How to Avoid CALLBACKS on Projects! (*Have Your Employees Watch This*)

Good morning everybody. Quick update. We are headed to the office here. It's Thursday morning and today is franchisee training for the rest of the weekend. We've got one franchisee coming in from Southside, Florida. We still can't get our Canadian franchisees across. So just the one this weekend. Looking forward to that though. Obviously we welcomed him to the Pacific Northwest with beautiful weather, pouring down rain. We haven't had rain though in like four or five weeks. So good for us to kind of get a refresh. And let's see, we got a bit of an update on some of the stuff going on. Bit of a crazy morning. One of the employees had a car wreck on the way to work and we were kind of needing him for down in Mount Vernon. So anyways, dealing with that and then yesterday we had a bit of a scare at the gym. We, one of our trainer, two of our trainers were exposed to someone who might have Covid and so just to be cautionary and prudent we went ahead and canceled all training and so just moved everything off there and canceling all their schedules. Kind of lame. We were in the middle of a campaign for another.

Training six week challenge at the gym. So that was a bit of a. Bit of a bummer in terms of the real estate deal right now. Yesterday the sellers got back to us. We asked for some concessions on price for after the inspection and they're giving us a bit of a time on that. But we are going to play a little bit of hardball and make sure we get all of the money we asked for. So anyways, right now we're headed to the office, the Bellingham local Whatcom County Best of lawn care. We're into a quick meeting there eight, eight o' clock or so to bounce back to Blaine to the studio where we do the training for the franchisees and we'll start there at 9 o'. Clock. So at this meeting we're going to be going over a little bit of how to do a walk through with the customer and really how to take ownership of a job as an employee from the get go. So there's not a bunch of communication between the customer and the office but that the customer feels like they can communicate with the employee direct when they're on their property. So we're going to be doing that this morning and then bouncing back up the blank.

All right. So I really quickly wanted to go over actually and do a bit of a role play on what it looks like to do the walkthrough with the customer and so, like, half the time right now, our customers are gone when we need to do a walkthrough on projects and when, like, obviously on the job, don't need to do a walkthrough with the customer. But anytime it's like anything more than a couple hours, good to just run it by the client. The amount of time you're gonna see on Yellowstone, the back and forth of the office is tremendous. And so. And at the end of the day, the office has no idea what that job looks like. So when the customer calls, they just have no idea. And there's just a lot frustration there. So I want to actually role play with Liz.

I'll take this off so you can see my facial expressions on the walkthrough and stuff. Because it's important to read their body language.

Okay. So I'm gonna be the employee, she's gonna be the client, and I'm gonna do a job for her.

So. Okay. So you just arrived.

Hi. How you doing? My name is Mike.

Hi, Mike.

And I'm gonna be here. I'm gonna be installing the molds for your property.

Okay.

And so we're gonna get started. I have a video from Lee.

Okay.

And so we know exactly what needs to get done. But if you have any questions throughout the day or anything, just feel free to come out and talk to me. Or if you see something.

So are you the main person I'm supposed to talk?

Feel free. Like, if there's anything you see or any questions like that, just come out and talk to me. And then I can communicate with the office if you need something changed or added to the job.

Okay. So I wouldn't call the office if I need something today. I just check in with you. And then if there's a change we need to make, you'll talk to them for sure.

Just come out, let me know and feel free. Anytime throughout the day, just come out and take a look at everything. At the end of the day, I do need to do a walkthrough with you and just make sure everything you're happy with.

I have an appointment in Bellingham at 2. I don't know if I'll be back. Will you give me a call when you guys are almost done? I'll try to get back.

Yeah, I'll call you about an hour before we're gonna le. But maybe before even you leave at one, maybe just come and we'll do a quick walk through, make sure we're on the right track and that you're happy with everything. And then when you get back, we can do a final walk through before we clean up.

Okay. So I kind of sign off on the job. Like if there's a couple extra things to do, do you wait to clean up?

Yeah, I'll call you like an hour before.

Okay.

That way if there's something extra or you want something moved around, we can get that done before we head out.

Okay, that sounds good.

Cool. So I leave. So then that the couple things that were done there that are important is number one, I establish myself as the point of contact, the last thing you want. And then how awkward it is when you know the client is communicating with Liz and you're out doing the job and now Liz is communicating with you and you're like this big merry go round.

You don't know what they're saying about you.

So if you come to the door like that at the beginning of the day, introduce yourself. I'm the person you talk to if you have a problem. But it's so much easier, like there's an issue, you communicate with Liz. You all figure it out and then you go to the customer and tell them what's going on.

Right.

