December 3, 2024 • 29 mins
Unlock the power of the mystery shopper method to elevate your business operations. This episode explores how a cost-free audit can provide instant insights into your customer experience and service quality. Learn actionable steps to implement this strategy, motivate your team, and turn valuable feedback into profits. Perfect for home service professionals ready to take their business to the next level. Join host Adam Sylvester and Katie Pearse of Glimmer Cleaning Co. and Glisten Academy.
New to Jobber? Masters of Home Service listeners can claim an exclusive discount for Jobber at https://bit.ly/4d0KAEh
[00:00] Introduction to the episode and guest [01:00] Explanation of the secret shopper method and its benefits for businesses [02:12] The challenges of monitoring staff performance and maintaining standards [03:10] Using mystery shoppers to validate customer experience and improve services [04:30] Building a secret shopper list and creating feedback parameters [06:22] Motivating staff through structured feedback and performance incentives [09:19] Addressing fears of feedback and starting the mystery shopper program [10:37] Steps to set up and implement a secret shopper system [12:02] Designing effective evaluation forms [14:02] Maintaining a high level of quality by using Jobber for customer profiles [15:42] Evaluating the entire customer experience with mystery shoppers [16:44] Frequency and scale of mystery shopping in different business contexts [19:10] Providing customer feedback for staff to reference [20:06] Addressing complacency in both staff and clients over time [22:25] Financial and operational advantages of mystery shopping over traditional management methods [25:27] Ethical responsibilities of maintaining service quality as a business owner [28:22] Adam’s Key Takeaways: Get started today, give test answers to technicians, and checklist matches client form
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We are smaller businesses and we needevery tool we can and we need as much help
as we can.
So if we can systemize how to givereal feedback directly from our
customers, that's doingthem just a great service,
that's giving them the opportunity torise to the occasion and that's what they
want.
Welcome to jobbers,masters of Home Service,
(00:20):
a podcast for home servicepros by home service pros.
We are in sunny Las Vegas,
and today we're talking about a simpleaudit that costs you nothing but makes
you a lot of money. I'm your host, AdamSylvester. I have Katie Pierce with us.
She's the owner of Glimmer CleaningCo and Glisten Academy. Katie,
(00:40):
welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Why don't you tell our listeners alittle bit about you and what you do?
Sure. So I have had acleaning business since 2008,
residential and commercial. I've doneit all. And I also have Glisten Academy,
which is training for cleaningbusiness owners specifically.
Bingo. All right, cool.
I'm looking forward to get into thisbecause it's a very unique episode.
(01:02):
Something that you're very passionateabout is the mystery shopper,
the secret shopper method, whateveryou want to call it. What is that?
And then we'll get intoit. But what is that.
Essentially, and this isused in a lot of industries,
but the idea is simply thatyou hire secret shoppers who
audit, review your business andsubmit a report to the business,
(01:26):
and it basically tells the businessexactly what their business looks
like through thecustomer's eyes. So again,
this is used in restaurants and retail,all kinds of different industries,
and no one really uses itin the cleaning industry.
So I decided to do this a few years ago,
and it's just absolutely incrediblethe results that you'll see
(01:48):
pretty much instantly from institutingthis in your business. And again,
anyone in the home servicebusiness can do it.
It's a proven method of gettingfeedback on your business and
knowing exactly what's going on outthere, eyes and ears. And as you know,
it's really, really hard to dothat as a small business owner,
really as any business.
This gives you direct insight into exactlywhat's going on out there with your
(02:12):
business.
Because you tell your field staffto do it this way, do it this way,
do it this way, do it this way.
And then you have no idea if theydo it this way. You have no idea.
You only have complaints. That'sright. And it's too late. It's all.
Lag.
And the other thing is you spend allthis time training your staff. I mean,
I think we all understand the headacheof training and training and investing in
(02:32):
training programs and investing in thetime and energy and money it costs to
train our staff.
And then the second they go out thereand they're kind of unleashed onto your
clients, are they wearing theiruniform? Do they show up on time?
Are they leaving behind abusiness card or brochure?
How do they talk to your clients?How do they introduce themselves?
And then of course, the job itself,
are they doing a good job andwhat exactly are they doing?
(02:56):
And more importantly too is howis it perceived by your clients?
Because that's all that reallymatters. At the end of the day.
We can think we're doing a good job,
but so you're getting that directfeedback and insight from your customers.
One of the things that drivesme the most crazy, the most,
and then we'll get into it is when youhave your technician go out there and it
doesn't go well for whateverreason, and say, well boss,
(03:18):
I did that or I said that and Ijust have to take their word for it.
That's right. And theymay not be lying to you.
Their perception is they said it theway you said to say it exactly in the
context of sales maybe, or, well,I promise you just have no idea.
