Resolving Customer Complaints

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Hey, my friends, it's Louis Massaro. And welcome to another episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast.

This podcast is all about helping you reach that next level in your moving company. And we do that by sharing with.

You processes and strategies and ideas that.

Get you thinking bigger on what's possible. You know, I grew my business from working out of a truck rental yard all the way to $20 million a year. And I want to help share those.

Strategies with you so that you could.

Reach that next level in your business, whatever that is for you. And, you know, it's not all about just making more money. It's about profiting in your business and thriving in your life.

And we do that by, you know.

Being able to set up those systems, set up those processes so we could step away and work on our business and not be every single day stuck in the grind so that we have some time to enjoy with our families and just enjoy life and the fruits of our labor. And today, I am just so excited to talk to you about something that's gonna help you reach that next level in your business. And it's called Smart Moving Software.

This is a company that I co.

Founded with an amazing partner and group of programmers that have just built an amazing platform. You know, this is a software that.

Runs your entire moving business.

Not only runs it, but truly optimizes it. You know, one of the things that I the most is that you have just ultimate clarity into your numbers. I mean, as soon as you log in, you've got a dashboard right there that just tells you everything that's going on. You know, one of the things that I've realized over the years that helps moving companies really get to that next level of success is being able to know their numbers. And, you know, without a system that pulls everything together, it could be really, really challenging. And Smart Moving just has all the reports and all the information dialed in the way that you need it to be. And I'm just so excited to tell you about it. Go check it out, get a demo, go to smartmoving.com, sign up for a free demo, check it out, and listen. If you don't have a CRM in this modern day of moving, you need a CRM. If you've already got a CRM and you're just looking for an upgrade, something that's more streamlined, something that gives you all the tools that actually matter, go to smartmoving.com, check it out. It's gonna help you do everything from the minute you get leads to your sales process. To customer service, to dispatch, to following up with your crews, to handling your numbers and your books and your reports. Everything you need is there in a streamlined, systematic, automated process. And I'm just so excited to be.

A part of it.

I'm so excited to finally have a solution to offer to moving company owners that for years were asking me, louis, what platforms did you use? What softwares did you use? And the truth is, I used a lot of different stuff that I had to tie together because there wasn't something like Smart Moving that allowed me to just do everything in one place. And now that we have that, I mean, we've got customers at all different levels using this software.

You know, companies that, you know, maybe.

They'Re just starting out, companies that have been in business for 10 years, they've got 10, 15 trucks. We've got nationwide franchises that are running their entire operation off of smart moving. So I want you to go check it out today because I'm so excited about it. It's called Smart Moving Software. It's get your free demo@smartmoving.com and without further ado, let's jump into this episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast.

All complaints come in, right? This could mean anything. Damage, just a complaint, a bad review, a credit card chargeback, a bbb, a cancellation, an attorney letter. Right? Anything that's in the category of a complaint.

Goes to the awareness board. Okay? So, you know, when I set up customer service.

In my main office, it was really not until, you know, I sold my long distance trucks and I became a broker for a short period of time. And the amount of complaints that were coming from the carriers that we were giving the work to, they weren't responding to them. Right. In other words, I thought, hey, being a broker, be easy. We'll book the jobs and we'll service them. We've already got the call center going. I'll tell you the whole story tomorrow. But it wasn't because we would say, oh, no problem, you just need to call the carrier. They'd call the carrier, carrier one and deal with it. Right? So I went from not thinking I needed customer service to building out a whole wing of 10 customer service people and a customer service manager. And I said, you know what, I want to know everything that's happening, and I want to know every customer that's unhappy at any given time. Not even a complaint. If they're not 100% happy, I want it up on the TV screen and I want everybody to see it. So it's on our, you know, we're aware of it, and we know that we could. We're working to resolve that, because otherwise, it's too easy for it to get swept under the rug, right? If the customer's not what a lot of people do, if the customer's not calling and calling and calling, you're like, all right, they're not calling. Everything must be fine. One star Yelp review pops up, right? Everything's not fine. Other stuff happens. Everything's not fine. You want to have full awareness of what's going on with any customer that's not 100% happy, right? So I told my sales team, I told my customer service, I told dispatch, if you're aware of a customer that's not 100% happy, they need to go on the awareness board, which at first was a spreadsheet.

That we put up on the TV so we could see what was going on, and then later we built it into the CRM. But would that be helpful for you guys? Yeah. So you just want to be aware, right? So literally, if you had a whiteboard, okay, I'm assuming you guys, like, we were doing 12,000 moves at this point. So, you know, even if it wasn't a lot of complaints, there was enough to have a board for them, right? But even if you have one or two complaints here and there, or customers that, you know, aren't 100% happy, put them up on a whiteboard, right? Just be aware of it. Otherwise it won't get resolved, and it'll just end up, you know, most complaints, if you deal with them and you address them, you could resolve it and move past it. It's when you don't deal with it that the people get really pissed off, and then it becomes a bigger issue.

