Customer Service … even better in person!

So I had the good fortune of attending a trade show this weekend, specifically the South Carolina Association of Heating and Cooling Contractors (SCAHACC) annual show in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.   I love having a chance to meet many of my clients face to face.  For some clients, this was our first opportunity to meet in person and it’s always great to be able to put a face to a name.  

The theme of the show was ‘Mission Possible’.  There were plenty of educational sessions (both technical and business) that were great learning opportunities.  I sat in on a technical session, accidentally (did you know there are 7000 ‘grains’ of water per pound by volume?), an economic outlook session (the economy is starting to rebound, albeit slightly) and a session on non-verbal communication hosted by body language expert Jan Hargrave (I now have the ability to tell when someone is lying and someone is telling the truth, so watch out!).  While the session on body language was informative and very entertaining, I probably got the most out of the session on customer service. 

Without going into too much detail, the session covered how customers have changed over a very short period of time, specifically how they find out about products and services.  Everyone can remember where they were on September 11th, 2001, but how did you hear about it?  Did someone tweet you?  Facebook post perhaps?  Of course not because both were not invented at the time.  Nowadays, information about virtually everything is accessible by a few mouse clicks or taps on a smartphone.  

Everyone has heard the adage that a happy customer will tell 1 person about you, an unhappy customer will tell 15.  It is more important to keep your customers happy than ever before and the session covered ways to do that.  Though the session was geared toward HVAC contractors, there were a lot of take-aways that still apply to collections and most other industries.  The presenter gave many ideas and strategies to improve customer service and I can happily say that most of the recommendations are already policies and procedures that American Profit Recovery uses! 

When most people hear ‘collections’, customer service is probably the last thing they are thinking.  It is great to work for a company that prides itself in being different and puts customer service to the forefront.  From being able to reach a live person during business hours (rather than an automated voice prompt system) to have dedicated customer support reps for each client our collection agency (in my biased opinion) is an industry leader in this area.

Talking to clients who tell me that their business is doing better, whether tremendously better or just slightly better, in-part due to our collection efforts is always great to hear.  Thank you to Leigh and the staff at the SCAHACC, I had a great time at the show and look forward to next year’s show (where I hear there will be a mechanical bull!).