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Clients come to us with a lot on their plates. Oftentimes, we in the service industry get to experience the brunt of their stress. We feel the wrath over the phone or in our faces as they blow up over what seems to be a small mistake or inconvenience we’ve made for them.
But it’s not personal.
They may say it’s personal: they may say you or I have done something wrong and that their life is now ruined because of our mistake. However, I’d argue that 99% of the time, their frustration has little or nothing to do with our work. It has to do with their personal lives.
Would you agree that our clients and society as a whole is more stressed, anxious, and depressed now more than ever before? Would you agree that social media, always being connected, and having the latest and greatest pieces of connected technology has as many cons as it has pros? Tasks that were once burdensome and took 10-15 minutes (like making a grocery list – which now your fridge can do for you), now are automated and take less than a minute to complete. Awesome! Right?
Though technology has sped up the tasks in our lives, it has also put more on our plates. We have more time for it, right? Yes, but do we have room for more things on our plates? Maybe not.
That’s the reality of each of our clients’ lives. They are moving a million miles a minute and we, or our products or services, are just another burden on their plate. It’s not personal, it’s just reality.
“Consider it done!”
At Trumble Insurance Agency, we have embraced this phrase and the intense work that lies behind it. When a client comes to us with a problem or needs something done, we tell them to consider it done. By saying this simple phrase, we take that task or problem they brought to us off their plates and put it onto ours. They no longer need to worry about it being done. They don’t need to check in or follow up to make sure it was completed.
We say confidently that they should consider it done.
And then we get to work. The job now becomes ensuring that their concern or task is taken care of 100%. As far as they are concerned, the task is completed. They don’t need to know the third parties involved in completing the task or how many phone calls it took to reach out to the mortgage servicing department. They consider it done. And we consider it our pleasure.
This is the new job description for everyone in the service industry. We must make our clients problems and concerns our problems and concerns, to the extent that they no longer need to worry about them.
We must serve to the extent that they consider it done.
Written by Zach Santmier
Co-Owner @ Trumble Insurance Agency
Zach is the Co-Owner and manager at Trumble and focuses on positioning Trumble as the best choice for home and auto insurance. Zach is the author of Quarterback The Sale: Lead the Play from Snap to Touchdown. His book focuses on the importance of providing a high level of leadership in the sales process so that clients are left surprised and delighted by the ease of doing business with a true sales quarterback.