So, you know, essentially, we'd open a ticket, we'd open the complaint resolution form that we had them go through. I know a lot of you have that from moving Sales Academy review, categorize it and prioritize it, right? So we would know, like, how did it come in? Did it come in because a mover told us about it? Did it come in because we found a bad review online? And then we put it in priority on how we're going to address it and how we're going to deal with it.

And then we do an investigation, right? What happened with this complaint? Complaints. You don't want to just, like, deal with them and then move on. You want to improve upon that. I mean, already today, you know, I've probably marked down or gave Chris five or six different things. To improve upon for next time. Right? Not necessarily any complaints, but when you get a complaint, you want to be able to make sure you make those improvements, but you want to look into what actually happened. So, you know, depending on the complaint, we would take them through this complaint resolution form that we filled out. Who has the complaint resolution form in here that's using it? Okay, so.

And it's like, maybe we need to talk to the customer to find out their side of the story, which is always the case. Maybe we need to talk to dispatch, maybe we need to talk to the movers, maybe we need to talk to the salesperson. Or maybe we need to look at the process.

Anytime mistakes happen in your company, it's one of two things. People or process. That's it. That's the cause of every single problem in your company. People or process. And before you go blaming the person, look at the process to see if there's something that needs to be adjusted, something that needs to be fixed. Right? So you do the investigation, and now you need a resolution. You know, you listen to the customer and empathize with them. Apologize if necessary. I have a private client in the room that was at my office, I don't know, a month ago and had a customer that.

I'm trying to remember exactly what the scenario was.

I won't call him out. So. No, the scenario was they put a one star review. They wouldn't take it down. They tried to resolve it. Tried everything, tried everything to resolve the issue. I said, you know what? Write an apology letter, sincere, from the heart to the customer, from you and your wife to say, look, you know, because he was, he's like, I'm stressed out. I'm losing sleep over this at night. Tell the customer this. You know, I'm a small business owner. My business means everything. I take pride in what we do. Right. I know probably six of you probably have the video of this, because I know, as I was telling them in my office, you guys are breaking out your phones and video me saying it. But, you know, this is my business, this is my livelihood. I take it very seriously. I take pride in what I do.

And it's been keeping me up at night that you had the experience that you did. And I just want you to know that I'm deeply sorry about it. If there's anything that I could do at all to help make this better.

We'Re here. You know, I don't remember exactly what it was and that those weren't exact. That was the tone of the letter. And it Worked. And it worked. Took the review down, right? It worked. Might not work every time, but make the effort. Never let a one star review. Just sit up there and don't make an effort to get it down. Pay that customer, kiss their ass, do what you got to do, but get it down. That's like having a retail store with spray paint on it, right? That's, you know, you have a, I don't know, donut shop and somebody comes and writes, these donuts suck. And you just come into work every day and you're like, it's unfortunate, right?

Get it down.

All right, so if the customer's happy, right, Because a lot of times you could resolve the complaint because usually it's not a big thing.

And you can make them happy. You know, they just, they were heard, you dealt with it. Reasonable people understand that things happen. They just want the company to stand behind their word. Ask them for a review. Only if their face looks like that though, right? Only if their face looks like that. Their face looks like this.

Yeah, if their face looks like that, just don't ask them for anything. Just be glad that you resolved it. They're like, yeah, all right, you know, that's fine. But they're not a raving fan. And if their face looks like that.

That gets escalated to the owner.

If my customer service team couldn't resolve.

Any complaints, they would come to me with the complaint resolution form filled out completely, with all the investigations done. So I had all the information that I needed. So in other words, here's what the salesperson said, here's what the mover said, here's what the customer said. You know, everything was smooth in the process. And then I would call the customer and make that final attempt to resolve that issue.

So complaint resolution, all right, as far as the complaint itself, I know this is tough, but don't take it personal, all right? Don't take it personal. You got to understand this is part of the business, all right? It's all part of the business.

You've got to remove your emotion from the situation. You know, when I started the business, I was like a 19 year old hot headed kid. Complaints came in like I wanted to fight the customer, you know what I mean? I was so offended and so like, you know, like, you grow up, like what do you do? Like as a grown man or grown woman, you're fight like first of all, you're fighting people as a grown person. Like it's ridiculous, right? We're not, that's not, that's like high school stuff. When I was 19, you know, I was all hot headed about it. I never fought a customer, by the way. I'm just, you know, but what I'm getting it is I feel the pain. And I know that when you get these issues and they happen, I know there's a fire in your chest.

