Are You Spot Checking Moves?

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It's Louis Massaro. And welcome to another episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast.

Hey, what's up, my friend? It's Luis Massaro, founder of Moving Sales Academy, CEO of Moving Mastery. And today I'm. I want to talk to you about something that is fundamental for every moving company. Something some people are doing but maybe got away from. And it's crucial to ensure the quality of your operations, and that's spot checking moves. You know, the reason this is so important is because, you know, as we start to build and grow our companies and we have so much going on in the office, day to day booking moves, dealing with, you know, customer service, just worrying about dispatching and getting everything covered, sometimes we forget that, you know, the front line of our business is our movers, right? The ones that go out there, they do the move. That's the service that we're selling. That's the service that we're providing. So, you know, one of the best ways to make sure that your team, that your guys, that your movers are going out there every day and doing the things that you set forth and you ask them to do on every single move. Your policies, your procedures, how you want them to interact with your customers. The best way to do that is through going out and doing spot checks. Right. Early on, when I started, you know, I would dispatch out of the truck rental yard before I even had an office. And I would go around from apartment complex to apartment complex, you know, pounding the pavement, just drumming up moves. And in between that, what I would do is I would look at my calendar and see, all right, where, you know, the schedule and see where my trucks were, right? And I would start to make pit stops to, to see how the guys were doing if they were doing everything that I needed them to do. And it really helped propel and start that initiative of making sure things were done consistently the right way every single time. And years later, as I moved out of that role and started to build my companies, I made sure that it was something that we did as a practice company wide. So, you know, whether it's you going out there, whether it's somebody from your team, I believe that in order for your company to succeed at high levels, okay, you need to provide quality service. And I know you know this, right? I know you might say, louis, I know this. We've been doing spot checks. You know, this is something we've been doing for 20 years. And my question to you is, when was the last time you did it? You know, is this part of a consistent Routine. Is this part of something that you do on a regular basis? It's kind of baked into the schedule for somebody, whether it's you, whether it's your dispatcher, whether it's your, you know, your warehouse person, somebody needs to be doing it to ensure that those quality standards that you want for your movers, right? The stuff that you're saying to your customers before you even say it to your customers in your website, right? Everything that's on your website and all your marketing, quality, quality, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. Then when you get them on the phone, you explain all those services well, you need to make sure those things are happening. And the way you do that is going out and doing spot checks. So I want to give you five things to do to make this transition easy so that you can jump into it right away. And if it's something that you used to do and you need to get back into this will just kind of help, you know, propel you and get out there and get this going again. So first thing you want to do is before you go out there, you want to have a process checklist, okay? You want to have everything that you want your team to do on the job in a checklist. Make it easy for yourself. Don't go out there and just kind of look around and look for things that are wrong. Have a checklist, right? And if you're delegating this to somebody else on your team, it makes it super easy for them to go out there and do it as well, right? So things like, you know, first thing when you walk up, is the truck parked where you ask them to park the truck, Right? Is, you know, are there door. You know, are there covers on the door jams when you walk in the house, are the stairways padded? Right. Do you require them to put, you know, Masonite or some floor covering down? Is that done? Right? Are they all in uniform? The things that you want to make sure need to be done consistently on every move. Have yourself a checklist. Make it easy. Go out there. You could keep it in your phone. You could actually have a physical checklist. But go and check for those things that you trained your team on that you want to see them doing. Go see if they're actually doing it out in the field, right? Second thing, bring drinks, right? This was something for me. I never wanted my guys to feel like I was just out there checking up on them. It was always like, hey, what's up, guys? I was in the area, I Thought I'd stop by and bring you some Gatorades, right? I would grab, you know, three Gatorades or two, however many guys were on the truck, and I would bring them out to them. And they were so appreciative of that that they didn't feel like I was out there. Just kind of like, all right, checklist, checklist, checklist, right? Like, what are you guys doing? Are you doing it right? And so stop. Get them some drinks, get them some Gatorades or whatever, you know, they like, you know, maybe even some snacks, whatever it is, but bring them something, right? Because at the end of the day, they're out there busting their. They're out there doing a good job for you. You need to make sure you show a little sign of appreciation. This little, little thing will go a long way. All right, Next thing, you want to make sure you greet the customer. You know, use this as an opportunity also to show the customer that as a company, you're there for them, right? So if you're the owner of the company, I mean, come on, what better touch, what a nice touch. Then, you know, the owner showed up to make sure everything was going well. This doesn't have to happen on every single job, but the jobs that it does happen, they feel like this is part of your practice, right? So greet the customer, say hello, introduce yourself. Whether you're the owner, whether this is a manager or dispatcher or anyone else doing it, let them know that, you know, you're there, there's anything else that they need. Is there anything that my guys, you know, aren't doing that you'd like to see them doing? I just want to make sure everything is going as you expected it, right? And this way you could get, you know, understand their total expectations, get a feel for, you know, what's actually happening. And then if there are any issues, if there are any things, is it maybe they're not, you know, completely. They don't really like the way somebody's doing something or one of your movers or, you know, they have a complaint, it's better that you're there and you, you know, kind of head that off then and there as opposed to that turning into a complaint. Because now you could correct the issue right now, you can make a change, you can make a shift, you can go talk to your guys and get them to make the adjustment, right? Which brings me to the last point. Oh, did I skip one here? No, got two more points here. All right, so.

