
00;00;27;03 – 00;00;40;25
We were in Dallas. Do camera and I were teaching a marketing workshop. I saw it on social media, and we went to a, went to a steakhouse, which is one of the better steakhouses around this place called Al Bernhardt’s. And, they don’t do a lot of advertising. So you kind of got to know about this place, but it’s packed.
00;00;40;25 – 00;00;58;06
It’s always busy. And, we were talking to the waiter there. The server, and his name was Jesse, and Jesse’s, it’s like, hey, man, you guys are great. We appreciate it. Where are you gonna eat the rest of the week? When I was thinking about Italian, I’m thinking about, you know, whatever. Mexican. And he’s like, why don’t you come here?
00;00;58;08 – 00;01;14;22
I’ll make you Mexican. And we’re like, what? Like we’re. We’re at a steakhouse. We’re not thinking Mexican. And so he says, no, you come here tomorrow. And he said, I will cook with you and I’ll have the chef come out. So he brings the chef out and the chef is there. And he said, we will make you a Mexican fiesta.
00;01;14;22 – 00;01;29;16
Wow. And we’re like, yeah, but you’re a steakhouse. And he’s like, no, no, no, no, no, we can cook here. So we showed up the next day. The place was absolutely just jammed on Thursday night. They’ve got a reserved table over there for us in the bar. People are trying to get to this table, and Jesse’s defending the turf.
00;01;29;18 – 00;01;48;04
We sat down and these guys just said, we’re going to cook for you today. You don’t get to order off of any menu. We’re just going to bring you things. And so they just kept bringing things, tequila included, of course. And so by the time we were done, the experience at that restaurant, from the Mexican point of view of the Mexican food, it was fabulous.
00;01;48;06 – 00;02;09;22
And so we all kind of walked out of there and went, this is this is what customer experience really is about. It’s about making people feel exceptional. It’s about making people feel great about your brand. So when we talk about customer service, we talk about dispatch. We’re talking about client experience. The lesson that we all have to take away is that while we’re doing heating and air conditioning, we’re not cooking Mexican or steaks or whatever we’re doing.
00;02;09;25 – 00;02;24;28
It’s how you make people feel, not necessarily whether the work was done right or wrong. Right. And so we need to make sure our team understands the nature of client experience and how we’re going to deliver that. And I think the biggest question that we always ask ourselves is, you know, how do we get you or me or anyone else?
00;02;24;28 – 00;02;45;15
That’s not us as the owner of a company, to be as passionate and loyal and extreme about the work of customer experience. Jesse is a team member. He’s an employee of advocates now. He’s been there 19 years, but he didn’t have to do that. So instead of us going to a different restaurant, he brought us back to their restaurant.
00;02;45;16 – 00;03;04;16
So their ticket, that ticket was about $1,400 when we were done. So there’s four of us. So I don’t know what the average ticket is there, but it’s probably 350 bucks. Yeah, exactly. For, for for a restaurant that’s probably pretty good. And I’m talking about it in class the next day where there’s, you know, 50 people and I’m talking about it now, and I’ll probably be talking about for years to come.
00;03;04;19 – 00;03;20;03
So I think the lesson for us is just making sure we understand what the definition of client experience is for our clients, so that we can train and develop and work with our people and make sure that they they deliver what we expect them to deliver. And that’s the hard part about this discussion. You know what I love about that story?
00;03;20;03 – 00;03;44;20
It’s funny because, you hear the kind of the legendary stories about Walt Disney or Neiman Marcus and these and these big, you know, big companies. And I think it’s easy for us to say, oh, that’s easy for them. They’ve got millions of dollars or billions of dollars to deliver that service. This was one restaurant. This was one restaurant that decided to go the extra mile and to produce a not just a service, but an experience.
00;03;44;20 – 00;04;02;26
And not only did Gary go back the next night with his crew, and spend an additional 4000 bucks, but I’m pretty sure next time you’re in Dallas, you’re going to go there, guaranteed. And anybody you talk to about going to Dallas, you’re going to tell them to go there. And that’s what it’s all about. When we talk about customer experience, it goes far beyond the scope of the service.