But you gotta let it go. It's not personal, it's part of business. And the bigger you get, you know, there'll be more things that happen. And the quicker you could just let it go, remove the emotion and deal with it, the better it'll be. Right? It's all part of business. Focus on the customer's needs. You know, too often we start defending, but if you know they have a legitimate reason, right? They have a reason for the complaint, listen to them and focus on their needs as opposed to trying to defend yourself in the situation.

Hey, my friend, it's Louis and I'm just hopping in really quick to remind you to go get your free demo of smart moving software. Smart moving software is a company that I co founded that is quickly becoming the leading moving software in the moving industry. And I'm super excited for you to check it out. So go get your free demo today. Just go to smartmoving.com, that's smartmoving.com and sign up for your free demo and check it out today.

Seek to understand. Okay, what we're going through right now is basically anyone that you have dealing with customers on the phone that might have an issue or might have a problem, whether they're dispatch operations, customer service, these are the steps that they need to follow. Okay? First, don't take it personal. Then seek to understand. Moving is stressful.

Right?

You've had a customer call you screaming stressed out. Once you, you know, listen to them for a minute.

You don't defend or block the complaint.

You'Re able to find the real reason for their frustration.

You know, when someone has a complaint, a lot of times it's something really small.

But they're so emotionally invested in it, it just set them off because they're moving and they've got all this stress going on and they know that their real complaint is so small that they just start stacking shit to make it sound like they are justified for calling you. You know what I'm saying? And it's like you start to really seek what was going on, all to find out that they're really just pissed because they missed the DirecTV guy and now they gotta like wait another day to get TV and they're gonna miss their show, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you realize where they're coming from and know, like, look, they're stressed, like, you know, instead of saying, I'm not, I'm not somebody's punching bag, I'm not gonna let them just talk to me like that. Like, okay, you know, let them get the air pressure out, right? Listen, listen, listen, listen. When you have a customer service team with the customer complaint resolution form, this is what they're doing. So by the time, like, if I had to get the call, like, they've already let the air out of them, right? They've let them talk. But when you don't and you block it, you're like, no, no. And you start defending yourself. You don't let that process happen like that process needs to happen.

And once it does, then you can figure out what their real frustration is and focus on that. You know, what I used to do is just look at it as a third party mediator. I used to say, you know what, it's my company. They're yelling about stuff that we're doing, but let me take a step back and let me not have any type of investment emotionally or anything like that. Just look at it and go, you know what? My company did kind of make a mistake here. You know what, they're being unreasonable with that. And yeah, we could have done better. And I looked at it like that. To come up with a solution as opposed to being in it. It sounds like something small, but a lot of times I feel we have to, you know, kind of play games with our mind to be able to see things from a different perspective. And if you just step back like that and look at it out here as opposed to looking at it here and here, it's a whole different ballgame.

What is the right thing to do?

The right thing often costs money.

But if we look to resolve the issue and then we go, make sure that that issue doesn't happen again and use it as an opportunity to improve, right? We learned our lesson. We paid whatever it's going to take to do the right thing, and then we move on.

Be timely and responsive. Acknowledge their complaint. Just the acknowledgement alone helps to let the steam out a little bit, communicate the process. Okay, all right, well, here's what I'm going to do. I'm actually going to need to talk to my movers and I'm going to talk to my sales team. This might take a day or two, but here's what I'm going to do. By Thursday, I'm Going to send you an email or I'm going to give you a call back and we're going to get this resolved for you, right? Communicate the process so they know what's going on instead of just saying, you know, all right, I'll get back to you.

Then follow up when you said you would follow up.

If you say, I'm going to call you back Thursday, and by Thursday, you haven't had a chance to interview your salesperson or your mover and you don't have an answer for them, or you're in customer service in here, right? And the owner of your company is like, I don't want to be bothered with it. And you haven't been able to get, you know, in touch with them and they're on vacation or whatever, still call that customer back and let them know, hey, I just want you to know I'm still working on it.

And resolve the complaint. You've got to resolve it, right? Don't let it linger. Don't let it sit out there. Don't think that it's just going to go away. This was the reason for the awareness board, because they don't just go away, right? They don't go away.

What's it gonna take to make them happy? I mean, that's kind of like the final question right after you've looked at the whole thing. Like, what's it gonna take to make them happy?

Give them money or buy a new. Whatever it is.

You know, my customer service team had authorization up to a thousand dollars per customer to get money back. Sounds like a lot of money, but how much is it hurting you when you get that one star review online?

And I know that I would pay, without blinking an eye all day long, $1,000 to get it down at least.

