Too Fast?

This week I rushed my daughter out the door, trying to dodge another tardy (as if it would matter on her last day of school). She barely had time to chew her toast. Poor girl!

Reminds me of something. Do we sometimes sacrifice customer satisfaction in the name of speed?

In the insurance industry, you can actually settle a claim too fast. Somebody has just lost decades of family heirlooms in a house fire, and you immediately visit them with an endorsed check. The family is still in shock and probably isn’t ready to deal with paperwork and a financial settlement. They need a little space, and that’s where you come in.

Timing in the storage business is important. When you’re on a call, you have a goal: qualify the customer, sell the store, close the sale and end the right way. But never forget that not everybody is coming to you the same way. You don’t want to blurt out your prices in the first 30 seconds of your call, but neither do you want to burden them with a laundry list of questions that they don’t want to deal with. So how do you take your time quickly?

Find out what they need up front, and then lead them to making a commitment to your store. Take control of the call but above all else, be personable. We always hear that callers want to deal with a “live” person. But even more than that, they want to deal with a “personable person.” This type of person hunts for the needs of the customer, actively listening and responding from that rather than from a sheet full of checklists.

If you focus on the larger goal of getting a caller to reserve a unit or come in to your store, you’ll find your checklist will take care of itself.

This week I realized again just how much more important my daughter is than a deadline.