Mastering Customer Service in Maintenance

[Paul Rhodes] (0:00 - 36:56) Today on The Maintenance Mindset, let's look at customer service. Yeah, I know, it's an exciting topic that a lot of maintenance technicians are interested in learning a huge amount about. So much so that I know many, many management companies take time to teach their maintenance technicians skills in how to deal with residents, right?

Yeah, I didn't think so either. So let's talk about that today, right after this word from our sponsor. Appwork is one of our founding sponsors.

Much more than maintenance, Appwork is advanced business intelligence. Streamline maintenance workflows and keep an eye on the leaderboard as your service teams enjoy the gamification of maintenance. Visit appworkco.com and transform your productivity today. Today, we're going to be exploring a topic that I think receives far too few discussion points, especially for the maintenance personnel on our properties and on site. And that is the topic of customer service. In today's day and age, we spend quite a bit of time talking about technology and apps and workflows and work orders and service requests and trade skills and plumbing and air conditioning and certifications and acronyms and all of those things.

And yet, sometimes we forget that our maintenance technicians are actually the front line of our customer service. My friend Mary Gwynne talks about maintenance skills and the service that our maintenance teams provide direct to residents. And she makes a big deal about it.

And I know within her organization, she promotes that quite a bit. Traveling around the country, I'm amazed, though, at how little attention this topic actually receives. And as I was thinking through this, while traveling this week, a story came to mind.

It's a true story. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. And it happened back when I was a director of maintenance.

I was visiting a brand new property that we had just acquired and meeting with the maintenance supervisor who had been there for several years, apparently. Now, his name is Anthony. And Anthony was a really, really nice guy.

And we were talking about work orders and needs that the property had and how the new owners, us, did things and what our expectations were and answering questions that he had. Well, we were actually outside of the office and discussing and answering any questions that he happened to have about what those expectations look like in a practical way. So, while we're outside, we're having a conversation.

And picture in your mind, if you will, this is a nice spring Georgia day. The birds are tweeting and twittering in the trees. There are some very, very nice, comfortable breezes going on.

It's a beautiful day. And all of a sudden, you hear a car coming. And out of that car, you hear a voice.

And it's not just any voice. This is a very, very loud woman's voice. And this car pulls up next to us.

And she just finishes rolling down the window. And apparently, she started yelling out the window when the car was maybe 20, 25, 30, maybe even farther feet away. And Anthony's eyes got as big as saucers.

I mean, these things were huge. And Anthony just started to step back because this woman was naming me everything but a child of God. Using every four and five letter word she could come up with to describe the problem and her frustrations at a very, very loud volume.

I mean, there were people that were walking by in the building on the opposite side of the parking lot that turned around to look to see what was going on. And Anthony stepped back. Now, to add to the commotion, this wonderful woman had a little itty bitty chihuahua.

You know, one of the little yippy dogs that was barking and bouncing all over the backseat of the car. Anthony was now about 10, 15 feet back and very, very interested in his phone. I'm just standing there.

She didn't get out of the car. She was right there. She was in the passenger side.

Somebody else was driving. And she commenced to yell and scream at me about a problem she has in her apartment. And apparently the problem that she had in her apartment was she had a rat.

All side comments about the chihuahua in the backseat set those aside because, believe it or not, that chihuahua plays prominently in the story as we continue to progress. So, this wonderful lady commences to vent and, if we're honest, vomit her anger all over me for three to four minutes. It actually seemed like it was longer than that, but I think after three or four minutes of yelling and screaming, she ran out of breath or speed or energy.

But finally, she began talking at a normal tone of voice. And that was when I got the opportunity to actually have a conversation with her. This is our property.

We now own the community. She's a resident of the community. And she commences to tell me that for the past month or so, the time ended up being very vague because of just the level of energy behind it.

But for a little while, she's been dealing with a rat in her laundry room. And she's telling me that Princess, who's the name of the chihuahua's food, has been getting eaten by the rat. And it needs to go away because her grandbabies were coming over and it's unsanitary and it's unhealthy and it's unsafe.

And all of the things that, you know, you actually can't argue with. That is a reality. It is an unsafe thing.

And she, at some level, had a right to be angry. But as she was talking, finally she calmed down enough to where I could begin to ask questions. The first question I asked her is, Miss, what is your name?

And we'll say her name was Mrs. Jones. Now, Mrs. Jones, which apartment do you happen to live in? You'll have to forgive me, Mrs. Jones. I'm new here. I'm not real familiar with this property. But I want to help you.

Which apartment and which building do you live in? And she snapped back, the building at the top of the hill, apartment 314. Okay, Mrs. Jones. I do know that I've seen pest control. I've seen their truck. It's out on the property today.

