It's moving week.
Last week we had a home inspector visit our new home and do a thorough look around the house, the attic, in the basement, and just about everywhere else. He looked for cracks in the foundation to ensure everything was stable.
Thankfully, he only found a few minor areas for improvement and fixes, but it's what the inspector did after the fact that delighted me.
First, he delivered the report exactly when he said he would.
Then, he called me to make sure I received the report and to check if I had any questions.
And third, about four days later, I received the following email.
"Noah,
It was a pleasure meeting you and your family last week at your home. Once again, I would like to express my thanks for the opportunity to inspect this property for you. If you were happy with the service I provided, I was hoping you could help me out and provide a favorable review regarding my business. For me, the most useful reviews are those left on Google. If you could click on the link below and leave the review there, that would be very helpful.
In the review, you might address one specific topic such as my knowledge of home systems and structures, my ability to communicate the inspection findings both verbally and in electronic-report form, or my overall professionalism.
Word-of-mouth and referrals are very important to small businesses like mine and I would greatly appreciate your assistance in this manner.
As well, if you ever would like to discuss your inspection report, or have any questions about the safety or systems of your home (eg. contractor referrals), please feel free to contact me by phone or email."
There's a lot right with that email. First, notice that he included a link for me – he doesn't expect me to put in the effort to figure out how to leave a review.
Next, notice how he doesn't say "leave a good review", but gives some hints about what to say in it. He's doing a lot of the work for me here – I don't have to think too hard, and that makes it a lot easier to leave the review.
Then, he reminds me why reviews are essential, and offers additional value to me.
I've been helping companies develop retention based marketing for the past 14 years, and this is a pitch-perfect example. I'll be using this as a demo for clients for years to come.
I've been impressed with him every step of the way. This type of follow-up is better and more thought out than about 80% of the companies out there, even though he's a one-person operation.
Yet every step of the way, he took the time to use his well-defined process to add value to my experience.
I'm particularly happy with his "review-generation" email.
Yes, I'll leave his company a review, and yes, I'm likely to refer him. He could have sent me an NPS survey and be done with it. I could have given him a nine or ten, and he could have given himself a pat on the back.
This would be similar to how most big companies would do it, and it would have been as ineffective for him as it is for them.
Instead, he took the time to craft a well thought out review seeking message. This is great marketing.
Your Challenge For This Week
I've been trying something different with the Tidbits in the last quarter of this year. Basically, I'm focusing in hard on showing many, many different examples of why a strong process is so damn important.
It's a theme I've visited often throughout the years, but as I've started stressing it more, I've been receiving incredible feedback from Tidbit readers about how the weekly reminders have really encouraged them to look at their own processes.
I hope that this is the case as you're reading this email, and all the rest in this series!
I can't stress this enough. Process matters. If you haven't taken the time to codify and define your processes from start to finish for your customer's entire experience from before the sale, during the sale, and after the sale, you're leaving money on the table.
Creating a defined process doesn't need to be hard – this contractor is putting a simple process to work that shames many larger companies.
Process isn't about complexity.
It's not about money.
It's about holding firm to a standard and ensuring that everybody around you holds firm to it as well.
So the challenge this week is simple – ask yourself these questions:
- Do you have a system in place that's designed to follow up with customers, and to generate positive reviews/word of mouth?
- If the system is in place, how do you know it's being followed by every member of your team? (IE what's the monitoring mechanism?)
- If it's being followed well, how are you measuring the positive impact of the process?
The more impactful processes you have in your company, the more gets done without having to think about it. There aren't many more significant advantages you can have than that.
PS: If you want to turbo-charge your process development, you really should be reaching out to me about my 1-Day Sales Process™ offering. I'm booking these into early 2020 now. There's no better time to get your year off to a great start. It's not uncommon for sales teams to see 10-20% increases in sales revenue after putting the right processes in place. Contact me now!
