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The Purpose of Our Satisfaction Guarantee

Customer Service

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Sometimes companies can be fearful of talking about a topic like satisfaction guarantees for a couple of reasons. One is because if someone is not satisfied, we have to take ownership of our mistake, and that doesn’t always feel very good. Another reason is because we can be fearful of people taking advantage of a company’s guarantee.

Our satisfaction guarantee is there to remove the risk of people doing business with us. If we offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee, there’s zero risk in choosing us. We’re a team of humans, so we’re imperfect and we do mess up sometimes. As we’ve always learned, the main thing isn’t the adversity itself—it’s how you respond to it that really matters. We’ll do what we need to in order to resolve any concerns.

In my experience, I’ve found that people don’t want to take advantage of you. It turns out that clients are truly concerned that we’ve done something wrong and we need to take ownership of it. For example, we deal with excavation and sometimes rainstorms will cause mud to run somewhere it’s not supposed to be. We try to answer those concerns and get them resolved promptly, but it can be very difficult when working with Mother Nature. Because the client’s satisfaction is very important to us, we try do do whatever we can to resolve the situation.

Not too long ago, we had a job where we were busting up the concrete in a home. We have a process to keep the dust level down, but unfortunately, we dropped the ball in that area and there was a dust issue in the home. We fielded the customer’s concern, addressed the issue, and got the area cleaned up. We did what we needed to do in order to leave the customer satisfied.

I’m working on a situation right now because we subcontracted a pipe lining company from eastern Virginia to line a sewer 12 years ago. We applied the appropriate warranty to the lining, which was 50 years. Unfortunately, the subcontractor isn’t standing behind the work they did. So we are standing behind it. The bottom line is, when I look at the quote that was given to the customer, it clearly and simply states the work done and the warranty we provided. It’s costing us a great deal of money now, but I was personally in that client’s home and I said we would do the right thing to resolve her concern.

The customer agreed to work with us because they had confidence that the problem would be resolved and wouldn’t come up again in the future. Even 12 years later we’re still making sure our commitment is being honored. Sometimes an issue isn’t really resolved and we have to do extra work at our own expense. We must make the choice to do the right thing, even though it might not always be very fun.

If you have any questions, contact us today or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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One of the most frustrating things for a homeowner is setting up an appointment for a service person to come to their home and they don’t show up, show up late, or don’t follow directions. We focus on being on time, and we give a two hour window in which we will arrive. We also try to notify people when we’re on our way. I really think meeting our client’s needs comes down to dispatching correctly. It’s important that the people fielding the customers’ requests are well-trained in asking the right questions so we best understand the issue you’re dealing with, how serious it is, and exactly what we need to do. Asking the right questions is vital to making sure someone’s needs are properly met.

Next, we need to make sure we send the right person to your home. We’re very much aware of how the technician we send could make or break the customer’s experience. (Nobody likes it when a technician seems incompetent or when it’s the first time they’ve ever seen the issue.) We assess the task that needs to be done and assign it a skill level. We also assign a skill level to every technician (because everyone is slightly different). Then we try to match up the right technician with the right task to make sure we’re sending a competent person to every home.

A lot of times people think that a company will dispatch its technicians to cover a certain radius. A technician in South Roanoke would just run all the calls in that area for the day, right? Well, not exactly. We do not focus primarily on the location of the call as much as we do the skill level necessary to do the job correctly and meet the customer’s needs. So we may have technicians passing each other by on the way to calls. This is all about making sure the customer has a satisfactory experience.

We make these choices when coordinating our technicians because our time is valuable and our homeowner’s time is valuable. We want to make sure that we’re doing our absolute best. Sometimes we do have to make multiple visits, and sometimes we don’t get everything quite right over the phone. But I’d like to think that the vast majority of the time we’re able to do it well and make sure that the customer’s problem is solved.

If you have any issues with your plumbing or HVAC systems, you can always reach out to the team at Wisler Plumbing. Just contact us today or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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I don’t think anybody likes negative surprises. Unfortunately, businesses often surprise people by sneaking in fine print with extra fees. So many of us are wary of fine print that it’s not surprising to hear someone say they’ll wait around and see how much higher the invoice will be after all the extra fees are added in. We try to do business differently than that. The price we tell you it’s going to be is the price that you’re going to pay. We trademarked the term Straightforward Pricing because it signifies our strategy of being upfront with clients.

Sometimes companies justify misleading their clients by saying it’s just an expected way of doing business. They view a service charge as something everyone should already know about, and they won’t even mention explicitly. Well, maybe a homeowner doesn’t know they’re going to be charged a service fee because they’ve never had service personnel in their home.

Most of the time it’s already not a good day when you have to call the plumber. There’s a lot of anxiety involved when dealing with an unexpected situation in your home, like a flood, water leak, or even a complete lack of water. Do I have the money to pay for this? Can it get fixed? How long is it going to take? Are they going to do the right job? Am I going to be taken advantage of? So many questions cross a homeowner’s mind during a time like this. Being straightforward with something as important as pricing helps to lower anxiety. When you have a lower anxiety level about your current situation, I think you can make better decisions.

I also think that you can make the right choice when all the options are presented to you, especially when you know you can trust the bottom line. (We believe in giving options to empower the customer to make a decision.) That ties along with another part of what we do with our pricing structure: Straightforward Pricing is a form of task pricing, so we don’t charge by the hour. Instead, we charge by the task or job. Another way to set prices is by using time & material pricing. One of the downfalls of time & material pricing is that homeowners can be penalized if the technician isn’t very good. If the tech wasn’t prepared with the right parts, the homeowner would end up paying extra because the job took longer than necessary. That’s why I think task pricing is much more of a fair approach.