As soon as you say, contact the office, there's a merry go round of communication. Now it goes from the customer to Liz or from, sorry, command center, command center to Liz, Liz to you. Now you gotta app when literally this is like a two minute conversation, right? If there's a work change order again, you get the information from the client. You let Liz know. If Lee needs to be brought into it, you can be. You come up with a solution, communicate with the client. So that's at the beginning of the day, that's just as important at the end of the day. I know we talk about walkthroughs a lot, but like just introducing yourself at the beginning of the day, initiating yourself at the point of contact helps so much.

We had two work order changes last week. Nick and I did one and probably less than 10 minutes. I don't know if it was Aaron. The same day. They just said they want this, this and this. And I said okay. I asked Lee, I got the verbiage, made the estimate, sent it to him, told the guys. I just sent it to him. They already accepted and it's on the schedule. It was that fast. Like the guy couldn't believe it that we did it that fast. That's because it was just Nick and I and Nick talking to the customer.

And the big thing is too. I told her I'm gonna need a new walk through with you, you're gonna leave. That's fine. Like, come walk through it with me before you leave, just in case that, like 7pm I want to make sure I at least have walk at 1 o'. Clock. But then more importantly, tell her I need to walk through the end of the day. Right. So they know if they're gonna leave, they need to come talk to me before they leave. Not them leaving at 3pm I'm wrapping up at 4, and now they're gone.

Right.

So I would call her an hour before. And again, it's not five minutes before I'm leaving, because by five minutes, you have all your tools in your truck. Everything's gone. You know, if they feel awkward even asking you to trim the bush a little bit more.

Right.

And so keep your stuff out. Do the walkthrough when you haven't even started cleaning, the best time to do it. So let's do the walkthrough real quick.

Okay. And what.

What was our job?

Did we just do the mulch install?

Yeah.

Let's say there's like some of the edging or something. So I can kind of be like that bush trimming. Bush trimming. Okay. Bush trimming. That's fine. All right. Okay.

Hey, so let's go ahead and do a walk through.

Okay.

Pretty much rashed up right now. We're just about to, you know, clean up everything. But I just wanted to go through everything, make sure you're happy. If there's anything extra, just let me know and we'll get that done before we head out.

Okay, cool.

So, like, I'm gonna walk around, show her things, like actually walking around the property.

So I'm looking at the mulch and I go, yeah, that. That looks really nice. That looks really nice. You can kind of like rake it over a little bit.

Yeah. Do you want just a little more even on the mulch?

Yeah, that would be nice. Okay, cool. I like the thickness and everything.

Okay. And that bush there, do you want a little bit more off of it, like off of the house, or is that enough?

Well, my husband usually handles that. I don't know what he would say. He's really picky about the bushes.

Does he usually like them off the house a little bit more?

I might have to ask him, but, yeah, let's get him off just a little more.

Okay, we'll take them off a little bit more. Is he home right now?

No.

Okay, well, feel free to give him a call because I'll be here for another hour and then we can make sure it's done exactly the way you want it.

Can I go get the phone and maybe have him talk to you?

For sure, yeah. Feel free to get a call, ring him up. I'll be out here working on this area. I'll rape this out and then.

Okay. And the idea is that you don't. You want to wrap it up, you don't want to deal with the husband again. You want to kind of find out what he wants and get it taken care of. So, like the edging thing the other day, she was like, her body language to him was like, is the office going to come back and have a look at this? Oh, the mulch is really nice. But I don't know my husband, like. And so you would be able to read her body language. Like, okay, he must have said something about the edging. And then you look at her and you go, okay, okay, tell me kind of, what was your husband saying? Is there something we need to address? We can certainly do that with the guys. And it's still you and her. And so it's not her going. Is the office going to come back and approve this? Well, oh, yeah.

It's awkward to do a walkthrough because you're kind of like, oh, man, I hope they don't point a bunch of stuff out. But I promise you, the stuff they point out is like 2 minutes and 1 minute and 30 seconds. Like, trim that bush a little bit more versus a merry go round of complaints and angry customers and emails and you're going back, back. Like, it's just so much easier.

