One more reason your clients know they are working with an expert home inspector
The leading national authority for the inspection industry (ASHI - the American Society of Home Inspectors), featured the advice of Home-Probe founder Jeff Luther in their latest issue of their magazine, The Reporter.
Jeff shares his 20 year business experience with 5 tips about handling those rare, but crucial customer satisfaction issues (complaints). Home-Probe actually has a process improvement department where we track our client concerns as a percentage of inspections. More than 98% of the time, a thorough, independent audit of the report shows the inspector called out the issue accurately or it was out of our scope of work. And for the less than 2%, we make it right.
We all want to avoid getting complaints, one surefire way to make that happen is to stop doing business. Jeff suggests starting with the initial client contact:
Can we start as soon as the phone rings? Perhaps we could audit our sales process and how we educate our potential clients on the front end, My experience tells me we spend more time selling our seervice than explaining the process, which can sometimes get our expectations out of sync with our delivery and lead to disappointment in the overall experience.
5 Tips for handling customer complaints
- Speed is key: Be specific about a timeline for followup and then try to beat it.
- Empathy can win the battle: Remember the resolution does not come from you being right.
- Choose a guarantee or warranty: A third party warranty company might be a good solution if you don't deal well with conflict. Our experience was not favorable. We decided to include our own guarantee as part of the home inspection process.
- Assess the complaint: Ask questions and take notes, particularly on how the issue was discovered.
- Think investment not payment: The stakeholders knowing you're always going to do the right thing is paramount.
More about home inspection company founder, Jeff Luther
Jeff Luther is the founder and CEO of Home-Probe, Inc. serving the greater Atlanta and Charleston areas. Joining ASHI the year he began the business, Jeff has been a certified inspector since 2002. He has since built and leads an inspection team of full-time, salaried employees with more than 440,000 hours of industry experience. Jeff is a founding member of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization of Charleston and is often requested as a guest speaker to share his business insight.
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