All right, so i want to start by getting some opinions from you all. We're gon na take a couple minutes and do this about what you think the most important core task. Um role thing that thing that we do, that is co, the most core to all of us, so it can't be something that just you do like if you're a maintenance technician. You know okay, well, remember to clean the drain really.

Well, i mean that's a big one, but it has to be something that applies to pretty much everybody so think about it. Give me some suggestions, i'm going to write them up here on the board, because they'll all be good. I'm sure you talk about something that we do to an ac, something that you do in general in terms of something that you do anything that you do in general in terms of okay, maybe i didn't. Maybe i didn't clarify this.

Just back up work related anything! You do at kalos something you do at kayla's a function that we perform at kaylos. That is the most important thing, because i think it's fairly important that we should know what the most important thing is right and at the end, i'm going to give you my opinion and then i'm going to talk about it. But i want to know your opinion too, because that's just as important all right, let's get started, josh communicating with customer my r's. Don't look like ours.

Okay, i'm just gon na! Take it right off the bat okay. Most of my letters. Don't actually look like the english language, all right keep going, who else come on? Let's go team, camaraderie team, oh boy, you're, just trying to make me smell words. I don't know how to spell all right.

We're gon na do this here. I know how to spell team com rodder if you kind of mangle them up enough in there, then you can't really tell whether it's wrong or not. The comments are correct. I'm sure they will.

Thank you. Youtube youtube. Yeah appreciate it. I appreciate that all right.

What else? Oh okay? Here we go here, we go simply great service uh. Where did you learn that one from all right? It's good! That's really good jake! Thank you! Getting approval from the customer price approval from the car, oh price, approval. That is a number okay. All right all right what else giving the customer every option? Okay, so we'll say providing options.

You already had one josh. We provide solutions. Man, uh uh creativity, also very important, all right, um, providing solutions. I would say: that's a pretty good one.

It's it's! I mean it's pretty vague, but the it's gon na have to be pretty vague. If it's gon na apply to everybody right, we're just saying, like always learning like always asking the customer like hey, is there anything we could do better? Okay, jake already had one. I always see it at the end of myself. When i said, is there anything they could do? We could do better all right and that's when they, when they start to when they start to answer that question.

That's not funny all right anything else, that's kind of what he said. That is what he said. Isn't that what you kind of said, learning in general! Okay, so we'll just say learning from the customer, i know all right what else anything? No just tell us working hard is not important. Working hard is not important.

Um i mean like we could put. We can put it in their um work ethic right, but that's not really a thing that you do. Work ethic isn't really a thing that you do, but it's a broad it's a broad thing that doesn't matter you have to want to work. You know so all right.

I think the first one is a good one, um and it sort of and the valuing part kind of, gets to what i'm going to talk about next, but in terms of what function we can actually perform. What thing can we do? That makes a big difference in terms of the outcomes versus not doing it, so just a single kind of thought, and initially, when i thought about this, i didn't have something clear, but then a couple things over the weekend came up. That just reminded me again of what it is, and i was actually thinking about different people who are good at their jobs here and a lot. Most of you are good at your jobs, but people who are particularly good at what they do.

They have these things. So i'm going to put check marks beside some of the things that this applies to, so it applies to valuing and communicating with the customer. It applies to simply great service. It applies to price approval.

It applies to pri, providing all options to the customer. It applies to providing services, it applies to learning from the customer work ethic, and but you know that one is bothering you just just having to sit here is bothering bert vacation. Here we go yeah all right, all right there we go that doesn't look like we can't all right so, and i thought that this would happen. I didn't know for sure, but i thought that this would happen.

I thought that the ones that you would come up with all were kind of nested into this broader thing and i'm gon na i'm gon na go ahead and just put it over here, real quick, so that it's sitting by itself so we're going to call it. Customer communication, but specifically follow-up we're gon na we're gon na stick with follow-up, because i think follow-up is a little bit more specific. When you hear follow-up, that sounds a little bit more like a specific thing you have to do, whereas everybody kind of feels like they're, good at communication right sure i communicated but follow-up, that's kind of yeah. You know, like that's kind of specific, it's kind of like you did something and now or you're going to do something or you said you'd do something and now you've got to follow up on that and you're saying follow up or follow through uh.