So, you know, there's. You got your $0.60 per pound or whatever you. Whatever you've got most people, that's what it is. But what's it gonna take to make them happy? You know? And then you gotta say, well, I gotta just like, stop this from happening, right? I've got to improve some processes so it doesn't continue to happen, or I'm just gonna be out of business. But it's. It's one of two ways. If the service isn't going good, you have unhappy customers, you're either gonna like, tell them, yeah, sorry, 60 cents per pound. Screw you, and you're gonna go out of business that way, or you're gonna keep paying them because you're like, let me do the right thing. And not go fix the core issue of the problem, and you'll be out of business that way. So the answer is to resolve the core fundamental issue of why the problems happening and never throw money at the customer. And what I mean by that is this.

You know, my team had that authorization to pay money, but only if it was going to make the customer smile, right? Otherwise, if they're still like, screw you, you're the worst. I'm putting reviews, I'm telling everybody I know, you know what? Keep the money. Give them what we're liable for, and we'll use that for somebody else who we can make happy. That's my personal belief. Doesn't mean you have to follow that. Right, but I'm not going to. You know, a lot of people just say, you know What? Here, here's $200. Are you happy? And almost like, slap them in the face with 200 bucks. Save the 200 bucks. Like, you know, you're not. You're not doing anybody any good. It's not about the money.

Small gestures go a long way. You know, I told you about that apology letter. Sincere apology letters work.

This is your business. You're protecting.

You know, this isn't a personal dispute with a family member or something. You're like, I'm not gonna say I'm sorry. They gotta say they're sorry, right? You got a business. That's your. That. That's your livelihood. And any type of bad review or bad word of mouth out there is just hurting your livelihood, hurting your family's future. Do what you gotta do to resolve the complaint.

Even if you can't make them happy. Decide how you're going to proceed and close the file. You know, don't let it linger. Decide how you're going to proceed and close the file. You know, if it's got a closeout, closed, unsatisfactory, then it is what it is. But you made that decision consciously.

And then correct it internally. Never leave the scene of a complaint without asking how you can make corrections internally so that it doesn't happen again. Okay? Complaints are valuable.

If they're used for corrections.

Listen to them. Don't defend them. Don't block them. Listen to them. There's truth in all of it. You know, there's truth in all of it.

Identify the cause.

What process can be improved?

Who needs more training?

Remember, all these issues are either people or process. One of the two.

Have a meeting with staff to show the cause.

You want them to see. You want everybody involved to see how this happened. It's not, it's not necessarily to call somebody out and tell them they did something wrong unless you have a clear specific process on how to do something that they're not following. But if not.

Let everybody be a part of the solution. Say guys, we're going to have to do something here. We're going to have to, you know, correct and adjust this process. Who has some ideas on what we could do? Always call on your team, by the way, right? Always ask them. I'm bouncing ideas off my team left and right every single day. Always. They've got a different perspective than you do, right? And they're sitting in a different, they're in your business with you, but sitting in a different angle, sitting in a different seat. They see things differently.

And then create or update your standard operating procedure, your process.

We're going to talk about that tomorrow. But one of the best places to start with creating processes is areas where you're having problems, right? Areas where you're having issues.

If you really want to take your business to that next level, then I want to invite you to join us in our moving CEO business program. This is the program where I go live every single month training you on new strategies to implement into your moving business. All new strategies that you could apply to your business to start quickly seeing results. This is the program that we have moving companies from all over the world that join us every single month for live training. Plus they get additional courses, they get tickets to my live events. This is the program that basically keeps our moving CEOs on their toes, keeps them fired up, keeps them working on the things that actually matter in their business so that they have a place to come to every month. Maintain and keep that focus on what they're really working on, what they're really after and what matters today so that they're working on the right stuff. You know, this is where I train on all my latest strategies. The things in marketing, sales, operations, finance, you know, how to manage your team and leadership. It's all in the Moving CEO business program. And head over to movingceo.com and check out all the different membership options there.

We've got, you know, companies that might.

Just be starting out.

We've got companies that have been in business 10 years. We've got, you know, nationwide multi location franchises that are members that come every single month so that they can make sure that they're on top.

Their A game, right?

We're all, you know, wherever we're at in our business, we need to make sure that we're constantly getting that zap of energy, that zap of new ideas that we can implement. So we're working on the right stuff. We want to work on what matters so that we could profit in our business and thrive in our life.

Right?

It's all about setting up a better quality of life. And once you've got your systems in place, once you've got your processes in place, once you've got your people in place, you're able to manage them and lead them in the right direction. Then you're able to take a step back and start to really enjoy the fruits of your labor and the business that you've created. So this program where I teach all of this, it's called Moving CEO Business Program. And you can check it out today@ movingceo.com so head over there, check out your options, and I look forward to seeing you in our next live monthly training where I also answer questions and take feedback and help you reach that next level in your business. It's called Moving CEO Business Program. Check it out@movingceo.com thank you so much.

Much for joining us on the Moving.

Mastery podcast and being a part of this amazing community. And until we talk next time, go out there every single day. Profit in your business and thrive in your life. I'll talk to you soon, my friend.