You have no idea.
This method we're going to talk abouthelps you confirm everything that we're
talking about.
And so basically you have your buddy justpretend to be a random client, right?
(03:40):
That's great.
Yeah, go.
Through the entire process.
So there's a few different ways ofdoing it. It definitely can be someone,
but it can also be a wholenew list of customers.
And so this can generate just awhole new revenue stream for you.
And also when you have those customerswho say, well, I can't really afford it,
or you get the assumptionthey maybe can't afford it,
the quote was a little higher than theyexpected or a lot higher either way,
(04:03):
you can also offer them what we givehalf price cleanings or half price,
whatever it is, painting tocustomers who are mystery shoppers.
So in exchange for a report andgiving me feedback on your service,
you get to save money on yourservice and people love it. I mean,
it's a win-win for everyone.
You don't do it for freehalf off or something.
(04:24):
Yeah, typically I've always foundthat half price works, but again,
you can play around andsee what works for you.
Okay. Tell me, what's the nextthing we need to know about this?
What's the next step?
So basically what you need to dois you're going to build that list.
So it's just like buildingany customer list only.
This is specific mysteryshoppers. So again,
you can advertise on social media.
(04:46):
Say you're looking for customerswho can do secret shopping for you,
you can do it on social media, ofcourse you can do it with your email,
you can run ads, whatever you want. Andthen from there, you build that list.
And then what you need to do is you needto figure out exactly how you're going
to audit. So what does that looklike? What questions are you asking?
(05:06):
What do you want the customersto evaluate the staff on?
And the customers don't necessarilyhave to be home because of course,
lots of our customers aren't home.
So It might be a dead giveaway to ourstaff if suddenly while this person's
home.
So it doesn't have to be that essentiallyyou need to figure out what you want
them to review and to report on so you can
(05:28):
have anything you want. And again,this can change and evolve over time.
One of the things that I suggest people
ask for as well is simple thingslike call our business with a
question or fill out the quote form onthe website, try and book an appointment.
How easy was it? How long did it take?Did my receptionist answer the phone?
(05:51):
Just everything you can imagine abouthow your business is performing,
you can get feedback on.
So figuring out all those differentelements that you want feedback on,
and maybe this changes over time.
So maybe you're getting a lot ofcomplaints about the cleaning itself,
or maybe you're gettingthe impression that, yeah,
we're not getting backto people fast enough,
or why are we quoting?And these quotes aren't turning into jobs,
(06:11):
so you can change this as time goes on.
Or maybe you're getting a lotof complaints with toilets aren't clean enough or
whatever it is. So it's like,Hey guys, you know what?
We really need to step it up.
And what this does is that Ifind having trained hundreds,
hundreds of people is that oftentimesit's not that they don't know what's
expected of them, they don'tknow how to do the job,
(06:33):
but if they feel like no one'swatching and no one cares or they can
blame their partner orsomething like that,
then what incentive do they reallyhave to do an amazing job? And again,
this is all about takingit to the very next level.
So if they forget that checklist in theircar and they know they're supposed to
leave it at the end of a cleaning,
do they really want to go out tothe car and get it? Does it matter?
(06:54):
It's not a big deal. We seethis client all the time.
But if they know that that person couldbe submitting a review and depending on
the score they get on thatmystery shopper report,
that could mean the differencebetween a hundred dollars bonus.
It could mean the differencebetween a promotion.
It could mean the difference betweenbeing an employee of the month and that
recognition that comes along with it.
So it automatically steps upthe game for all the staff.
(07:16):
And so they have the energy and they havethe inspiration to perform exactly how
you want them to.
And not to mention once you do it once,then you might be doing it anytime.
Yeah, exactly. Andthat's exactly how it is.
So because they never knowwho the mystery shopper is,
and it could be a new client, you couldreach out to your existing list and say,
you know what?
I need three existing customers who'vebeen around for at least a year to sign
(07:40):
up for this. We need a couplereports for some of my staff.
Often staff want raises.They want feedback.
And that's where this really is comingfrom. It's not about punishing staff.
It's not about spying on staffbecause the staff know about this.
This is not something that we're beingsneaky or anything. We show the staff,
here's what you're beingevaluated on. This is the report.
(08:00):
This is how you can get a hundredpercent or an a plus or whatever it is.
This is how I help you succeed.
And so when they know specifically thatthey're going to get two mystery shop
reports every single month,
and then we're going to talk about thatat a staff meeting and we're going to
reward people based on their reports,that's a really exciting thing for people.
I find running a small business anda service business myself is that we
(08:24):
never we're so busy.
And six months can go by and you getthat message from an employee saying,
I've been here for six months, canwe talk about a raise or something?