00;04;02;28 – 00;04;25;10
Right? The service is the basic necessity we have to deliver. If somebody calls up that service, that experience starts with your dispatcher, which is why we’re going to talk about that today. It then goes to your service technician and then goes to the, you know, the interaction with the homeowner, any kind of follow up happy calls. In my company, we have a very, a very deliberate, process.
00;04;25;10 – 00;04;42;11
When somebody calls in that’s unhappy for any reason, goes to one of the owners of the company, and that person gets involved with a technician dedicated to that process that goes out and make sure every customer is 100% satisfied. Of course, they get the reviews. And what Gary is going to be talking about today. Yes, the dispatcher is the first in line.
00;04;42;13 – 00;04;59;11
The waiter at that restaurant was the first in line, but very quickly it went to a much broader perspective with the cook and with other people that had to go out and make sure they had the food the next day to get the the meals that you want to cook. What an extraordinary example. And a small company, which means we can do it too.
00;04;59;18 – 00;05;18;29
And it’s critically important. And your residential services business to get out there and blow the minds of your customer righteous that wow experience and leave them like, holy cow, that was really, really amazing. What a great story here. Yeah, not a chain, right? Just like us independent entrepreneurs. You know, one other add I’ll give to that. When we walked in the door.
00;05;19;00 – 00;05;43;01
They do have a couple of young ladies there that are at a podium that are sort of scheduling, you know, the flow. Hey, where do you want to do you have a reservation? But they recognized us right away and they went, oh you’re with Jesse. So Jesse had pre-planned that conversation. So if you look at sort of bullet point one there, which is the communication, pattern between the technicians, you know, the CSRs and the dispatch function.
00;05;43;04 – 00;06;04;21
We’ll talk about huddles and we’ll talk about the meeting rhythm type of discussions. The awareness of the fact that somebody was coming in that Jesse was Jesse had communicated that to that team and they, you know, were excited to see us. Yeah. So that’s free. It doesn’t cost anything. It’s attitude. It’s mindset, I think. Did you write a book of mindset?
00;06;04;22 – 00;06;30;18
I did write a book that I thought maybe you wrote a book up mindset. I did think, New York, the blood, the principle of just being, you know, it’s choice. It’s free, and it’s how people feel. So the culture of the business obviously is a great business, a great culture. But I can just tell you that the people in that organization are wired tight to be able to make sure they understand how to make sure that we, we, had a great experience.
00;06;30;20 – 00;06;56;16
One of the most important lessons in my business career I’ve learned from Gary, and I’ve learned a lot of them. Believe me, our company, is tracking for 10 million. If you count our acquisition, probably 12 to 13 million, this year profitably. And so much of what we do at my company, are things that were directly or indirectly taught from Gary that I just have the benefit of traveling with him and speaking with him and being around backstage, and you hear things.
00;06;56;16 – 00;07;16;07
And one of the things I learned from Gary is he always says that strategy will trump our, excuse me, culture will Trump strategy every single time. The best laid out strategy, the best planning, will fall apart in the absence of the wrong culture. And when you think about, you know, you said the maitre d or whoever it is that comes in when you first come in.
00;07;16;07 – 00;07;35;22
They knew about the experience that you were in the middle of. They were forewarned about it, and I’m mindful of an experience you had a year or two ago here in Colorado Springs at a hotel right here by the studio, and it was just the opposite. It was a completely ridiculous experience that you’ve had. And it’s funny. Gee, man, if I’ve had friends over the last couple of years in town and they say, where should we stay?
00;07;35;22 – 00;07;52;13
I said, you know, I don’t know, but I would avoid this one place because of one really, really silly, stupid experience that Gary had to deal with to that hotel. So it’s amazing how that that works both ways. That would be the Wyndham. And, I believe they, just are in a hostile takeover by Choice Hotels this morning.
