ACtion Magazine - April 2014 - (Page 26)

A/C season opener that, and by then instructor Coats was surrounded by people wanting to know more about his program. Customers Worth Having Presented by Tom Ham; reported by Bob Chabot Amid the hustle and bustle of an event such as the 2014 MACS convention, have you ever had an "oasis" or "spa" moment? Such was the case for those who attended Tom Ham's seminar, where attendees had the opportunity to breathe, stretch their minds and consider customer service from a different perspective. His major points included the following: * Make other shops chase you by improving all of your points of contact signiﬁcantly. Over time, small changes can make a huge difference. * Sales do not matter nearly as much as many think they do. But customer impressions do. * Focus on more than just increasing your income; increase your enjoyment of your business. * Employ only nice people and become nicer yourself. Customers will notice. Besides key points and ample examples, Ham did something truly unique: He led with open-ended questions, engaged our minds, made us think about what type of customers we wanted. Then he went to the crux of the matter; how to see a shop from the customers' eyes. "Lost in the daily grind of just running our businesses and doing our jobs, we forget or don't even realize the opportunities to build positive impressions and experiences that can take our shop one notch above others." "Your competence is not the ﬁrst reason a customer enters your shop," Ham emphasized. "How often do you take a long hard look in the mirror at your entire operation? How much time and effort do you invest in getting ready for what your customers will see, feel, and experience? And whom do you measure yourself against? Typically, we measure ourselves against other shops, but may I suggest that using customercentric standards, including insights from industries other than vehicle service and repair, could vastly improve the quality of your customers and subsequent sales?" "On a 1-to-10 scale, when we compare ourselves to other shops, if the average is a 5, we settle if we view ourselves as an 8 or 9. But that 'us versus our competition' view limits us," Ham explained. "Do what other shops don't do. Learn from what other industries do to improve customer experiences and integrate those insights into your shop - its appearance and amenities, how your staff engages and lets them leave, and what messages and impressions you imprint them with." When your customers think, "Wow! Nobody does that!" in a positive sense, you've arrived. MACS is already lining up trainers for the 35th annual Mobile Air Conditioning Society Training Event and Trade Show. Plan to join us February 5-7, 2015 at the Caribe Royale Hotel and Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. In addition to enjoying a nice break from winter, you'll have the opportunity to meet, talk with and learn from some of the most inﬂuential and knowledgeable people in the industry. ❆ 26 ACTION * April 2014 by the numbers

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ACtion Magazine - April 2014

A/C Season Opener
Networking in the Big Easy
Getting Legal
Outlook
Freeze Frame
Leonard's Law
Virtual View
Service Port
Last Watch
By the Numbers
Cooling Corner
Industry News
Association News
Letter to the editor
New Products

ACtion Magazine - April 2014