And it's like, oh my gosh, doI even have a file of feedback?
Have I compiled this? So by doing this,
you're putting all of that reportingand all that record keeping on your.
(08:44):
Customers.
And now you've got files,you've got feedback,
you've got all the proof youneed to promote, to give raises,
to not give raises. It's all rightthere for you in a really organized,
systematic way. And as well,
just another point is that the customersabsolutely love this because as we
know, what customers want morethan anything is to be listened to.
They want their feedback.
(09:05):
Imagine being the only business in townthat actually has customers giving real
reports directly to the owner.
And.
That's how much you careabout how your business is.
So it's an amazing marketing tool as well.
I want to do this when I get back homeand I can immediately think of two or
three things that I knoware not up to snuff.
(09:27):
And the temptation Ican already tell is I,
I'll wait to do it after I get all thosethings up to snuff and then I'll do it.
But the truth is, well,you're never perfect.
And so would you just tell people justto start even though you know, have gaps,
just.
Do it. Yeah, and that's exactlyit. I mean, feedback's scary.
And again, you're puttingyourself out there every day.
You're trusting your staff, you'reselling something that you've created.
(09:50):
And nobody's perfect, right? I mean,
we all know we're going to getnegative feedback sometimes,
but it isn't better to get it on a reportthat's used for internal training than
it is for that to be posted on Googlefor the whole world to see. And if you
can be on top of it, I think it's abusiness owner. It's really, really,
(10:11):
I mean, it's your duty to be on top of it.
You need to know what your staff are doingout there, not just for your clients,
but as a leader,
you need to know exactly what your staffare doing and what they're not doing.
And then you need to becommitted to fixing that.
And when you see it inblack and white on a report,
it's going to compel you totake action. And on top of that,
I think you'll be surprised with howmuch incredibly positive feedback you get
(10:33):
as well. So it's actually a really,really positive thing for everyone.
Okay. Let's get the nitty grittyhere. So how do you set this up?
Earlier you mentioned there's acouple of different ways of doing.
It.
Walk us through those different options,
but then let's just get into how dowe do this from step one to step.
A.
To Z?
Absolutely. So what you want to dois really start by recruiting people.
And again, that can be as simple asan Instagram, post a Facebook group.
(10:55):
While you're sort of recruitingfor that though, at the same time,
you need to tell your staff. So again,
this isn't the kind of thing thatwe're sneaking up on our staff with.
So always tell your staff right atthe same time that you're going to be
launching a secret shopper mystery shopperprogram in your company. Here's why.
This is all the positives,and this is to help us all.
So this is to get genuine feedbackbecause again, your staff want feedback,
(11:18):
but they also want fair feedback.
So if they know that every time they'recleaning a house that they might not
know that they're missing something,
or they might not know that a customerreally wants the stuffed animals on their
kids' beds arranged nicely or they wantthe toilet paper folded into a point. I
mean, these are littlethings that matter to people.
And by giving that client like ananonymous way to tell you that,
(11:41):
now you can start to understand what'sreally important to your customers.
And it might not beanonymous to you, of course,
we as business owners are goingto know who that client is,
but we don't tell the staff that.
So now we know and we can use our bestjudgment to figure out how to tell the
staff or maybe all the staff need to know,
but it's going to highlight areas inyour business that need improvement,
and then that's what you can focus on.
(12:02):
Cool. Okay. You definitelynotify your staff.
Tell your staff,
start recruiting the people who aregoing to be mystery shoppers. From there,
you explain to them exactly what'sbeing reported on. And again,
it doesn't have to be complicated at all.
It can be as simple as your staff oryour customers are going to check the top
of the fridge to makesure that they've dusted,
(12:23):
that they're going to ratewhat the uniforms looked like,
how clean and organized were thecleaning caddies or the vacuum,
if you brought a vacuum, did they showup on time? It's just little things.
It can be a 10 point checklist.And from there, then the client.
So you're going to setthat up, the report,
and of course I suggest doing it onlineand with some kind of fillable form.
(12:43):
And then they submit it within usually24 hours you want from the end of the
appointment,
you want that report completed and theysubmit it to you. And then you can look
at your reports once a week,once a month as they come in.
And then pretty much once a month you'llwant to hold a staff meeting and you
just tell people how they did basically.
So you'll sort of compile an average ifyou want to have one-on-ones with your
(13:06):
staff and get a little bit more detailedand give them more one-on-one feedback,
you can, but essentially what Ido is just at a staff meeting,
I tell them what their score was and thenthose people get a cash bonus kind of
idea.Yeah. So it's really simple.
And then what it alsodoes is when you have,
let's say a little bit ofslower season or a slower week,
and suddenly you're kind of worried,
(13:27):
how am I going to fill the schedule rightafter Christmas and things like that.