00;07;52;13 – 00;08;08;19
As a matter of fact. So there’s, consequences. Well, and I’ll tell you what, you know what’s surprising about that? I’ll be perfectly honest with you. The owner of that hotel is a personal friend of mine. His daughter went to school with our daughter for many years, and Summit Lodge, and the really nice guy, but even even knowing that, just.
00;08;08;19 – 00;08;27;19
I know, I mean, Gary, it’s good to be Gary. Alex. Right? He’s a very discriminating traveler. Hotels, restaurants, it all needs to be top notch. And he deserves top notch. He’s earned that. And when people fall short, he’s always very sure to tell them he doesn’t just, like, drop the bomb and talk bad about him. He always brings in their attention, much their chagrin.
00;08;27;21 – 00;08;44;05
But he also does the same. And he’s a pretty generous tipper, too, by the way, which might explain why you have a certain table in the Bahamas with your name on it, too. But that’s another story for another day. You know, that’s 100,000 multiplied by $100,000 of service and and business. You’ve you’ve done with him over the years.
00;08;44;07 – 00;09;03;25
Let’s talk about the importance of optimizing the company, the resources and demand service. Yeah. So the dispatcher is, you know, if you think about an aircraft carrier, there’s planes on deck and there’s it’s cramped and there’s not a lot of space. Things are moving. There’s a ton of moving parts. And I think the dispatcher is that person in our organization.
00;09;03;27 – 00;09;25;24
So the dispatcher is going to control the technicians calendar, but also just move those chess pieces around the board. So the optimization of labor, I think, is crucial to the success of any Hvac, plumbing or electrical trades business. So we’ve got this thing called AI that’s popping up. I know at the Service Titan Conference, they presented and promoted the future of what they’re doing.
00;09;25;24 – 00;09;45;15
And I, certainly Sarah, has an AI platform that’s built into the scheduling system. So what we’re seeing is I think the role of the dispatcher might be changing, just modifying a little bit. We’ll talk about that in the technology section. But the basic principle of optimizing the labor, whether that’s AI or whether it’s a dispatcher man, is you go over top of the AI.
00;09;45;15 – 00;10;05;02
And I think that’s where we’re going to land, is that we want to make sure that we’re optimizing our resources. We have a labor shortage. We have a certain amount of labor hours to build throughout, you know, a day, a week, a month, a year. And so when we lose those hours, it’s gone. And so the efficiency question, is really a dispatching, mindset.
00;10;05;02 – 00;10;25;03
And so part of the reason that Dot is there is a dispatcher has to be graded on that. And so when we talk about how we look at the role description, we look at the management function where the huddles, the work that we do with the dispatching, group, we need to make sure that we’re teaching and coaching and working with the dispatching function as well as CSRs.
00;10;25;06 – 00;10;43;00
If those are married inside of a smaller business, that the labor resources are very focused, and we’re looking at the efficiency that the dispatcher is helping us get. Now, that doesn’t mean that the technician won’t take three hours on a call or is supposed to take an hour. That’s not a dispatchers fault. But we need to understand deploy the people with the correct, skill sets.
00;10;43;02 – 00;11;04;00
And so we’ll talk about the skills chart. You know, I always like to talk about the great things in my business life. And I always talk about the, the, the failures and the struggles. And this just happened to us. Talk about not optimizing the labor resource. I was having a zoom meeting with my team, and we had an, actually an old employee who recently came back and he was going to go out and ride along with one of the technicians.
00;11;04;00 – 00;11;16;04
And this was around, oh, probably 1230, 1:00 in the afternoon. I was having this meeting, and he was going out with this technician at 4:00. And I made some kind of comment. I said, well, be sure and tell him, you know, such and such. He goes, oh, he’s actually here. It was just off camera view a little bit.
00;11;16;06 – 00;11;32;13
And so I call the service technician and I said, it’s 1:00 and your calls at 4:00. I said, when was your last call? It’s like, I think it was 930. I said, what time do you wrap that up? About 11:00. I said, so, and I wasn’t talking to him. I was talking to the management team around him. That was the purpose of the meeting.
