Tip for Today #5: Proactive Service in a Reactive World
Being proactive in a reactive world would mean making sure that everything is ready to go when you receive a call, the only thing you have to do is dispatch it. Making sure your purchase orders and your work order templates are already created ahead of time. Making sure that your field techs have everything they need to be successful on the job the first time.
Matching field coverage is extremely important because it allows you to be proactive in knowing at any given time, when you receive a call that you can dispatch that call to your local field tech. In order to set our field techs up for success, we provide them with all the tools that they could need.
So we would provide them of course, with photos of what we’re expecting them to address. We would also provide them with any information that the store manager has given us. We have all of our field techs call us once they arrive on site so that we can track the call in real time and provide updates for our clients as it is actually happening.
Its very imperative to communicate with the store manager, because the store manager is the first line of the work order. By communicating with the store manager, you’re alleviating any other work orders that may be placed for the same issue and you’re also allowing your client to know that we are taking care of you every step of the way.
Field tech relationships are extremely important. They’re the face of what we’re selling and what we’re providing. Our clients have expectations and it’s our responsibility to make sure that every call is meeting that expectation, whether it’s a quick fix or it’s a call that requires a quote, we need to know that our field techs are reliable and responsive and without building those relationships, you’re not gonna have good communication.
Being able to work in a proactive state of mind allows you to be prepared for anything that comes your way. A simple outage could lead to something much larger if it’s not corrected or caught in the timeframe in which it should be.