Customer Focused Like Mr Rooter

by Dean Iodice on August 24, 2012

I just finished reading a great article in Plumbing & Mechanical magazine featuring Mary Kennedy Thompson the President of Mr. Rooter. I was really impressed with her background as a Marine commanding a platoon pf 58 Marines. But what really impressed me was her commitment to customer experience. There is a lot we can learn from this, she talks a lot about systems used in the franchise that make the Mr. Rooter a well run company.

The reality of creating systems in your business is what creates a successful company. Size does not make a difference, whether you are Mr. Rooter or Mikes Plumbing with 2 employees putting systems together is the key to success in your plumbing business. One of the things in the article that Mary Kennedy said was “you can be the best plumber in the world, but if you don’t understand how to interact with your customer, how to market to your customer, how to manage your numbers and train your people, it doesn’t matter how good of a plumber you are”. This is true in any business and the reality is that most small businesses are started by people who are very good at their craft. It’s also the reason so many small businesses fail because they are great at their craft and  terrible at business. A great book to read is The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gruber. It’s an absolute must read for anyone who owns a small business or thinking of starting one. It should be used a text book in business schools world wide and was the one thing that changed the way I think about my own business.

As the owner of a small plumbing company it’s important to put systems in place that help grow your business, and systems could be as simple as what to do when someone arrives at the office in the morning to how to service a customer. I can go a bunch of different ways at this point but rather than go into all the aspects of how to run a plumbing company, I want to focus and touch on creating a GREAT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE for your business.

Customers want 1 thing, good service with a smile and they are willing to pay for it. It’s what separates you from the hundreds of other plumbing companies in your city. Don’t even get involved in the low price leader, it’s the fastest way to close your business, you don’t want to compete on price. Instead focus on customer experience, if the customer experience is the best, you can then be the most expensive plumber in town and also the busiest.

Here are some systems you can incorporate to help develop a great customer experience.

• Invest in training your employees, people like to be trained. Train everyone, from your plumbers to one of the most important people in your company…the person that answers the phone. Everyone should know the basics and a little more.
• Hire the best person you can find to answer your telephones. This is so important, this is your companies first impression, this person needs to be well spoken, well educated in your business and services and be able to talk with a smile. They need to be professional and the most pleasant person in your business. They need to be a problem solver and someone that can persuade people in a positive manner.
• Everything in your business needs to be clean and neat. Uniforms should be clean and ironed, trucks should be clean and well branded.
• Here is a tip that will make you a lot of money… Booties! All your technicians should be wearing booties over their work shoes when they enter a customers home. This is the one thing that sticks in a customers mind every single time. The customer feels as though you respect their home and your attention to detail is off the charts. This is the one thing they will tell all their friends and family.
• Everyone needs to know how to soft sell, especially your plumbers. Now be very careful here, the last thing you want is a pushy plumber who uses scare tactics to sell additional services. Customers hate that and its the quickest way to lose customers. But your plumbers need to know how to suggest things in a soft selling manner to keep customers engaged and increase revenues of the business.
• Happy customers create positive reviews, positive reviews create more customers. Have tool in place to request reviews from your customers
• Always send thank you notes. Drop a thank you card in the mail after every service, yeah it takes time and there is the cost of postage, but it will create a lifetime customer for the cost of a stamp.
• Most importantly, your customer experience needs to be exactly the same every single time, from the moment you answer the phone to getting the final signature on a service ticket.

These are just a few simple things you can start doing right away that will make an amazing change in your business. There is a lot of competition out there and everyone wants to compete on price, and yes I agree some people are very price sensitive. The reality is, the price focused customer is not the customer you want anyway. But it’s the little things that make a $100,000.00 a year plumbing company a $2,000,0000.00 a year company.

You can learn from the Mr Rooters of the world.

Last updated by Dean Iodice at August 24, 2012.

Tagged as: Business Systems, Mr. Rooter

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