Now, this property just so happens to be rather large. It was 450 apartments. And if I remember correctly, something like 22 or 23 buildings spread out over three or four U entrances from a layout design.

And the reason why I bring that up is it's a very, very large property. So I said, Mrs. Jones, I have seen the exterminator out here today. Let me ask you a couple more questions.

And I do know the exterminator is here, and we will ensure the exterminator gets there today. Before I leave you, though, Mrs. Jones, what kind of container do you have? You said princess, right?

What kind of container is princess's food in? And she looked at me and she says, the bag that it came from the store in. I said, okay, Mrs. Jones, I would like to ask you a favor, please. This is what's about to happen. I'm going to go into the office and I don't know where the schedule of the exterminator is or what pest control is. But I'm going to go into the office and speak with the wonderful people in the office and let them know.

You said it was apartment 314, right? I will let them know that we need to speed the pest control technician over there if he hasn't already made it. I said, have you been home today, Mrs. Jones?

Mrs. Jones had been gone for a little while, and she didn't know if he had made it there. I said, okay, well, this is, once we get finished talking, I want you to head home. And I am going to go into the office here.

And if the pest control hasn't been there, I think we have the pest control's number, I'm going to see if we can track him down and get him over there as quickly as we can. But, Mrs. Jones, the reason why I asked if Princess's dog food was in any sort of container is because it is possible that the rat is being attracted to Princess's food. I mean, how old is Princess?

She looked at me kind of weird and she said, three. I said, have you figured out how to train Princess? No, Princess can't be trained.

And about that time, the dog, after hearing her name said several times, she began to get real quiet, and she kind of jumped in between the seat and looked around Mrs. Jones and at me and kind of tilted her head sideways. And I said, so you're having a hard time training Princess? Yes.

I said, okay. Well, I need you to please, if you would, take Princess's food and put it into a container. And the reason why I'm concerned about it right now is because I don't exactly know what the pest control company is going to do.

That's why we bring them in. They're specialists. But I do know that if pest control needs to put out chemicals, and I don't know if they do or not, but if they do, I'm concerned that those chemicals may get on Princess's food.

And she looked at me and she says, I don't want that to happen. I said, ma'am, I don't want that to happen either. I would rank a recommendation, actually, that you put Princess's food in a large plastic, like, do you remember Tupperware?

And she looked at me and she kind of grinned and she says, yeah, I grew up with Tupperware. And I said, yes, you know, they make these really big plastic, looks like super-sized Tupperware. I have two dogs at home, and that's what I keep our dogs in.

It even has a lid catch thing that you can open it up. And she says, can you get those? I said, yes, ma'am.

Actually, I got them. They're pretty reasonable. I want to say it was less than 20 bucks.

I bought mine over where I live, the other side of Atlanta, but I know they're available. And she looked at me and she says, well, I need to go to the store anyway. I said, well, before you go to the store, though, I want you to go home and move Princess's food.

Let's at least get that started safe. And also see if the exterminator or pest control has been there. And that way we can begin to make that correction.

So this is what's going to happen. I will go inside. You head home.

Once I get inside, I'm going to find out where pest control is. I will ensure that they get over there as quickly as possible. I don't know where they are or what they're in the middle of.

You begin to take care of Princess's food. And are you sure you haven't trained Princess? Because she's real quiet now.

And she looked at me and she laughed. And she says, no, I can't even get Princess to sit. I said, well, Mrs. Jones, what if maybe this is an opportunity for you to teach the rat how to sit?

And she looked at me and she paused for a second. And then she smiled and her face just lit up with this huge laugh of, I can't even train Princess how to come when I call her name. And you want me to train a rat?

I said, okay, well, Mrs. Jones, we'll just get pest control over there. And she started laughing. And I happened to turn around as Mrs. Jones in the passenger seat as they drove off. And I saw Anthony's face. And Anthony's face, not only were his eyes as big as dinner plates, but his jaw had dropped way open. And he looked at me and he says, Mr. Paul, how did you do that?

After this work from our sponsor, I'm going to let you in on how I did that. And how we as maintenance technicians can provide personal service that I got to be honest, traveling around the country, I find it lacking in many, many places. We'll be right back.

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Visit appworkco.com today. So we're in a story about customer service. You see, I provide customer service by a philosophy that I refer to as the five P's.

And that was all demonstrated in that story with Mrs. Jones. You see, it's based on the fact that everyone is a person. For me to provide good service, I have to be present and aware.

The third P is it is my responsibility for me to be pleasant. The fourth P is to remember that it's not personal. And the fifth piece of these five P's are the reminder that I have a responsibility to provide the next step.