00;11;32;21 – 00;11;53;11
I said, so he’s been here at 11:00. He’s 1:00 now. He’s not. Next call till four. That’s five hours. At 30 bucks an hour, he’s getting paid and everybody, I think maybe for one of the first times, because I’ve been preaching this efficiency. And I think our managers seem like, whoa, okay, that is a serious problem. Now, that’s an extreme example.
00;11;53;11 – 00;12;12;29
But it just goes to show, like I’m on this stuff. I think about this stuff all the time and it can happen to anyone. It happens to all of us. And so it’s not about feeling bad. And like I, I’m not measuring up. It’s about learning from from, you know, the man right here, the guy that’s been doing this and has probably forgotten more about this stuff than I’ll learn in three lifetimes, but just pay attention.
00;12;13;06 – 00;12;30;24
Don’t get down on yourself. And just if you can walk away from this training over the next few hours with 1 or 2 key initiatives that you’re going to focus on, it could be all the difference in the world. To your company. Hi, I’m Darrell, you shouldn’t ski. Hey, I’m Bob Larkin. Many of our contractors meet with us monthly.
00;12;30;27 – 00;12;56;12
And you. Chances are I’ve met with us monthly. We found that members have deeper and greater needs. So we came up with next level coaching, which is we meet a lot more often. And there is accountability to deal with some of the issues of money growth, finding employees, having an exit strategy to get off this roller coaster. These are the issues the contractors want answers to, and we can provide those answers.
00;12;56;14 – 00;13;19;08
The next level coaching. When you join next level coaching, you’re going to find solutions that are easy to implement and logical. Most importantly, we hold you accountable to specifics. We’re going to meet twice a month and have specific to do’s. And with those specific to do’s, we’re going to discuss and dive into your financials in a very granular way.
00;13;19;14 – 00;13;45;18
You’re going to have a clear budget. We’ll be able to establish pricing. We’re going to help you create leadership programs to build your people. We’re going to help you find people. You may think of differing ways to engage employees that will keep them more involved by joining next level coaching. So if you’re interested in making more money, growing your company, finding good employees, and developing them as a strategy, give Dale on our call.
00;13;45;24 – 00;14;04;01
We’ll be happy to talk to you about next level coaching, and we’re going to see you on the next level. So you talk about 75% efficiency or better talk about that just a little bit in terms of how important that is. Yeah. So the dispatching function is moving the chess pieces on the board, which would be obviously the commercial and residential tax.
00;14;04;01 – 00;14;22;19
So it depends on your company I do commercial, I do residential. So we’re going to have both of those with one dispatcher until we’re large enough to specialize. But irrespective of that the KPI is going to be 85% first time call completion rate. So that’s going to deal with inventory on the vehicle. But it’s also going to deal with the skill sets of the technician.
00;14;22;21 – 00;14;43;26
So we need a skills chart. We need a software platform that identifies that for us. We need through the huddle process to say, hey Gary can’t do vve, Gary can’t do VF. So we’re not we don’t want to send him to a commercial maintenance customer that has that platform. So Gary can do split systems, maybe Gary can do gas furnaces, etc., maybe some heat pumps.
00;14;43;28 – 00;15;01;19
So the way we look at the individual from a talent point of view has a great deal to do with the ability for a dispatcher, to, to make sure we get the right individual at the right place at the right time. So efficiency is the billable hours versus the actual hours that we have paid. So we’re going to take that.
00;15;01;19 – 00;15;20;25
If I bill six and I pay eight I’ve got a 75% efficiency. So that’s going to be a number that I’m going to time my dispatcher to. He or she is not necessarily going to control aspect of that, but they control enough of those aspects that we’re going to have a team KPI on that. And then the 85% first time call completion rate is again sending me to the right call.
00;15;20;25 – 00;15;37;07
Wally, if you send me out to the RV system and I don’t know what I’m doing, that’s not a first time call completion. So we’re hurting efficiency and first time call completion. So both of those are KPIs that I want to assign to the dispatch function, as well as the service manager function. Too many companies don’t scorecard that.