You know what, you can justsend out a whole bunch.
I need 10 mystery shop appointments.
So you might just be breaking evenon it because you're offering it at
50%, but it's going to save you a lotof money in the longterm because again,
you're getting all of thisreporting and it's coming through,
and then you can use it to informeverything you do as a business owner.
(13:49):
And it's really about as simple as that.
So of course there's some more steps inthere, but that's essentially the idea.
Yeah. Okay. So I'm thinkinglike Google survey forms,
maybe Google forms any form as long asit's easy for the client to fill out.
Katie, this conversation is fantastic.I have a lot of questions for you,
but before that,
let's take a pause and talk aboutjobber and why we like it so much.
(14:10):
How does Jobber help you maintain ahigh level of quality in your business?
The most important things for me arethat customer profile, that intake form,
understanding our customers deeplyand ensuring that everything that has
happened through their life cycle withyour business is passed on to the next
person who is still with your business,
(14:30):
but maybe new as thetechnician who works for them.
And it's important that they know. Sofor a customer, they're going to say,
well, I told you about this two yearsago, or This has happened three times.
This is the kind of stuff thatcan be updated right in jobber.
And so any employee who works for you,
any person can go in and checkand see all of those details,
and then they can update things as wellso that everyone always knows everything
(14:53):
that customer wants.
Yeah,
I think one of the most frustratingthings is when clients tell today's guy
something special, and then the nextweek it's a different guy. Exactly.
The jobber in the instructions of thevisit use technical jargon within Jobber.
It's all there. And so youcan update that every time,
and it's the code tothe doors there and all.
That kind stuff. I mean,there's no mistakes.
(15:13):
When everything is accurate and everythingis updated for the customer profile
and everything's secure as well.That's a huge, huge part of it.
So for staff to be able to have that attheir fingertips, it saves you all. It.
Eliminates staff headaches. Absolutely.And they don't want to have,
they don't want chaos.
They don't.
Order.
Absolutely.
You need jobber two for all thereasons we just talked about,
new users can get an exclusivediscount at jobber.com/podcast deal.
(15:38):
Go start today and bringorder to your business.
I'm envisioning from A to ZI think.
Tell me if you think this is a good idea,
having a client call in from the verybeginning and just I want to quote.
That's exactly right.
Okay. So it can be for just thequality of the work. It could be.
Or.
It could be the entire customer.
(15:58):
Experience. Yeah. Experience.Exactly. Yeah. So it can be,
and I definitely suggest that becauseyou've got the person there and the
reports don't take anincredible amount of time.
So if you're doing a cleaning thatshould be $250 and they're getting $125
off, you definitely should begetting a little bit from them.
So definitely you cangive them, like I said,
(16:19):
specific things to look at on yourwebsite. Was it easy to find the price?
Was it easy to get a quote?
You can have them test links when youclicked on Contact us was our social
media test.
Each of our social media links make surethat everything's going to the right
place. You can have them look atyour Instagram. There's tons, I mean,
it's just limitless, but youcan ask them for feedback on.
(16:42):
How often should this be done.
I found the most effectivestrategy is to have staff receive
a mystery shop at least once everypay period, so about every two weeks.
Oh, wow. That's a lot. Itseems like a lot. Okay.
But once you have the program setup, it's pretty much automated,
so it's really, really simple. Youcan send out that email and say, Hey,
(17:04):
I need three of these done.
Or you can even just contact aregular customer and say, Hey,
I'm going to give you a hundred dollarsoff your regular biweekly cleaning next
week. Would you mind filling out thisreport for me? It'll take 10, 20 minutes.
Yeah, no problem. They love it.
And then they get a discount and that'sit. And then you can book them in.
You can even have that specifictype of service labeled as a mystery
(17:28):
shop or something, so you geta different email automation.
So that email just comes to them,it's got a link to the report,
they fill it out, it's submitted. Youget the email that it's there, it,
and it just works really, reallyeasily. And once it's set up,
you don't really have to do much with it.
Yeah. I'm curious,
do you have this option on your intakeform if people want to opt into it?
I haven't done that.That's a really good idea.
(17:51):
And you definitely coulddo that. In my experience,
I have found that current customers,
like customers who sign upjust to be regular customers.
Have.
Almost never opted to be mystery shoppers.
So even if I reach out to a thousandcurrent customers and say, Hey,
does anybody want this?Very, very few have ever.
So it really is an incentivefor people who have not bought.
(18:12):
Yeah, it's really a brandnew stream of clients.
It's a whole other list. Yeah.It's really quite exciting to.
See. Now, on the form, I'm envisioningtwo different elements per question,
if you will. One is like a slidingscale, one to five. So you have a.
