Avoid Problems With Communication PLUS Comprehension
Louis Massaro explains why customer complaints and employee errors often stem from poor comprehension, not poor communication. He walks through the communication flow in moving businesses and shows how to verify understanding at each step: confirmation emails, calls, scripts, and dispatch instructions.
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It's Luis Massaro. And welcome to another episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast.
What's up, guys? Happy Monday. It's moving season. I hope you're starting to feel things pick up. I want to talk to you about resolving customer complaints, handling and avoiding employee issues. Right. Problems. And a lot of times we think about communication, but there's a missing piece to that and it's comprehension. So I want to talk to you about that today before I get started. If you haven't already downloaded the free training on the seven key areas your moving company dispatcher needs to tighten up to increase profits, go do that now. It's up for free for you. It's at movingmastery.com, go, go check that out. And you know, this comes up today because I was recently talking with a one on one coaching client who had a couple different issues. One was employees that said, you know, I'm telling them what to do. I've repeated it. You know, they have the process, they know what I expect from them, but they're not doing it right. So I said, okay, where's the disconnect, right? If they know what you expect, why aren't they doing it? And as we drill down, what we discovered was, yet he was saying what he wanted from them, but they weren't comprehending it, right? So let me give you another example. When you have a customer, right, A lot of times we'll say, you know, well, we told the customer about this charge or we told them if everything wasn't packed, that we were going to do the packing, we were going to charge them for it, or we told them they needed to have everything ready or whatever the case may be, right? We feel that we tell people stuff and that just because we say the words to them or just because.
We send something in our contract or in our estimate that they have comprehended that. And so a lot of problems that you have with employees and staff and delegating and also with customers, any customer issues and complaints that are going down can be prevented and resolved by not just looking at your communication, as in, you know, how am I communicating with them? But, but how are they comprehending it, right? So let me give you an example. Like if you have, you know, so in your moving business, you've got to make sure that your communication is on point all the way through for your customer to be able to avoid any problems, any misunderstandings, any of the, you know, the salesman told me this, but that didn't happen. It all starts with your marketing, right?
What's the expectation that they have with their marketing, right? What is the message that you're putting in all of your marketing? Your website, your postcards, the side of your trucks, everything. What's there, right, that communication needs to flow from marketing.
To sales, okay? Needs to go from marketing to sales. Whatever you're saying in marketing needs to flow through the sales. So if your website says, you know, all these different services that you provide and when they speak to somebody in sales, it's something different, right? Then there's gonna be a breakdown in communication to the customer, which is gonna cause distrust, may cause you not to book the move, and could definitely cause problems later on down the line when it comes to the third step.
Which is service, right? So it goes from marketing to sales to service. So now everything that happens in service, right, that was explained in sales, that was, you know, originally, the customer heard about it through your marketing needs to happen, right? So we know this already, but what happens is we say, okay, well, I put that information on my website, or, you know, it's in my script, we tell people about it, or it's in the email. We told them about it. But if there's a continuous problem with the customer saying, I wasn't told about that and you saying, yes, you were. It was in the email. Yes, you were. We told you about it during a confirmation call or whatever the case may be, there's not a problem necessarily with the communication. Cause you're communicating it, right? A lot of times we think communication is just when we say something that's communicating. But the other end of communicating is making sure that the person comprehends what you're saying, right? How many times have you been on the phone either, you know, with a customer and they are driving and maybe you're giving them a quote, or maybe you're talking to them about their move or maybe an issue they had. Whatever. You're talking to a customer, right? They're in the car, they're distracted. There's kids in the background screaming, yelling, right? They're walking, they're. They're going, they're in the grocery store, whatever. They're living life, right? They're out doing whatever it is that they do during the day. It's your responsibility and everyone's responsibility within your company to make sure that whoever is talking to that customer makes sure that they are comprehending what's being said. Meaning if you're telling a customer about your rates and at that very moment when you're telling them about the travel time, let's Just say, right, Maybe you have an issue. And you say, your customers say, well, we were never told about the travel time or the truck charge or the fuel charge or whatever. And you notice that when you're telling them about it, when you're communicating it with your words, that they're distracted. You need to make sure that they're comprehending that information. Too many times we think, oh, no, I said it. Oh, no, it's in my email. They should know about it. All right? The key to communication is not just saying words or writing words and saying, I did my part. It's to make sure that the person on the other end comprehends what you're saying. Right? So, by the way, if you haven't downloaded and watched my free training on the seven key areas to increase profits in your moving company and tighten up dispatch, go get that. Now it's@movingmastery.com it's up. For a short period of time. It's free. There's nothing you need to buy.