00;15;37;09 – 00;15;52;26
So one of the files that’s, part of the boot camp stuff that we’re teaching here recently and the next, I don’t know, two months or whatever we’ve got going on the discussion of the scorecard. So I’ve built a brand new scorecard system for all the ag companies. So it hadn’t been posted yet, but it’ll be out on the boot camps.
00;15;52;28 – 00;16;13;06
This is a good example. Department by department, by department by position. What the scorecard looks like. So individually a manager, if you were my service manager that I would be working for you, my scorecard would be right there. So this is a good example of a company needs to step up its game in terms of how we’re counting and being accountable for our workflows.
00;16;13;06 – 00;16;29;15
And so I’d rather be a smaller, more efficient company, more profitable than a bigger company. That’s you know, unwieldy. And is it profitable. So I think we have to think about that in terms of how do we apply these types of numbers. And this is a good example. You know, and when Gary talks about these KPIs, this is a some random idea he just had.
00;16;29;23 – 00;16;49;01
This is 40 years of experience in the industry of managing companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, right? These aren’t just things he made up. These are specific, boundaries that if you don’t operate within these boundaries, you’re going to be in trouble. Think about this 85% of the time, you should have a one call completion and service call.
00;16;49;07 – 00;17;06;19
That means you better have better training. You have better dispatching, making sure, as Gary mentioned, the right person, the job. You better have inventory in that truck. The expectation is at 85% of the time you will complete that call with a one call. Ask yourself a set if that’s happening in your company. 75% efficiency. I mean, do the math.
00;17;06;21 – 00;17;30;16
That means if you pay a technician for 40 hours one week, they should have 30 hours of billable time. Well, in our company, I think it’s about $475. That’s built into the flat rate for an hourly rate. Do we have 30 hours of billable time in that in that 40 hour workweek? Do you have that? We got to ask ourself these tough questions because these are the standards against which success is measured.
00;17;30;16 – 00;17;50;17
And people like Gary, when they’re looking at companies to buy companies, other private equity firms, or just to run your company for maximum profitability, these are the standards. Again, it’s not stuff that that he’s just throwing out there. These are the rules of the game. If you want to win in the game, what’s the role. The dispatcher let’s talk about that in terms of what they do on a day in day out basis.
00;17;50;17 – 00;18;09;09
Yeah. So we were just on the internal stuff, which is kind of how the dispatcher works with the chess pieces, which is going to be service management function, commercial residential technicians. Now we’re talking about, how does the dispatcher or customer service representative communicate with the client? How do we make sure that the client, you know, is aware of what’s going on?
00;18;09;12 – 00;18;26;22
So again, I got to tell you a Dallas marketing story, which relates directly to this, because we have texting now, right? I mean, we’ve got the ability to text clients. I can text you. Hey, Wally, you know, I’m Gary, I’m your service champion technician. I’m on the way. I’ll be there at 10:00. You know, anything I need to know, but.
00;18;26;27 – 00;18;46;28
So we can go back and forth on text. Certainly. The dispatch function, also has the ability to have customers use things like schedule, engine, where customers can schedule in, and I don’t see it. It just pops up on the board. Right? I haven’t talked to anybody technology driven. I haven’t said a word to anybody personally, but information is coming to the company.
00;18;47;00 – 00;19;08;08
So I’m sitting in, in the back of the room. And, drew was teaching a concept about texting. And right away the text comes in, hey, your your pull guy, John has finished your pool and just giving you a heads up. We’re done. And so I’m like, oh, that’s great. I love that because early on they weren’t texting.
00;19;08;08 – 00;19;25;11
I’m like, hey, you guys really ought to get a texting service because I’m rarely home. Nobody’s at the house. I really don’t know if you did the pool or not. I don’t get home till Saturday or whatever. I mean, it’s good. Communicate. So the guy adopts this, so he sends me the text and I’m sitting there thinking, you know, it’d be nice to actually have a picture of my pool.
00;19;25;14 – 00;19;46;21
I paid a lot of money for that pool. I care about that pool. If I’m emotionally attached to this pool, I do. And it’s I mean, it’s crazy how much money you spend on a pool these days. So anyway, I’m like, I sent him a note and I go, hey, John, here’s an idea for you. You guys ought to think about taking a picture of the pool when you’re done, when it’s perfectly clean, and send it to the client just as a part of your texting process.
