The Why and How of Avoiding Negative Moments of Truth
Avoid negative moments of truth that quietly destroy customer trust. Learn the 10 biggest mistakes and how to turn every visit into a 5-star experience.
KickStart: Set up guidelines to avoid these thoughtless mistakes that turn off clients and lead to nasty one-star reviews!
You want the fastest, cheapest, and most reliable way to grow your residential services business? Listen carefully here:
Transform your homeowner customers into delighted Raving Fans! That’s it.
When your team consistently delivers great experiences, your clients become your biggest marketing machine. They’ll tell their friends, neighbors, and (even better) everyone in their Facebook groups about how awesome your company is.
💡Even better: A gushing ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Google review from a delighted homeowner is worth infinitely more than any advertising scheme you’ll ever sucked in… excuse me, “invest in”!🙄
But here’s your challenge. (You just knew there was a catch!) None of this will happen if you don’t “Make the Cheerleader.”
If you (and your techs) focus only on the “get in, get paid, and get gone” business model, you are toast. You MUST obsess over the experience—not just the actual work.
The Power of Moments of Truth
In our HFS training, we teach hundreds of simple systems for creating positive Moments of Truth, (MOT’s) those tiny little interactions that shape how customers see (and remember) you. Seriously…
From the second your techs pull up to their house to the first 60 seconds of meeting your client all the way to how your team leaves, every move matters.
It is a deceptively simple equation: Deliver enough great MOT’s, and your customer turns into your biggest Cheerleader. But here’s the flip side…
Not all MOT’s are positive.
Every time something small goes wrong—an awkward moment, a sloppy habit, a careless comment—you’re creating negative Moments of Truth. And here’s the really bad news…
Each negative moment wipes out twelve positive MOT’s!
Yep, that’s how powerful they are.
So, do you want delighted homeowners raving online about your great staff? Instead of posting nasty 1-⭐ reviews? Then you must eliminate negative MOT’s!
Am I making sense to you? If so, here’s my…
My TOP 10 “Just Don’t” Checklist to Avoid Negative Moments of Truth
Steve’s True Confession Time: My techs (and other employees too) committed every single one of these sins at some point. Learn from our bone-headed blunders! 😢
1️⃣ Don’t hang out in the truck. Once you arrive at the job, get out of the truck immediately!
🗝️ ProTIP: Better yet, park in the street so you’re not blocking them in. Then only after introducing your team, ask permission to pull your van into the driveway.
2️⃣ Don’t cut across the grass. You’d think this would be obvious, right? 🙄 But trust me—if it’s not in writing, a clueless tech will do it.
3️⃣ Don’t wear sunglasses up to the door.😎 Your client shouldn’t open their front door and be facing the “Blues Brothers”! Eye contact builds trust.
4️⃣ Don’t invade their personal space. Ring the bell, then step back at least 3 feet. Give the homeowner room.
5️⃣ Don’t barge in and take over. Let the customer feel in control by using a clipboard and interviewing them with pre-programmed questions.
🗝️ Pro TIP: Ask the client to show you their “Areas of concern”. People love to talk AND to be heard.
6️⃣ Don’t text or talk on your phone in front of the homeowner. Leave it in the truck. (Or at the very least put it on vibrate. Nothing says “unprofessional” faster than not focusing on your current client.
7️⃣ Don’t get curious about their “portable stuff”. Ever. Don’t ask about collectibles, artwork, or even worse their jewelry.
Steve’s True Story Time: One of our regular customers called complaining that a tech’s questions about the value of their gun collection made them feel very uncomfortable!
8️⃣ Don’t use their bathroom—unless you absolutely have to. If you must, ask permission and leave it cleaner than you found it.
🗝️ ProTIP: For the love of all things holy, always use the guest restroom, never, ever the master bathroom!
9️⃣ Don’t speak another language in front of your customer. (Unless they speak it too.) This negative MOT makes people uneasy and “left out”, even if you’re saying something harmless.
🔟 Don’t leave a mess behind. That means no oil stains, no hairballs, no hose burns on the lawn, and definitely no “small gifts” left in the toilet. (Yes… this too happened to in my company.) 😱
☠️ Steve’s TAKEAWAY: Just one of the above blunders can create a negative Moment of Truth that can totally undo many hours of hard work and great service.☠️
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I learned all of the above the hard way, 😟 but you don’t have to. Use our Home Front Success scripts to tighten up your procedures and train your team.
Your goal? To consistently make every visit a customer experience worth raving (and posting) about!
This is how you build a reputation that profitably grows your business faster than any fancy (and expensive) marketing campaign ever could. And even better…
The secret win for you? Delighting people makes… you (and your workers) happy too! 🥰
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