Numeric.
Grade.
So.
You can average that number wise. Butthen a box that says, tell me more.
(18:34):
Why did you say four out offive? Any other elements.
You can ask them to take pictures ifthere's anything that they are finding.
Yeah, the toilet doesn't look that great.
So they could staff a photoeasy enough to do nowadays.
They could upload some photos at theend. You can easily have attachments.
They can upload in any form, they canemail you. I mean, it's very, very simple.
(18:56):
It can be, again, as slick as youwant or as manual as you want,
depending on the size of your business.
But I would just definitely recommendgetting started because then you can scale
it as you grow and you tweakit more. Tweak. Exactly. Yeah.
Do you share the form withyour staff? Absolutely.
They see exactly what's onthere. Absolutely. Okay.
I thought you said that earlier.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Soif you've got, you're.
(19:17):
Giving them the answers to the test.
Exactly. Again, this isn't about,you don't want them to score bad.
So if you're telling them, okay,
they're going to be checking the undersideof the toilet, the top of the fridge.
I'm just thinking of certain things thatare always missed in a house that come
back time and time again.
So it's like if they know that that'sspecifically what's being checked or
(19:37):
the kitchen floor, suddenlythey know like, okay,
there's only 10 things Ihave to do extremely well,
and then that's really important, right?
Priority. So we have a quality controlchecklist at the end of each visit,
my gutter company does.
And so there's like 18 differentpoints on there or less,
and they have to check thoseoff every visit, every job.
And so I imagine that thoseshould be pretty darn similar.
(19:58):
The form that the customer fillsout should reflect what's on there.
It absolutely.
Because that's congruent. You don'twant to have those two different.
Things. You'd cross reference that.Yeah, for sure. With cleaning,
it's maybe a little bit different becausethere's so much going on in a house.
And what happens a lot with staff iswith cleaners is that they'll check off
things that maybe don't even exist.Like, oh, yes, we cleaned the microwave,
(20:20):
but there is no microwave,right? This is actually, I.
Always wonder, yeah, whatshould you do in that situation?
Tell them not to check itoff or do you not? Or do you.
Yeah, no,
they definitely should not be checkingit off if they haven't cleaned it. Right.
But what happens is people startgetting complacent. Of course.
That's exactly it. Especially the longeryou've been cleaning for that person.
(20:42):
And of course, what all customerswill tell you is that, oh,
the cleaning was amazing thefirst time, the second time,
the third time suddenly, why does thequality start to go downhill? And that is,
I mean, that's just human nature.There's complacency. It's like, oh,
we've been doing this client for years.
They don't care if weleave a checklist or not.
They don't even know.
It's okay, I'm having an off day.They love us. It's fine. But again,
(21:03):
that's not fair to anyone.
What it also does in terms of complacencyis not only do staff start to get a
little bit complacent,
but also so do the clients. Sowhat you'll find as well is.
Your standards go down.
And what happens is, oh, the firsttime we come to clean for you, oh,
we're cleaning up. We don'twant to look messy and stuff.
(21:24):
And then as soon as you start gettingmore familiar and more relaxed and stuff,
well, maybe you leave dishes in the sinkand suddenly the client's not really
preparing for the cleaning aswell as they used to either.
So things start to godownhill from all angles.
And just to touch on that as well iswhat happens when the clients actually
start going through reports,or you can share, of course,
(21:46):
I recommend that you do shareyour mystery shopper report,
not the filled out report,
but what people are reporting onwith your regular clients too.
You can always say, do you know anyonewho'd be interested in doing this?
They get a discount on their cleaning.
And so oftentimes you'll maybe have afriend or a family member referred by a
real client who's paying full price.
And what this does isit educates the clients,
(22:08):
like we've talked aboutwith photos and all that,
is really teaching the clients, wow,I didn't know that they did that.
I didn't know they did that.
So it's teaching them how detailedyour cleaners or your staff
actually are, and it really educates them,
and they start appreciating andunderstanding and respecting what you do.
This is so great. I love this.
I have so many thoughts andso many questions that I can't answer 'em all right
(22:30):
now, but the title that I introedwith Katie was, it costs $0.
It makes you a lot of money so far, ifI'm in the minds of the listener. Well,
it sounds like it costs a lot of money.It sounds like. Where's the money?
So let's talk about that.
It does cost a little bit in bonusesif you do incentivize a little bit.
But the long-term, whereare you seeing a big ROI.
(22:51):
Really what you're doing? I mean,
for the most part in home service industryis what we end up doing is hiring a
field manager. We need a quality controlperson. We need somebody out there.
Again, in the beginning, thismight not seem very expensive,
but now you've got somebody onsalary, 50, 60,000 a year, let's say,
and their sole purpose is to drive aroundand check a handful of appointments
(23:13):
every day.