All of these things go in together to reassure our customer, in this case of our story, our resident, that we care. It all begins with understanding that Mrs. Jones is a person. I mean, think about it for just a second.

Does Mrs. Jones have a reason to complain? Yeah, she does. She has a rat, an extra occupant, an unlisted member staying at her apartment that's not listed on the lease, an unlisted occupant.

That was the word I was trying to think of. Does she have reason for complaint? Yes.

Does she actually have a reason to be frustrated? Yes. Could she have handled it better?

Oh yeah, definitely so. But the very first thing, which is what I do my best to keep in mind every time I come in contact with somebody else, is to remember they're a person just like I'm a person. I happen to have gripes and pet peeves and things I like and things I don't like, things that I give grace to instantly, and then other things that I'm working through on how I'm going to handle whatever situation is.

And the reality is that in the same way I have gripes and complaints and pet peeves and things that make me happy and things that I extend grace to and other things or occurrences that I just have such a hard time getting over, Mrs. Jones has those same things. Yeah, our customers, they're people. And at the end of the day, no matter what the outcome is, they're still going to be people.

We are providing customer service. That implies that we are serving a customer. Now, again, was it right for her to come up and call me everything but a child of God?

No, it wasn't right. But the fact that she's a person and she has a legitimate gripe? Okay.

My guess in that situation and a lot of other situations that we end up dealing with when people, residents come into our business, our place of employment, and if they are angry and frustrated and loud and yelling and just red in the face, for whatever reason, consciously or unconsciously, the only way in that moment that they feel they are going to get service is if they make that big of a scene or whatever is going on in their life.

They need to express themselves at that volume using those words. Am I creating an excuse? No.

Because in my mind, there's no excuse to treat another human being that way. Because in the same way, they're people, I'm people too. And there is a certain level of dignity that we need to begin to expect from one another.

But remember, this is service. I am serving her. We were outside.

I felt safe because she was in the car. Now, had she, at that loud range of voice, gotten out of the car, we might have had a situation that I would have handled completely differently. In this case, this particular experience began with accepting the fact Mrs. Jones is a person. She has a complaint. And for whatever reason, her belief is she has to gain attraction or gain attention for that complaint by using that language at that tone of voice at that volume. Okay.

Because the second piece of the five Ps is to be present. That means that piece that we just talked about of the fact that she's inside of a car. I'm outside of a car.

I can move. She's yelling. She's sitting down.

There's a dog in the backseat that is yelling and screaming. I'm paying attention not just to the loud, angry woman who's yelling and screaming at me. I'm paying attention to what else is around.

Sometimes when residents come into our office and if they start yelling and screaming that same way, we ask for them to go into an office where we can provide more personal service. Other times, we ask for them to come outside. Still other times, we go ask for somebody else to come with us to where we have more than one person.

A witness, if you will. But the critical component is pay attention to what is happening everywhere around you. Because maybe you need to flee.

Maybe you need to pick up the phone and call 911. Maybe you need to give them a drink of water because it's 110 degrees outside. Maybe they have a child that needs attention.

Maybe it's an emergency. Maybe whatever is going on. First, treat everyone like they're a people.

They are a person. They're a human being with wants, needs, and desires. The second thing, I'm there.

And for whatever reason, they have chosen to direct whatever their needs are at me. Pay attention. The third P of Paul's five Ps, you know, the more I say it, the more weird it sounds.

The third one is to be pleasant. I have no responsibility for what she is feeling. What my customer is feeling.

What they're going through. Internally, I cannot take responsibility for that. I decided internally a long time ago that I am only going to be responsible for that which I can control.

And the one thing I can control is me. My job in this situation is to be as pleasant as I can in these circumstances and situations. I mean, Anthony and I, we started out carrying on a good conversation.

We were in the middle of the conversation when this car rolls up yelling and screaming and interrupts. And all of a sudden, Anthony backs away. I turn around, and even though I was really truly enjoying, and after I solved Mrs. Jones' issue for as much as I can, I went back to my wonderful conversation with Anthony. But turning around and facing this woman who was yelling and screaming at me, I can't control her. I can only control me. I can only be responsible for me.

And my reaction, I'm not happy about getting yelled at. But you know what? We can't fight fire with fire.

You cannot solve a thing by raising to the same level. My dad years ago gave me a piece of advice that I still to this day keep in mind. And I saw him use it.

When somebody is yelling at you, the louder they get, the quieter you get. You can't put out a fire with more fire. What do you use to put out a fire?

You use water. Fire and water, believe it or not, they both contain the same chemical components. Water is H2O, hydrogen dioxide.