Avoid confrontation. Alright, so now, so let's say the customer says, you know, I have a problem with this guy. You know, he's talking on his phone the whole time while he's working. You know, he's, I'm hearing him talk about his disputes with his, with his, you know, baby's mama and this problem and that problem. And you know, it's, it's kind of unprofessional, right? He's cursing on the phone, whatever it is, right? There's all kind. We know the scenarios that happen, right? So you want to make sure that you avoid confrontation with your movers. You need to address certain issues, but you don't want to be that person that, you know, if you ever go to a restaurant and you see somebody that's like really rude to the waiter, right? Like, it's like, whoa, like unnecessarily really rude to the waiter. You know, if you go and you start yelling at one of your movers, right? And you start like hardcore reprimanding them, trying to show the customer, don't worry, I'll take care of this. It's actually going to make you look bad and make the company look bad and they'll start to feel, you know, bad for the mover, right? So handle things in a way that you avoid confrontation. Only address what needs to be addressed at the job site, right? In order to make an adjustment so that the rest of that move goes well. And if there's a bigger issue, address that with the team, address that with the individual mover when they come back to the office and they're not at job because you start, you, you, you roll in, you, you know, you start nitpicking, you start telling them, you start yelling at them. How do you think they're going to be? How do you think they're going to react when you leave, right? So address whatever issues need to be addressed, but avoid confrontation at all costs, all right? Because you're not going to leave them in a good place with your customer. And last point number five is, you know, make sure you acknowledge good work, right? I don't care if it's the simplest thing, you know, if you, you know, pull up and they have the truck parked outside, where you ask them to park the truck at customers houses. If you walk in and you know the stair rails are all padded, right? If, you know, you go and you look in the back of the truck and they loaded the truck, you know, your driver, whoever's loading the truck, they loaded it beautifully. You know, just give them a, you know, a little attaboy, like Hey, I was looking at the truck. You know, you really loaded it nice. The tears are really flush. Like, good job with that. You know, whatever it is that gives them that little, like, attaboy will go a long, long way. So. And it could be something totally, totally small. It doesn't have to be, you know, some big courageous act that they did, right? Just acknowledge the things that you asked them to do and that they're doing all right. It shows that, you know, you're paying attention. It shows that that stuff really does matter to you and it shows that you care as well. I'll give you an example. So recently I had a coaching client who, you know, has a very big company who's, you know, been in business quite a while. And, you know, we were talking about some quality initiatives, right? We're talking about just, you know, reducing the claims rate and getting the reviews better and getting things in order, right? On a quality side. And so I said, you know, are you spot checking moves? He's like, you know, we to do that years ago, and no, we haven't done it. He said, but I just don't have the time. Like, we're on full blast here, right? Like, I've got my, you know, dispatcher super busy. We've got all these moves. My sales team's busy. I got my gm, he's, you know, running a bunch of projects. You know, I'm busy running everything. We just don't have the time to do it. So, you know, I have a full understanding of everybody that he has. I said, what about, you know, what about your warehouse guy? He said, yeah, I mean, well, he's got time, like in between storage shipments coming out. I mean, you know, he's kind of just, you know, really just kind of hanging out. I said, all right, well, why don't you send him out to go do it, right? It doesn't. Don't you go out and do box deliveries a couple days a week anyways, right? Because he had a company van. They do box deliveries. So why don't you have him on those days he's already out. Give him a few and go out there. He said, well, they're not. He's not gonna. They're not gonna know what. What to look for. He's not going to know what to look for. I said, so give him a checklist. Have them go out there, go through the checklist, and you know what, have them send you pictures of certain things on the job. So what do you mean? I said, well, you know, you want them to put, you know, you want them to cover the door jambs, right? Yeah. Have them take a picture of it to show you that it's done. You want to make sure the truck's loaded a certain way. Have them go to the back of the truck and load the truck. Have him go through a checklist and he could do it just as good as you're going to be able to do it and give him some money, let him stop, let him get some drinks the same way you would, and you're going to be able to get it done. He's like, all right, great. Started doing it and it really, you know, it takes a minute, right? Because at first the guys are like, what's going on? But then they get used to it. Then they start to feel like every job they're on, you may show up or somebody from your team may show up, right? So they're just more conscious of making sure they do things the way you want them done. So before you go out there and you start running and jumping into every single job and saying, we need to spot check every job. If you're not doing it now, start off slow, right? Do a couple a week, right? If, you know, make it easy for yourself too, there's no reason to make this difficult. Maybe you just look at the schedule and you tell somebody, hey, listen, if there's any jobs that are ever near my house, maybe I'm on my way into work, I could stop, or I'm on my way home, I could stop. Make it simple on yourself. Check out a few a week, right? And if you're already doing a few a week, step it up a little bit more. All right? Hope this was helpful. Go out there every single day. Profit in your business, thrive in your life. If you like this video, make sure you share it with somebody that you know might find it helpful and I'll see you next time.

And if you're ready to take your moving company to the next level, make sure you check out my brand new on demand training on how to consistently book more hobby paying moves all year long. It's called the six stages of a moving company sales machine and you can access it right now for free@lewismassaro.com.

Six stages. In this training, you'll learn the steps you need to take to increase your sales with a smooth running, consistent process. This is the same process I use in my moving companies to book 12,000 moves a year. And now I'm training you on how to implement it in your moving company for free. It's available now at Lewis Massaro.

Six stages.