Well, that sounds so badin this context. Yeah.
That's sort of what I'm saying. Atthe peak of my residential cleaning,
we were doing about 75 to 80 appointmentsa week. I can't check that one.
Field manager can't checkthat. No one can check that.
So imagine the cost that, again, youdon't have to check every appointment,
(23:34):
of course, but things start, if stafffeel like nobody's ever checking on them,
nobody. And it's not fair to themeither. If it's just like, oh,
we asked for a review. Oh, great. Butlike, oh yeah, the house was clean. Yeah,
four stars, five stars. Thisisn't specific. And I find, again,
having analyzed and learning how to trainpeople for 15 years and working with
(23:55):
people all over the worldon how to train their staff,
the actual scorecard andrubric has to be so simple,
pass or fail, like you said, one star,five stars. And it has to be really,
really easy for people to understandbecause otherwise we get into emotional
feedback and people arguingand stuff, and it simply has.
To be personality conflicts.
Exactly. So there's so much.And then staff feel like, oh,
(24:17):
that customer is just beingdifficult, or This is a really,
really black and white, very scientificway of gathering data. And yes, I mean,
yes, there might be costsassociated with giving a discount,
but you would probably not have thatcustomer if you didn't Do the discount.
So that's sort of what I'm gettingat is that there's no, again,
as a business owner,
we don't have money to hirea secret shopping company and
(24:41):
do metrics and focus groupsand all of this stuff.
So why not just find your own customerswith a few social media posts?
Doesn't cost any money.
Ask your current customers to recommendyour program to people who are looking.
It's very similar to a hair salon whensomebody comes on as a junior stylist and
they need to be trained orwhatever, and they get a discount.
So there's no upfront cost withinstituting this. And again,
(25:03):
it doesn't have to be a hundreddollars bonuses. I mean,
this is just what worked forme. But again, we were 10,
12 employees at that pointwhen I brought this program in.
So you might not have that budgetto play with, but that's okay.
Maybe you just do some giftcards or it can be anything.
You can be creative pizzaparties, whatever it is.
It doesn't have to cost a lot, but again,
it doesn't really costyou anything upfront,
so there's no hard dollars put into it.
(25:25):
Yeah, I'm going to saythe quiet part out loud.
I think a lot of people are thinking this,
maybe I actually think we have somesort of ethical obligation to do this.
What do we do? We've all done this,
whether we do it now or we've donein the past. We hired the guy,
gave him a tool and just told him togo and just hope that no one complains.
And here we are saying that we'reprofessionals and we do a great job.
We're number one in ourarea, all these things,
(25:47):
and we're not really doing anythingto ensure that we keep that
promise. And just waiting andhoping that no one complains isn't
really good enough, especiallywhen you're comparing,
because I think the bar can be sohigh, and I am going step on toes.
I'm stepping on my toes. I don't do thisright now, but I wish we did. We do.
(26:08):
We don't. But quality matters.And it's not okay to be like,
well, no one complained this year,
but they can't see the inside ofthe toilet and see the plumbing.
They don't know. They'rejust taking a word for it.
And so I think we have an ethicalobligation to really make sure that our
quality is good enough.
And I mean, that's our duediligence as business owners.
We need to be asking the hardquestions and we need to be getting
(26:32):
feedback, and we needto give our employees,
again, the black and white answersand it's very objective and
we're giving them the opportunity toshine. And the other thing is simply that,
again, they need feedbackand they want feedback.
And we don't have big HR departments. Wedon't have, again, we don't have this.
(26:54):
So we're smaller businesses and weneed every tool we can and we need
as much help as we can.
So if we can systemize how to givereal feedback directly from our
customers to our staff, that'sdoing them just a great service,
that's giving them the opportunity torise to the occasion and that's what they
want.
As a final thought,
I'm curious what you think aboutthis and then we'll wrap up.
(27:17):
One thing I told my staff a couple weeksago is clients have one standard and
then we have a whole higherstandard. Generally speaking,
a client will look at whateverwe did. Oh, the lawn looks great,
but the owner's like that doesn't lookgreat. Look at all the little mis,
and the client doesn't see the way wedo it. So I think there seems like,
and you tell me if you agree with it,
that there is still a placefor the operations manager go by and take a look at
(27:38):
things through his perspective.
Absolutely. It.
Kind depends on what business you're in,
because a client can make surethere's no dust on the fridge.
There might be other businesses thatcan't rely on the client as much because
there's more know-how potentially.But anyway, I just thought about it.
And that's very true. But again,
then you can take more of a step backmaybe from how the business is operating
in terms of, like Isaid, how's the website,
(27:59):
how's the social media when they callthe business? Because a lot of times as
well as business owners we'rethe last to know about things.
