Summary
As a moving company, it’s easy to overlook the fact that moving is not a fun event for your customers. It can be one of the most stressful things they do in their life and quite frankly, moving sucks! What can you do to make the moving experience “suck less” for your customers?
- Put yourself in your customer’s shoes – Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and see what you can do to create a better customer experience. This practice should be applied to all areas of your business from marketing to sales and all the way to moving-day.
- Make their experience suck less – I realize that you’re not going to be able to do things to make moving-day the best day of their life. But you can add a little more joy to the experience for them.
- Train your team on having compassion – Customers can be tough to deal with at times. Understand that they are going through a stressful time and train your team to have some compassion for that. Learn to not take it so personally when they give you an attitude.
- Respect their belongings – Sometimes it’s not enough to move their stuff from point A to point B without damaging anything. They want to see that you have respect for their belongings and aren’t just tossing it around. Show a little extra care when handling their belongings.
- Honor your customer’s trust – People buy from those they like and trust. If they reserved their move with you it’s because you earned their trust. Honor that trust and deliver on the service you promised.
As a moving company, you’re not going to change the world with the service you provide. But you can make a difference in the lives of the people you move. Knowing that moving sucks, what can you do to make it better for your customers?
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Full Transcript [The following is the full transcript of this episode.]
Moving sucks. Not the moving business. Moving, the process of moving, sucks. The moving business is great, but think about your customers. Think about everything that they’re going through during this whole process. Moving, statistically, is one of the most stressful things people do, behind funerals, divorce… Moving is one of the most stressful things that they do. It’s not a fun experience for them. So, as a moving company, it’s important to remember that. It’s important to remember that this customer is not really enjoying this whole process. And even though you do this every day, they don’t. And they may be going through… Who knows? They might be moving because of a funeral. They might be moving because of a divorce. They might be moving because they just got downsized. They also might be moving because they just hit the ladder and they’re moving to something bigger, but it’s still a stressful experience. Picking up everything that you own and displacing your whole family and going somewhere else, even though it might be exciting a little bit, it’s gonna be stressful for people.
I know that there’s a lot of customers that can spaz out and freak out. I remember the first time a customer freaked out because we were a half hour late because she was gonna miss the cable guy, really freaking out on us ’cause she was gonna miss the cable guy. And I’m like, “Woah.” But when you start to think about it and when you put yourself in their shoes, you start to understand that it’s not just the cable guy. There’s a lot of stuff going on, that their whole world is up in the air. So just remember that moving sucks. And I wanna give you five steps that will really help you and your company live that with your customer.
First step is, put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Understand where they’re coming from. And this isn’t something that you just do once and forget about it. It’s something you need to remind yourself and your staff to do on a fairly regular basis. It’s gonna allow you to create a better culture, to create a better environment, to create a better experience for your customers, which turns into more repeat and referral customers, more five-star reviews, more business, more money. So it’s lucrative to make sure that you’re taking care of your customers and understanding what they’re going through. Put yourself in their shoes.
And then see what you could do to make their experience suck less. Moving sucks, what could you do to make it suck less? I’m not delusional. You’re not gonna make their moving day fantastic, like the best day of their life, but you can make it not as bad. You can make it a little bit better and you can definitely try to not add fuel to the fire and make it worse. Make their moving experience suck less.
Number three, train your team on having compassion. The same way that I’m talking to you about… Remember what this person is going through, they might be freaking out. They might be following you around the house and saying, “Don’t touch that. Be careful with that. That’s an antique. That was given to me by my grandpa.” Have compassion for what they’re going through. Train your team to have compassion for what they’re going through. And it’s just gonna help the whole experience, and you’ll stop taking it so personal when they’re a little… They have a little attitude and they’re a little stressed out. You’ll realize they’re going through a stressful time. If you worked at a funeral parlor, would you freak out because the customer is freaking out? The family is in there, and they’re stressing out and giving you a hard time. Moving is up there with a funeral. Moving is up there with a divorce. Just have little compassion and understand what they’re going through, and you won’t take it so personal.
Respect their belongings. Too many times, we get used to this. Our movers will go in a house and they know what they’re doing. So they’ll go in and then they’ll just grab something and put it down and start padding it and schlep it out of the house. Having a little extra respect for their belongings, even though you know what you’re doing, just to show them that you’re gonna take care of it, goes a long way. You’ve had customers… If you’ve been in this business more than a few months, you’ve had customers that will follow your movers around and every little thing that they do. If the movers showed up, and showed a little more respect for their belongings right away, right up front, and took a little extra care, those customers would start to back off a little bit. Not all of them, but there’s customers who would start to back off a little bit and let them do their thing.
And number five, you have to remember. You booked this move because they believed in you, they trusted you, you had a good sales pitch, and you earned their trust. So, honor their trust. The reason they went with you is because they trusted you. People buy from people they trust and like. So, they book their move with you, they put their trust in you to come out and handle their stuff. Honor that. Earn that trust after the fact. Don’t just do what you need to do to book the move. Earn that trust throughout the course of the move.
Just remember, it’s not just for you, this is for your team. This is for your movers. This is for your office staff. When they call in and they speak to somebody about a problem they have, and the person on the other end of the phone in your office treats them not so good or just with a little bit of an attitude, that needs to change. Respect the fact that moving sucks, your customers are going through that, and look at it as an opportunity to create a little extra joy in the experience for them. You could play a big part in how stressful this move actually is for them. Think about that.
Until I see you next time, go out there every single day, profit in your business, thrive in your life, I’ll see you later.