Let's do both follow up and follow through jesse likes, follow through better okay. That's fine! I'm not yeah! Well, what's communication try to okay? So let's give an example. So if the customer says something to you, um wow, okay, if the customer says something to you and there's some ambiguity about what they're saying about what they're wanting ambiguity means. There's lack of clarity.

So you don't have you don't have complete clarity on what it is that they're saying follow-up is to say. I just want to make sure that i'm understanding exactly what you're saying here that that okay, i was just following up with you making sure i understood very good well done so that requires an extra step. It's not just because communication, often here's the problem with just saying customer communication. Often that means that you've said what you have to say.

I communicated right, but does that mean that they understood what you communicated? No, not necessarily, and even more importantly, it's much more about us understanding what the customer is saying than them understanding what we're saying. In fact, you could probably get away in this trade with almost never having the customer understand what you're talking about so long. As you understand what they're talking about anybody dispute that so long as you confirm that you understand them, what they're talking about right, which is the whole follow-up part right, some of the best technicians, some of the best sales people, some of the best uh managers in Terms of resolving conflict are all about listening and follow-up, but not about trying to be understood that war within us, where we want to. I mean this: is this: you start with this when you're a little kid like, and you can't talk and you're like trying to mutter words and people aren't understanding you and you have to battle to be understood, especially when there's ten of you, you know, living in A house something like that or 12 in jessie's case.

If the battle be understood, so we always have for our whole lives. We place a value on being understood, but in terms of business, it's far more important to understand and to have that clarity that you are understanding right, you're, uncomfortable, no he's following up with the customer. You see that good are the customers following up with him. One of the other um and how this looks in terms of because i was thinking about this in terms of um uh in terms of our new mechanic tim has anybody met our new mechanic.

Tim everybody's met our new mechanic tim pretty much. Okay. Does anybody dislike tim? No because he's not dislikable right and tim when you say something to him, he's just listening to you now. It's kind of like this so you're, not always quite sure, but but he's just listening, he's not saying a bunch of words back at you and he's not trying to convince you of anything right have any of you ever worked with a mechanic who the minute that You say something they start rattling off all they know about everything i'm not.

I never have, but i'm just wondering if some of you have so the point is that what he's really good at is just hearing you and then getting to work, not trying to convince you of how much he knows right. There's no trying to convince you of what a genius he is, there's no trying to be the smartest man in the room. That is an impulse that a lot of us have certainly not me, but a lot of other people have no it's a real liability. For me, as a as a technician for sure that i always wanted to explain things to the customer.

Well, the customer largely doesn't care how air conditioners work. They mostly just want to know. How long is it going to take? How much is it going to cost, and is this guy going to rip me off? Is this guy lying to me? That's mostly what it is and the way to establish that is to hear for those cues when they're ready for that communication and then to answer those questions that they have right. The time has come that you have a failed contact or an evaporation that needs cleaned or whatever, and now the time comes, the time to discuss what that means in the simplest language possible tell them what the price is and then do you have any questions about That yeah, actually i do great - and now you just answer, questions that they have and as simple as possible until they no longer have any questions.

That's what follow-up looks like within a conversation right, you're, just waiting for them and you're answering their questions, make sense. I think we over complicate most of this stuff, which is why often we see our experiences that a lot of times, people who are three to eight years in the trade actually are, can be most effective. Now, that's not always true, and i'm going to get lots of disputes about that, but in residential that seems to be kind of the sweet spot for us, and i think what happens there is is that you still are in touch with the fact that you don't Know a lot of stuff and so you're not always trying to look like a superstar you're, not talking too much as much and you're focused more on just the performance of the task and your ears are a little more open because you don't want to make a Mistake as soon as your ears start to close down - and you think you already know it doesn't matter how good of a technician you are, the customer doesn't perceive that you're caring for their best interest because they notice that you're not listening and you're just more interested In talking, that makes sense, so that's in the context of a conversation, but let's talk about it in terms of some other things. When we tell a customer they're going to get a particular thing and then the installers show up, and they don't have the particular thing that we told the customer that they would get.