I feel like that's happened to me a fewtimes where you didn't realize this.
And customers, as much as peoplesometimes like to say, oh,
people just like to complain andstuff, I've never found that.
I found that peopledon't want to complain.
They don't want somebody'sjob in jeopardy.
(28:21):
So sometimes we are the last to know.So if you can make a really, again,
just a formal way of doing it,
it takes out any of that awkwardnessand everybody wins in the end.
Katie, this was fantastic. I reallyappreciate all that you said.
I'm going to try to wrap it up inthree steps here. Number one is do it.
Just do it now. Get started. I'm temptedto wait until everything's perfect.
(28:43):
It's not going to be start today andit's going to change your business.
Number two is give the answersto test your technicians before.
Don't make this asecret. Make it a secret,
but not with your in staff and let themknow it's going to happen that way.
Their performance will go up automaticallyand you don't want to be suspicious
of being kind of shifty.
And number three is the checklistthat you have on the job site should
(29:07):
match the form the clientis going to fill out.
Because those two things should prettymuch be the same how you're grading your
technicians, and so it should be the same.
Katie, this is great. Thanks forbeing here. Thank you so much.
How do people find out more about you?
You can go to glisten academy.com.
So listen with the G got lots of actualresources on this program as well for
(29:27):
free if you want to go and learn howto implement this in your business.
Great. Well,
I really appreciate just on the topic ofhow you've implemented quality control
in your business. Your clients are betterfor it, your team is better for it.
So great job. Appreciate that.Thank and thank you for listening.
I hope you heard something that willmake your business more profitable and
efficient and better. I'myour host, Adam Sylvester.
(29:49):
You can find me@adamsylvester.com.
Your clients and your team deserveyour very best, so go give it to 'em.
We are smaller businesses and we needevery tool we can and we need as much help
as we can.
So if we can systemize how to givereal feedback directly from our
customers, that's doingthem just a great service,
that's giving them the opportunity torise to the occasion and that's what they
want.
Welcome to jobbers,masters of Home Service,
(00:20):
a podcast for home servicepros by home service pros.
We are in sunny Las Vegas,
and today we're talking about a simpleaudit that costs you nothing but makes
you a lot of money. I'm your host, AdamSylvester. I have Katie Pierce with us.
She's the owner of Glimmer CleaningCo and Glisten Academy. Katie,
(00:40):
welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Why don't you tell our listeners alittle bit about you and what you do?
Sure. So I have had acleaning business since 2008,
residential and commercial. I've doneit all. And I also have Glisten Academy,
which is training for cleaningbusiness owners specifically.
Bingo. All right, cool.
I'm looking forward to get into thisbecause it's a very unique episode.
(01:02):
Something that you're very passionateabout is the mystery shopper,
the secret shopper method, whateveryou want to call it. What is that?
And then we'll get intoit. But what is that.
Essentially, and this isused in a lot of industries,
but the idea is simply thatyou hire secret shoppers who
audit, review your business andsubmit a report to the business,
(01:26):
and it basically tells the businessexactly what their business looks
like through thecustomer's eyes. So again,
this is used in restaurants and retail,all kinds of different industries,
and no one really uses itin the cleaning industry.
So I decided to do this a few years ago,
and it's just absolutely incrediblethe results that you'll see
(01:48):
pretty much instantly from institutingthis in your business. And again,
anyone in the home servicebusiness can do it.
It's a proven method of gettingfeedback on your business and
knowing exactly what's going on outthere, eyes and ears. And as you know,
it's really, really hard to dothat as a small business owner,
really as any business.
This gives you direct insight into exactlywhat's going on out there with your
(02:12):
business.
Because you tell your field staffto do it this way, do it this way,
do it this way, do it this way.
And then you have no idea if theydo it this way. You have no idea.
You only have complaints. That'sright. And it's too late. It's all.
Lag.
And the other thing is you spend allthis time training your staff. I mean,
I think we all understand the headacheof training and training and investing in
(02:32):
training programs and investing in thetime and energy and money it costs to
train our staff.
And then the second they go out thereand they're kind of unleashed onto your
clients, are they wearing theiruniform? Do they show up on time?
Are they leaving behind abusiness card or brochure?
How do they talk to your clients?How do they introduce themselves?
And then of course, the job itself,
are they doing a good job andwhat exactly are they doing?
(02:56):
And more importantly too is howis it perceived by your clients?
Because that's all that reallymatters. At the end of the day.
We can think we're doing a good job,
but so you're getting that directfeedback and insight from your customers.
One of the things that drivesme the most crazy, the most,
and then we'll get into it is when youhave your technician go out there and it
doesn't go well for whateverreason, and say, well boss,
(03:18):
I did that or I said that and Ijust have to take their word for it.