00;19;46;23 – 00;20;10;00
So boom, right away, here comes the picture of the pool. And I’m like, that’s Jessica was sitting next to me and Jessica is that’s a nice pool. So but that’s how the homeowner is thinking. So when we’re talking about communication with our clients, how do we actually, as a dispatcher or a customer service, make somebody smile on the other end of the phone when words really only represent about 7% of the communication model?
00;20;10;03 – 00;20;30;10
And the answer is we have to figure out a different approach. So, I literally wrote down, you know, we got to figure out how to actually take a short video of our maintenance, of our service, call it, and actually put that embedded on the text. So when we communicate with the clients, both on the front end and the back end, we’re giving an emotional reaction.
00;20;30;12 – 00;20;57;29
So there’s a whole theory in marketing. It’s not really an old theory. It’s it’s 1950s. David Ogilvy theory. He is the father of advertising and, Ogilvy Mather. And he basically said, an emotional response to a brand or any, experience is really what we’re after. That’s what we’re trying to promote in any marketing experience. So the communication model with a customer service group or a dispatcher to a client is a form of marketing, whether we want to view it that way or not.
00;20;58;05 – 00;21;21;18
So to create a positive emotional experience, I got to figure out a way to do that. So I’m going to start using video texting and yeah. So I’m going to take a great picture of you in your beautiful pink sport coat. It’s I love that pink’s super. You know, I’ve got I’ve got pink sport coat envy. So I’m gonna take a picture of you and I’m going to figure out a way to shoot a video of my text through content, and then drive that out in front and back to the customer.
00;21;21;18 – 00;21;38;18
So, customer’s going to feel good about that, you know? And this communication with clients is so important. We had a we did an acquisition for four or 5 or 6 months ago, and there was a lot of chaos around upset customers who had, you know, had service agreements that they prepaid for 12 years with the old company and they didn’t have any money in reserve.
00;21;38;18 – 00;21;54;28
So we didn’t we were responsible for what we did in the money. So we’re trying to resolve these, and we always resolve it to the customer’s satisfaction one way or another. But our call center, the dispatchers, the CSRs, were having a hell of a time dealing with their customers. So, my brother works in the is one of the, one of the owners of the company.
00;21;55;00 – 00;22;23;27
And we implemented a simple process that we told the girls, the call center. If somebody calls, it’s upset. Communicate one item to them, one concept, and that is Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner. Obviously I don’t know all the details of your circumstances, but what I’m going to do is I’m going to pass this off to one of the owners, and I give you my word that this situation will be resolved to your satisfaction by the end of business today, that simple communication eliminated so many upset customers, people that were potentially upset customers became five star reviews.
00;22;24;05 – 00;22;44;02
Jimmy. And I want a quick question we have that came up in the in the chat right there right now in California. We’re starting to go on our slow season. Yeah. Unfortunately, we currently have calls that we schedule in the morning with a gap on the next one in the afternoon. Would you recommend scheduling, training or inventory management to to not just provide work for our techs, but also to improve the company?
00;22;44;04 – 00;23;03;14
Yeah, I think the the question I would ask is do we have maintenance calls to schedule? Because if we’re in shoulder season, ideally we would have maintenance calls. So if we don’t have maintenance calls, number one strategy in your book has to be to create more maintenance agreements. So let’s do that. Let’s put that in front. Treat the cause, not just the effect.
00;23;03;16 – 00;23;27;16
This is a question about effect. Now I have a shoulder season I have gaps in time. What I do inventory, what I do training. And the answer would be yeah, I’m going to keep my technicians, paid and I’m going to keep them happy and busy. So if there’s an opportunity to do sales training, communication training, lead turnover training, how to be better at your workflow training or, you know, in your case, I don’t know what inventory management system you’re using.
