Mike Andes recommends replacing long text replies with short personalized audio recordings to improve customer experience and office efficiency. He demonstrates using QuickTime on Mac to record and attach voice notes, argues audio reduces misinterpretation with upset customers, saves staff time (a 25-minute typed reply can often be a 3–4 minute audio), and can help preserve reputation and enable higher pricing.
What I would be looking for if I was you is one thing. Just take one thing away from the entire conference I want to show you. So customer intelligence ties into every single aspect of your business. This is that graphic that Liz was talking about yesterday. The customer experience of reading a long, long email is never pleasant. When I get an email that's beyond four lines, there's no chance in the world I'm going to read the thing. So maybe your customer's all different than me, but I guarantee some of them are like that. They're not going to read a long, long text email. This might work for them. Send voice notes. All right, so if you are on a Mac computer, you, you need to get QuickTime. It's already on your computer. It's already on your drive. Open that up top right file, new audio recording. It's going to instantly open up an audio recorder. You'll just talk to your computer as if you're talking to that customer. You're going to click save and then you're instantly going to be able to drag this into an email right below this figure, for example. It does not need to have a figure. We put a figure because we have a mascot. You do not need that. But this is another thing that is going to prove to your customer you value their time and you're looking at them as an individual. They are going to see the voice or hear the voice inflections in your voice. This is a fantastic tool when you need to get back to someone that has a very long email that is mad at you. When a customer goes off the handle and begins to fly off and say all sorts of ridiculous things about you, the last thing you should be doing is replying back with a long email. It will be misinterpreted, misconstrued, cut up and used against you online. Use audio because they will realize that you actually care and that you're sorry they're disappointed and you're willing to do whatever it takes to make them happy. Now that might not be your fault, but you do want to make them happy. The customer is not always right, but you want them to feel that way by the end of the conversation. Alright? They're not always right. They might be wrong. You might need a work change order and it was not included in the job. But guess what? You were wrong for not making sure that Mrs. Jones was taken care of before leaving her property. All customer complaints must be treated if it's your fault. Even if you say, well, they I told them we did a walkthrough we did a walkthrough and they said it was great. Okay, but did you take enough time on that walkthrough? Were you distracting the customer? Were you focused? Were you asking specific questions about how you trim that bush?
All right, so you have to take those blame. We take those very seriously. But when you get a long email, and we all have gotten these long emails that just completely tear your people apart, your business apart, give you threats about spewing garbage online, and you reply back with a note that actually shows you care and with your voice inflection does not have exclamation marks that in their mind thinks you're screaming at them, you will get past that mad customer much, much better. This is also going to be a massive efficiency factor for your office staff. An email this long can be said in about three or four minutes. It takes about 25 minutes to type that out.
Alright? Efficiency, customer experience. That's a really nice combo to have. It's going to save you money. That money can be invested in customer experience and you can raise your prices.
So little things like this is more efficient. Better response time. If someone gets mad at you, the faster you get back to them, the better. Never, ever put off a response back to someone that's mad. Because the longer it brews, it gets worse and worse and worse. You got to immediately react to them. There's a reason why we have a 48 hour policy on yellow slips, but our response back to that person, I wish was 48 seconds. Because if we can just get in touch with them and extinguish the flames, it'll very much reduce the collateral damage because they won't go talking to all their neighbors and spewing garbage about us. We'll get to them, make them realize that we value them as a customer. They might be completely wrong, but it's a five minute fix for crying out loud. You're so proud. You're like, we're not going back there. We did a walk through. Go fix it for five minutes. Make someone happy. They're gonna write a five star review. And those are the best reviews. The ones that say, I was disappointed. They promptly followed up with me, figured it out, made it right, and I'm a customer for life.