Guess what an exhaust of fire is? Moisture. Yes, water is a byproduct of combustion.

What that tells me is that water is actually present in fire. All I need to do is add more of it. If I was to match her volume level, I'm adding more fire.

More of the combustion. More of that heat. No, I need to add the opposite.

I need to add water. And the louder she gets, the more pleasant and calming. Actually, one of the tricks as a presenter that you learn very, very quickly is how to speed up your voice and talk really, really fast.

Because when you do, you get people's attention. And then if you change your tone of voice and make it very, very soft, it can become calming. I'm going to be pleasant in that situation.

And how do I get to be pleasant in that situation with this person who is right in front of me in this moment? I remember the fourth P. And that fourth P is the fact that it's not personal.

The rat's not mine. I work for a company that owns the apartment. Well, yes, I do take my job personally.

I do take my role personally because, again, I'm responsible for my piece of it. But at the end of the day, I cannot take responsibility for the apartment. I can't take personal responsibility.

I take responsibility for the job, but I am not personally responsible for the fact that a rat got in there. My guess is actually the rat got in there looking for food. Oh, my goodness.

Nature needs what is required for nature to sustain it. Yes, a rat. As nasty and as bad as rats are, they need food.

Instinctually, they are there to get food. It just so happens that Princess, her food's readily available. And that's why the rat's going there.

The last piece of this equation is to provide the next steps. In the story, there was two times I know for a fact, even possibly three, that I gave very specific what's going to happen next steps. Not only that, because I knew from the get-go that Mrs. Jones is a people, I want to actually treat her as such and maybe explore a little bit if I can change the anger, if not to humor, at least to get to the point to where Mrs. Jones is pleasant. Now, there was some build-up. There was other tips and techniques that I use that carry over from being up on stage. A couple of them, fellow maintenance technicians, whenever you talk to somebody, don't stand there with your arms crossed.

It's called opening your stance. What that means is it makes you appear to be more welcoming. Because I'm pleasant, I'm not going to scowl or be mean or angry.

Matter of fact, I'm going to talk with either a slight smile or just a pleasant expression on my face. By the way, did you happen to notice how my voice changed just then? These are tips that are communication standards that can be used.

I learned them in presentation skills. But you know what? On our properties, when we're dealing with residents, we are presenting to our residents.

Yeah, I know. The number one fear is public speaking. Well, guess what?

Anytime you are speaking to another people, you are speaking in public. You can use some of that same information. Look right straight at them in the same way that I'm looking at the camera.

I mean, you don't stare. For those of you on video, you don't stare and lock eyes and never ever turn away or blink. That's just weird.

Have a communication. Have a conversation. Provide those clear instructions of next step.

And then for bonus points, when I went into the office and told the property manager what had just happened, he followed up with her afterwards. He did make sure that the exterminator went. And we did follow through.

And I found out because I had to travel and I wasn't going back soon. But I talked with the property manager and found out that the exterminator went and did whatever they did. And even Anthony had to go for a different work order into that apartment.

And he said the next time he went, Princess's food was in one of those large plastic containers. So I view that entire experience as a win. Anthony, to this day, I haven't talked to him in a couple of years now.

But to this day, I have a feeling that Anthony still thinks I'm a wizard or magic or something. And really all it boils down to is just treating Mrs. Jones like a people. Paying attention enough to notice, first of all, that Princess was going back and forth between barking out loud, yelling and screaming and being curious.

And not only that, I asked a very, very basic question of her that got to know her a little bit more. Remember, I asked her if she was able to train Princess and she basically said no. I went out on a limb and I tried to joke and it landed.

It could have went very, very bad if it hadn't landed. But based on the whole progression of our conversation, I felt pretty good about making the line of teaching the rat how to sit and maybe that would help Princess. So there it is.

Those are my customer service ways of remembering how to provide customer service. It's five Ps. It begins with our customers or people.

Be present. Pay attention to what's going on around you. It's my responsibility to be pleasant.

The fourth P is keep in mind it's not personal and then I'm going to provide a clear path forward. All of these are ways that I continue to provide customer service. I'm traveling this week.

For those of you on video, you're seeing the inside of my hotel room and it is now my hope that tomorrow for the almost five-hour plane flight home from California to Georgia where I live, that I run into a few people who have their own methodology for providing customer service. We'll just see how it goes. Thank you for joining me today.

I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week and I'll see you somewhere. Thank you again to app work for sponsoring today's episode. Imagine carrying a digital make ready board in your pocket with work order tracking and maintenance technician leaderboards designed to gamify the process and bring out your team's competitive best.

App work offers solutions to headaches that have plagued the multifamily industry for decades. Visit www.appworkco.com today.