00;23;27;16 – 00;23;43;29
I’m not sure exactly what the criteria there would be. I really don’t want my service technicians anywhere near my inventory system, to be honest with you. I mean, to be point blank and frank about it. They’re they’re not going to be good at that. So there’s a there’s a manager, there’s a warehouse person that’s going to be responsible for that.
00;23;44;01 – 00;24;07;29
And technology will drive those discussions for over and under, min min max stock, those kinds of things. So counting vehicles or something like that, if that’s what we’re talking about. No, I probably wouldn’t do that. I’d probably focus more on the training aspect of that, because I think you’re going to gain, an advantage in the marketplace if you can teach the technicians just how to do things better versus, you know, counting, nipples and screws.
00;24;08;01 – 00;24;23;16
All right. Follow up question to your point about the pool guy with the picture. Would the technician be responsible for sending pictures and info of their findings to the customers, or the or with the dispatchers? And who is in that directly to the customer? Yeah. So it could be either or. I’m going to have my dispatcher do it.
00;24;23;19 – 00;24;41;02
And the reason is technicians are asked to do a lot of things and they’re inconsistent, a lot of those things. So I’m going to have a control point. It’ll be CSR slash dispatch. The other thing I would suggest is we’re going to grab those things and post those to Google my business pages as well. So there’s the flexibility of that tool.
00;24;41;02 – 00;24;58;08
Is there to be able to do that daily posts and to be able to update those things, help your SEO platform. So it’s there’s good reasons to do it besides just making Wally feel great or Gary feel great. So in the end, I think I want my dispatcher to do that, because the dispatcher is the control point.
00;24;58;10 – 00;25;19;18
If I have ten techs, I’ll have six techs. That’ll do it. Well, three that probably will think about doing it well but won’t do it, and one that won’t just won’t even have a conversation about it like this is going to be no, I’m not going to do that. You know. But he’s probably my best tech. So I think we need to sort of understand in your company, who are the people and how well will they contribute to the success pattern?
00;25;19;19 – 00;25;43;24
I think if one person owns it, you can have accountability of more than one person owns it. Nobody owns it. Right. And Melissa, mentioned she kind of reaffirmed what you had kind of figured that they’re lousy at the inventory that’s out there. They are good at that. And, we suspected as much. Right. By the way, I dropped off one of my vehicles at a dealer this morning for some service, and they got a new process in place.
00;25;43;26 – 00;26;01;04
The service provider took my name and information. He said we’ll do our full diagnostic. We’re going to text you a list of, potential repairs, maintenance, whatever, and you’ll just check the ones that you want. So I’m expecting. I haven’t got it yet, but I expect sometime today I’ll get a list of 5 or 6 different options of repairs and maintenance.
00;26;01;04 – 00;26;27;07
Whatever I want to do in the car. And it’s so easy. I just tap, tap, tap and then and it’s done. And that is automating using. I like you talked about to to do these communications. So whether we use technology high tech or whether it’s, you know, the actual conversation, high touch either one really, really important. So, so we’ve been talking about kind of the, you know, the, the, the dispatcher, the company needs a policy for the tech call process.
00;26;27;07 – 00;26;48;09
The technician. Yeah. Talk to us about how important that is. Yeah. So do I want to run 9 or 10 calls in a day, or do I want to run five really great calls in a day? It’s hard to run 9 or 10 great calls. It’s hard to to give the technician, the grace to be able to say if he’s at Wally’s house.
00;26;48;11 – 00;27;07;15
Do a full evaluation of the system, spend time with Wally, go through the process. So that’s really what this bullet point is about, is let’s clarify, as a business owner, what it is I’m trying to accomplish on a service call. And how does that work? And so the client experience drives that conversation for me. Wally, how do I make the customer feel the wow experience?
00;27;07;15 – 00;27;27;25
How do we do that. So I think I land on the five great calls is better than nine. You know average calls now arguably nine average calls might produce more revenue per day. But at the end I’ll produce more maintenance agreements and more shoulder season capability. And I’ll have a better run company later. So it’s a little bit like the tortoise and the hare conversation.
