Remember those days when the local radio station ran contests that you would have to call in to win? I still hear some these days but not like they used to. A local pizza place would offer up a free pizza to listeners of a local radio station and they’d run a contest. The DJ would get on the radio and say caller number 13 right now wins a large pepperoni pizza if they know the “phrase that pays” etc. These contests were a test of will. Back in those days there were no cell phones or even touch tone phones for that matter and no-one had ever heard of re-dial. Some of us remember holding the last number down on the rotary dial phone and letting go when the contest started. If you weren’t the winner you either got a busy signal or a phone attendant to give you the bad news and promptly hang up on you. Crazy Friday nights I tell you.

Getting hung up on is not something anyone really enjoys unless, of course, you’ve done a stellar job of aggravating that telemarketer enough for them to disconnect the call. That always brings me so much joy.

I think there’s something much worse than being hung up on and that’s feeling like you’ve inconvenienced the person you are calling. In our business our phone is our lifeline, it’s how we still choose to do business over 80% of the time. It seems to be working because our awesome customers still seem to prefer it that way too. We keep track of the number of incoming calls and make sure we have enough professional staff here to effectively handle peak calling times. The last thing we expect you to experience is someone who doesn’t have the time to answer all your questions or address all your concerns, politely.

Unfortunately a very large part of the service industry businesses have yet to either recognize this fact or simply have so much work that they can afford to be curt or even rude on the phone. I only wish I had the data to effectively calculate how many new customers Overhead Door gets to talk to because they’ve had a bad experience with someone else. We do get those comments and we get them frequently enough to realize that it still happens.

I did a small survey and asked some friends and family (25 people or so) if they could recommend the following:

Plumber – Carpenter – Mechanic and, of course, Garage Door Company. Unanimously they chose Overhead Door for the garage door company but let’s face it, they know me and send their business my way so that part of the survey is hooey. But what I found most interesting were the responses to the other categories and the reason I wrote this article. Very few could recommend a good company or person but almost all of them had a recommendation on who NOT to use. I found that alarming. In some cases they never had any direct experience with the companies they were telling me not to use but had “heard from a friend” that they did a bad job or charged too much or didn’t deliver on their promises, etc. I am guilty of this too.

Thankfully in today’s world you have many choices when it comes to products and services you need. Those companies that rise to the top of those choices are those that understand and continually learn what it takes to insure complete customers satisfaction right down to the last detail.

So the next time you’re in need of some service pick up the phone and call someone. Listen intently to the way they answer the phone. That will be your first indicator as to what you can expect when you choose them to do some work for you. Keep in mind that you called them and, if they deserve it, just hang up and try the next number.

Your Overhead Door Team – Of Rutland Vermont