But again, we're talking about how to use communication plus comprehension to avoid not only customer problems, but employee issues as well. Right. All the times you say, you know, I told them what they needed to do, but they still didn't do it correctly. Is it because they're not listening or is it because they didn't comprehend? Right. One of the biggest breakdowns in communication in general. Right. Is that when we're talking, we assume that the other person knows exactly what we mean. Right. But you need to be more specific. So not only do you have your systems and your processes, and you make sure you've got the right people in place, but as you're communicating, make sure they comprehend. Right. It's not responsible as a leader to say, well, I sent the whole team an email on that. They should know. Right. You've got to make sure that they get it, that they grasp it, that they comprehend it. Otherwise, it's not gonna happen. And it's always gonna be this, you know, continuous cycle of blaming people that aren't doing what they're supposed to do. Okay? Or back to the customer scenario of, you know, we tell the customers all the time, but they don't listen. Well, if, you know they don't listen, figure out where they're not listening and make sure you communicate extra about any important topics. All right? It's huge. I mean, I've helped companies turn their entire customer service and customer relations around with this one simple shift. And that shift is to say, you know what? It's not enough for us to communicate, we've got to cop. We've got to make sure they comprehend it. Okay? So I'm going to say that again to make sure you comprehend it. It's not enough that you communicate. You've got to make sure that they comprehend what you're saying. And if you've got to repeat yourself over and over, if you notice in this video, I'm saying that the same stuff, but I want to make sure that you get this, because this isn't like a, hey, Louis, thanks for the tip. This is something that can turn your entire company around. If you're having any issues with employees not listening, if you're having any issues with customers saying, I wasn't told about this or I wasn't told about that, when you know you did tell them, all right, again, you've got to step it up another level. It's one thing to communicate, it's another thing to make sure they comprehend. Right? We're coming into moving season. Your, you know, your schedule should be filling up. You're going to have more customers now than you have any other time of the year, right between now and, let's say, September, you should be out there crushing it. Your volume should be higher. You've got to have these tools and you've got to have these tactics to make sure that you avoid problems, right? Every customer complaint, every issue that happens is only taking you away from your ultimate goal, from your ultimate mission, from your ultimate, you know, use of time during a day that could be used to service your customers and grow your business. If you're constantly dealing with the aftermath of problems that could have been avoided from communication and then making sure that they comprehend, you know, that's a waste of time, that's a waste of resources, that's a waste of energy. So you've got to put these things in place in advance. And a lot of it is just saying, all right, are we communicating this to the customer? Which you probably do. You're like, hey, look, we've got to step this up. Customers are saying they weren't told about this or they weren't told about that. Let's add something to our email, right? Let's make sure that when we send out the confirmation text that they get all the information that they need when they click on the link. Okay? Let's take it one step further now and make sure that they're comprehending all of this, all right? Make this little shift, and you'll start to avoid a lot of problems with customers, with employees, you know, with anybody in your daily life. You know, when you go home and you're like, you know, me and my spouse, we're not communicating. Right. I say this, but they don't listen. My kids, they don't listen. Make sure people are comprehending what you're saying. It's not enough to just say the words. You've got to make sure they get where you're coming from and. And they know exactly what you mean. All right. Make sure you go to movingmastery.com, check out the seven key areas that your dispatcher needs to tighten up in order to increase profits so that you can go out there and crush it this summer. Make a ton of money. Until I see you guys next time. Go out there every single day. Profit in your business, thrive in your life. I'll see you later.
Sam.