00;27;27;25 – 00;27;48;17
Yeah. The second part of that would be have the technician have an orderly process meeting the perfect service call. Each company needs to go through that process on the service management side of the site and decide what is the service call process. What steps do you want to accomplish, you know, with respect to the call, once that’s mapped, you can do training on it.
00;27;48;17 – 00;28;07;04
And so the service, team, service manager, service technicians, dispatch, customer service can all unify on that same set of principles. So you can’t just jam a bunch of calls on top of the service technician and then give them their schedule. It’s not going to work well. Like we’re not we’re not going to get the experience levels that the customer wants.
00;28;07;06 – 00;28;34;16
And the truth of the matter is, is that most companies, when it’s peak periods, they’re going to try to run as many calls as they can and they don’t have red flag procedures. It’s going to grab, grab, grab. And that’s a function of greed. But it has a consequence to it. And the consequences you won’t you won’t end up with the client experience and the referrals that you’re getting from, you know, Albion, that’s or the negative experience that you get, you know, at the Wyndham locally, they don’t have the functional, process in place.
00;28;34;16 – 00;28;49;29
You know, I was going to say that I know that that alignment, you mentioned alignment when you talked about the dispatcher, manager, technicians. And that’s one of the big things that Gary really, really preaches. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with him now for 6 or 7 years. I’ve known him for 15 years. I tried to hire him before I could afford him.
00;28;50;01 – 00;29;08;22
The company I had years ago couldn’t afford the fee. But, fortunately for me, we, came full circle and with through the, contract, university began to work together. And so I’ve had the benefit of learning so much for him. But I would like for you to touch on that alignment concept that you always talk about goals, culture, bonuses.
00;29;08;22 – 00;29;39;26
Everything has to be in alignment. There’s got to be a certain level of consistency, for that to talk about that alignment. What that means exactly. Yeah. It’s the culture conversation that you had earlier. It comes down to what are we trying to accomplish with the homeowner? What’s the client experience, what drives that set of processes? So the dispatcher, the customer service team, the service manager, all the service technicians, the warehouse manager, warehouse functionality all have to be in alignment with that culture, in that alignment that our goal is to make great customer experience happen.
00;29;40;03 – 00;30;03;22
It’s not to necessarily look at a number and say, oh my, I have $450 or greater of, average ticket for service. That’s an outcome that will happen because we have great culture and we have alignment. And so the dispatcher, you know, is trying to move the pieces on the chessboard around. And if the service manager and the service techs are looking at that saying, hey, you’ve got eight, nine, ten calls, give me a day.
00;30;03;25 – 00;30;18;00
You know, yet the owner is saying, well, I want great calls, Wally. Right? I want everything to be great. I want, I want, I want everything I want great calls, and I want, you know, ten of them. That’s out of alignment. So you have to really think about how long does it take to run a perfect service call, what do we want to have happen?
00;30;18;06 – 00;30;36;14
And how does everybody inside of that can you work together to ensure that happens consistently? So I think the great companies again, if you go back to good to great, it did. Did you write a book on consistency to the call the power of said consistency? I think I saw a guy pimping you just a little while ago.
00;30;36;16 – 00;30;52;27
Tom Hopkins one thing the greatest ever. Yeah. So the consistency process there is, is so important in the alignment. And so I just I think it’s super important that we understand how to get along with each other. A lot of times the dispatcher is considered somebody that’s, hard to get along with in a lot of companies.
00;30;52;29 – 00;31;08;29
And usually when you dig into that, there’s no alignment. In other words, people are have different sets of expectations. And I think that’s one of the most common misalignments is the owner, owner or the manager saying, I want ten calls a day and then going to the technicians guys, we got to take our time. We got to be thorough, you know, we got it.
00;31;08;29 – 00;31;27;10
We got to, you know, kind of evaluate the entire house, but get out there and do it ten times a day, which is unrealistic. And that’s where Gary’s talking about the alignment with the expectations of management and ownership, with the reality of what it’s out there, you know, run it running service calls. Be sure and share this on Facebook.
00;31;27;10 – 00;31;48;20
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00;31;48;23 – 00;32;15;24
You.