What does that look like looks, like lack of follow-up, looks like lack of follow-through right, follow up in that it does not necessarily follow up with the customer specifically, but it's follow up on the communication that was had with the customer to make sure that they get What they're supposed to have right another one would be. You have a communication with a customer about a part, and you tell tim, make sure to get that get on this, and then you you, let it go because you figure well it's tim's job to do that. Right, it's tim's job to follow up, but is it just tim's job to follow up? No, it isn't it's our job to make sure that tim follows up and that's unfortunate right, because, ideally, everybody would just always exactly do their job properly. But the problem is, you know the conversation you had with that customer.

You know whether that customer was agitated irritated. You know the tone of the conversation, and you know the ones that aren't going to care if it's a week from now and the ones that are going to care, if it's not. If they're not followed up within the next two hours and so what it becomes imperative in terms of follow-up and follow-through for you to irritate tim, regardless of what snarky comments, he levies at you, not that he would ever do that until he gets. That answer, and even if you have to be the one to call the customer making sure that customer gets followed through with and because it's always better in terms of the customer's experience, if they're communicated with by the technician who is at their house right, it doesn't Always feel that way, sometimes it feels like oh it'd, be better.

If it was a manager, it'd be better if it was it that that is that's an escalation. So there's a time for that, but largely it's better in the customer's perception. If that follow-up comes from the person who they communicated with, so they can ask follow-up questions whatever the case may be right. Does everybody get that? It's not a criticism, because i understand that in the in the job requirements list of things, that's not on the list.

For you on the list, for you is not to follow up with a customer and make sure that they got their part or they got their filter dropped or they got whatever. I understand that, but in terms of the overarching mission in terms of the mission, the mission is communicate with the customer, follow up and we'll also add follow-through with that customer to make sure that they've gotten what the experience that you communicated with them. Anybody have any examples of that, but you have any examples. Yeah that happens a lot.

That's not an example. Follow-Up happens a lot. Well, you know that problem does happen. A lot, the lack of follow-up.

You know you usually hear it on the back end when a customer is called in, like hey, what's going on here all right and that customer's experience is degraded because of that they just are now it's not just your responsibility. It's not just tim's responsibility. It's not just jesse's responsibility or shonda's or my responsibility, it's all of our responsibility and if all of us guard this, as though it is the most important thing that we do, then it will happen. So is it more important than cleaning drain lines? Well: okay, it's close, but it's something that we can all do it's something that we can all guard.

So if that isn't happening, we all have to jump on it and make sure that it's happening all of us and for me as much as anyone. I do not enjoy customer follow-up, it is not something that is natural. It never has been because i just want to get on to the next problem. To solve.

A lot of us are motivated by solving problems. That's a technician trait the next puzzle. The next thing. That's fun right: it's not fun to have a grouchy customer following up because they didn't get the right filter or because whatever because they looked up online and saw that a capacitor costs one tenth of what we charge for it on amazon, you know those sorts of Follow-Ups are not fun, but they are necessary because it does require communication.

Some of these conversations are fairly complicated, but you don't lead with those conversations you wait until the customer brings it up and then you respond in the most simple way possible, well-trained responses right, well-drilled responses. We don't get good at particular things unless we do them. This is a key point and if we avoid customer communication - and we avoid customer follow-up - then that's the reason you're not good at it. Frankly, if you do it more, it becomes more natural if it becomes a standard drum beat of what you do, regardless of whether or not it's something that comes naturally to you, initially, all right, any questions about that anything you want to add to that.

I think there are a lot of areas that this applies. It applies to sales for sure it applies to installers. It applies to management, it applies to genesis, dispatch. It applies to the csrs for sure it applies to them.

Follow-Up, follow-up! Follow-Up. If you have in your head, i should probably follow up on that or i wonder what happened to that. That's your trigger to follow up just go ahead and follow up, even if it just means all right. You know what's gon na be quicker.

If i just call the customer just check, hey just checking in on you, did anybody give you a call back yet i just want to make sure you're taken care of no, they haven't all right. Let me get right on that. That makes them feel cared for. It makes them feel hurt, it makes their issue feel important and it is because it is important to us.

I mean we don't want customers to be unhappy. I don't think any of us are okay with that at all. I know that of you, so i'm not even concerned about that part of it.