We had one that could have been resolved the other day. So it was at the beginning of Caleb's job with him and Charlie and they wanted this certain thing edged. They left about one and she came back later and she's freaking out and everything. Well, when he ended up talking to her, there was only just this one part they had forgot to trench and right behind her house. And if there had just been a conversation, because I know you guys had talked to her before, but then she left. If you had just said, hey, we're headed out, you know, we'll be back in the morning. So if there's anything we forgot or isn't quite perfect, we'll touch base with you when we get there. That would eliminate her calling the command, who has no clue about the job at all. And then it getting back to us later. And then us like, do we call her or do we just let it settle? But by the morning they're like shaking and Boiling. Because nobody connected with them. Right. And you guys are the face of us. And would have been much better to just calm her down. Yeah. So then she thinks you're the hero. She thinks you're wonderful. And then if there's something that's bad, the way we resolve it, like, there's a customer right now, they've emailed and they would like to take us on, but they asked for a couple names of people that we've disappointed or there's been a problem and that we resolved it and they stayed with us. So I thought that was kind of cool. So we have several of those that we have awesome relationships with Thomas, people like that, that they were just ready to cancel. And I even gave them names of other people. And he's like, no, no. I really like the way you guys communicate and try to do what I want, so let's stay together. So I'll probably give that person his name because we resolved it.

Yeah. On those reviews, for example, when people put online reviews, the best thing is when they say one of our names because it means that we establish the point of contact. And it's not just like, oh, yeah, the people who showed up, like, you obviously said your name. They've talked to you. You've been that point of contact. That's almost always the happiest customers. And I mentioned about, like, Aaron the other day, how he takes over his projects, like, literally. We know, like, Aaron's on the job. We only hear from him if there's a work change order because he's going to communicate with the client. They know that Aaron's in charge, they have a problem, they talk to Aaron and it just gets resolved. And a lot of times it's little stuff, right. Like, oh, could you just move that a touch? Right. That becomes a big issue if you leave the job and haven't communicated with them.

And if you feel like they're getting reasonable and you kind of need to tap out and it's getting to be too much, you can say, hey, I'm not feeling comfortable with this. They're really pushing me a lot to do more or something's a little weird. Nick had a customer one time that was just really weird, saying a lot of really awkward, weird things. And so we just decided, okay, we're never going back there. He had just come over and, yeah, it wasn't good.

It wasn't a client, but it was someone that wanted to be a client. Yes, a lot of weird things.

So we just. I just didn't reconnect with him at all. Because there was no way I was gonna have you guys there.

Cool. Any questions about that?

Any questions about that? The walkthroughs, touching base with them. You become the face of Augusta. When you're there, you're there. Person that they. So honestly, you do kind of have to fake it sometimes. If you don't know, just be confident. We'll figure it out together.

I have some dad.

Yeah.

I have been doing that process, like, since I started here, and I never get yellow slips.

So, like, say that Nick.

No, it's. It's so easy to just talk to them. And like, Mike's saying, if they're like, oh, can you touch that up? Like, sure, it'll take me five minutes. And then you do it. And that saves you from not having to go back on a different day where it's extremely inconvenient and out of your way.

It's a lot of, like, relationship psychology. Watching their body language. Are they acting really weird and disappointed? Okay. She's nice and she likes everything. So her husband must have her under a little pressure. Like, don't let those guys leave till they do whatever, whatever. And sometimes you feel caught between the husband and wife. That's super awkward.

Nikki's feeling good after record breaking.

I was just gonna say you have to think, like, this was a really big game changer for me when I first got into, like, this company was like, the part of what makes us a good team is the fact that we like, over, communicate, do the same with the client. I'm doing this. We're doing this in the estimate. This is this. How's it look? We said this in the estimate. How's it look? Like, like the earlier you can establish that relationship with the client in the day or in the multi day project, the better it is for you in the long run. Brad's actually really good about doing that. Brad's really good about communicating with the client, like every day. At the end of like multi day jobs, by the end, Brad usually has somewhat of a relationship with the client where he knows their name, he knows what they like by the end too. It's a conversation. It's not like Brad having this awkward professional like, oh, I hope that they don't say something bad about my work. Brad's just talking to them at the end of the project. Right. So because he establishes that relationship early on in the job, it becomes just a fluid conversation throughout the job. Nick's really good at that. Aaron's really good at that. So just if you're on jobs with those guys. Like, just watch them, see how they do it. The more you can communicate with the client, the better.

And Aaron doesn't really like to talk to people, but he doesn't. So do you want to add anything about the appropriate times to address things?

Let's put him on the spot.

Great.

Well, no, not really. I mean, we all have instincts, so whatever seems most organic. I mean, it definitely puts customers in a corner if you're just kind of like, shoving details down their throat or interrupting them. So, I mean, definitely look for a window. But, yeah, I think the most important thing is we all have the client's information on our phones, too, for the jobs. So if you have to buck them, call them, text them, don't be shy about it. So.

Oh, sorry, one more thing. I FaceTime my client in Seattle and show them the job, like, even if they're not there.

Like.

Like, see if they have a block of time where you can actually do that and then saves you a yellow slip. Like that, too.

Cool.

Awesome.

Thanks so much, everyone. Have a fantastic day.