Without Straightforward Pricing or some other form of task pricing, there is no consistency. I think it’s very important for homeowners to feel like they’re not getting charged differently just because of their status, what their home looks like, or because of whichever technician they got on a particular day. I believe in consistency, and all the things we do with Straightforward Pricing helps to build the trust level of the people we serve.

In the trades that we’re in, we strongly believe in the fact that we shouldn’t give a ballpark price over the phone only to go to your home and find out it’s going to be double what we thought. Instead, just reach out to us by calling 540-483-9382 or requesting an appointment online. We can have one of our technicians or reps come to your home, evaluate the situation, and explain exactly what needs to be done. Then we’ll give you options with a Straightforward Price so you can select the best fit for you.

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You know the old adage, there’s more than one way to skin a cat? Everyone has their own way of doing things. When I talk about the Wisler way, I’m not saying it with arrogance, but as a way to describe our approach to getting things done. There are definitely many different perspectives and other successful ways for a business to function. The Wisler way is how I label what I’m about to share—these are some of the main things we’ve found to be helpful to our success.

First of all, we’re selective, meaning we focus on hiring the right people and making sure they’re a really good fit for our organization. More specifically, our organization is shaped by our customers’ needs. Customer feedback is what guides who we are and how we build our culture. Nobody likes the service personnel visiting their home to be rude, unknowledgeable, unable to get the job done right, disrespectful of their property, unable to be upfront, unfriendly, or unpleasant. We key in on these kinds of attributes because we know our customers need personnel who provide a high level of service. We fulfill those needs by by putting a strong focus on who we hire and how we hire. People’s homes are extremely precious—they hold the things that we find most dear, like our children and our parents. Anybody who steps foot in that environment needs to communicate safety, care, and respect. It takes a special person to be able to do that.

Next, we’ve found that people have to be trained, whether it’s from a technical standpoint or a professional standpoint. As we hire someone, we may find that they need training to improve specific skills (e.g., communication or service). Our organization is very much about growth and development, whether it pertains to the overall business or the individual. Someone may have the basic skills necessary to be a service technician or an administrative person within the business, but they can always develop various skills to become even better. That’s a big part of who we are.

Finally, because we fail a good bit, I think we need to focus on getting our work done right. (Perfectionism probably makes me a much harsher critic than most other people.) I do think there is a right and a wrong, and doing the right thing is important. It takes discipline and organization to get a clear view of the work you’ve done and then do the right thing, even if it’s not the easiest or most fun thing to do.

In summary, we focus on hiring the right people with the correct fit, we believe in personal growth and training people to obtain new skills, and we’re about being disciplined to do the right thing no matter what type of task it may be. If you have any questions, contact us today or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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Things I Learned from My Mom

 

In the last post, “Things I Learned from My Dad,” I talked about some of the things I’ve learned from my dad. I also picked up quite a few things from my mom while I was growing up. I remember it was very common for her to be up and busy at around 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. Not everyone in my family is a morning person, so being an early bird is definitely something that I must have http://#gotten from her. I’m most productive in the early hours of the day—I’m not a night person and I like to go to bed relatively early, too.

 

There were always things to do around the house when I was growing up. I’d join my mom in cooking, cleaning—and this may surprise some people—sewing. My mom loved sewing, quilting, and those kinds of activities. Somewhere around the age of 4 to 9 I picked up sewing, mainly because that’s what I’d see her doing. Now, I’m not saying I’m technically proficient enough to be a seamstress, but I do know how to sew on a button or maybe sew a pillow together.

 

My mom also ran the books for the company at our home office while I was very young. I can remember working on the computer, entering payables or doing other types of data entry whenever I had time after I finished my homework. I really enjoyed being exposed to some of the office administration and bookkeeping side of the business. Although I worked in the field early on in my full-time career, I could handle office tasks thanks to my childhood data entry work. I think it also gave me greater empathy for my office staff. I could more readily relate to certain situations, and it was definitely an invaluable experience.

 

One of the things my mom would tell me as a child was, “Can’t never could.” When I hear someone say that they can’t do something, I always think that they probably never will. Whenever you face what appears to be a very big challenge in front of you, just keep a positive, optimistic outlook and be confident that you can get it done.

 

If you have any questions, or if you would like to work with the team at Wisler Plumbing & Air, reach out to us today. Request an appointment or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

 

 

James Wisler

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There are probably plenty of things I’ve forgotten, but I’ve learned a lot from my dad over the years while I was growing up. One thing that definitely stands out would be the trades, which I kind of picked up by osmosis. My father started this organization, and a big part of my time growing up was spent doing plumbing, electrical, and HVAC with my dad.

I picked up a couple of intangible traits from him, as well. My detail-oriented nature drives me to hone in on the details of what we do on a day-in and day-out basis. Some of that involves applying critical thinking to our processes and assessing the level of quality we deliver. It requires being humble enough to admit when we’re wrong and make changes moving forward.

My father, who is now 73, still enjoys working full-time and staying very active. In that respect, I’d say that my drive and ambition is another intangible quality that I’ve picked up from him. Growing up, I remember always noticing his focus on quality while out on the field. If something wasn’t right the first time, we’d go back three or four times just to make sure that we were able to make it right. If you’re going to do something, do it well—quality matters. That’s definitely something I modeled after him.

If I had to summarize one thing that my dad deeply engrained in Wisler Plumbing & Air from the start, it would be a systematic, disciplined approach to everything that we do. I think the foundation he laid is what cultivated the culture we have in our organization today.

To work with the team at Wisler Plumbing & Air, contact us, request an appointment, or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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