That's right. And theymay not be lying to you.
Their perception is they said it theway you said to say it exactly in the
context of sales maybe, or, well,I promise you just have no idea.
You have no idea.
This method we're going to talk abouthelps you confirm everything that we're
talking about.
And so basically you have your buddy justpretend to be a random client, right?
(03:40):
That's great.
Yeah, go.
Through the entire process.
So there's a few different ways ofdoing it. It definitely can be someone,
but it can also be a wholenew list of customers.
And so this can generate just awhole new revenue stream for you.
And also when you have those customerswho say, well, I can't really afford it,
or you get the assumptionthey maybe can't afford it,
the quote was a little higher than theyexpected or a lot higher either way,
(04:03):
you can also offer them what we givehalf price cleanings or half price,
whatever it is, painting tocustomers who are mystery shoppers.
So in exchange for a report andgiving me feedback on your service,
you get to save money on yourservice and people love it. I mean,
it's a win-win for everyone.
You don't do it for freehalf off or something.
(04:24):
Yeah, typically I've always foundthat half price works, but again,
you can play around andsee what works for you.
Okay. Tell me, what's the nextthing we need to know about this?
What's the next step?
So basically what you need to dois you're going to build that list.
So it's just like buildingany customer list only.
This is specific mysteryshoppers. So again,
you can advertise on social media.
(04:46):
Say you're looking for customerswho can do secret shopping for you,
you can do it on social media, ofcourse you can do it with your email,
you can run ads, whatever you want. Andthen from there, you build that list.
And then what you need to do is you needto figure out exactly how you're going
to audit. So what does that looklike? What questions are you asking?
(05:06):
What do you want the customersto evaluate the staff on?
And the customers don't necessarilyhave to be home because of course,
lots of our customers aren't home.
So It might be a dead giveaway to ourstaff if suddenly while this person's
home.
So it doesn't have to be that essentiallyyou need to figure out what you want
them to review and to report on so you can
(05:28):
have anything you want. And again,this can change and evolve over time.
One of the things that I suggest people
ask for as well is simple thingslike call our business with a
question or fill out the quote form onthe website, try and book an appointment.
How easy was it? How long did it take?Did my receptionist answer the phone?
(05:51):
Just everything you can imagine abouthow your business is performing,
you can get feedback on.
So figuring out all those differentelements that you want feedback on,
and maybe this changes over time.
So maybe you're getting a lot ofcomplaints about the cleaning itself,
or maybe you're gettingthe impression that, yeah,
we're not getting backto people fast enough,
or why are we quoting?And these quotes aren't turning into jobs,
(06:11):
so you can change this as time goes on.
Or maybe you're getting a lotof complaints with toilets aren't clean enough or
whatever it is. So it's like,Hey guys, you know what?
We really need to step it up.
And what this does is that Ifind having trained hundreds,
hundreds of people is that oftentimesit's not that they don't know what's
expected of them, they don'tknow how to do the job,
(06:33):
but if they feel like no one'swatching and no one cares or they can
blame their partner orsomething like that,
then what incentive do they reallyhave to do an amazing job? And again,
this is all about takingit to the very next level.
So if they forget that checklist in theircar and they know they're supposed to
leave it at the end of a cleaning,
do they really want to go out tothe car and get it? Does it matter?
(06:54):
It's not a big deal. We seethis client all the time.
But if they know that that person couldbe submitting a review and depending on
the score they get on thatmystery shopper report,
that could mean the differencebetween a hundred dollars bonus.
It could mean the differencebetween a promotion.
It could mean the difference betweenbeing an employee of the month and that
recognition that comes along with it.
So it automatically steps upthe game for all the staff.
(07:16):
And so they have the energy and they havethe inspiration to perform exactly how
you want them to.
And not to mention once you do it once,then you might be doing it anytime.
Yeah, exactly. Andthat's exactly how it is.
So because they never knowwho the mystery shopper is,
and it could be a new client, you couldreach out to your existing list and say,
you know what?
I need three existing customers who'vebeen around for at least a year to sign
(07:40):
up for this. We need a couplereports for some of my staff.
Often staff want raises.They want feedback.
And that's where this really is comingfrom. It's not about punishing staff.
It's not about spying on staffbecause the staff know about this.
This is not something that we're beingsneaky or anything. We show the staff,
here's what you're beingevaluated on. This is the report.
(08:00):
This is how you can get a hundredpercent or an a plus or whatever it is.
This is how I help you succeed.
And so when they know specifically thatthey're going to get two mystery shop
reports every single month,
and then we're going to talk about thatat a staff meeting and we're going to
reward people based on their reports,that's a really exciting thing for people.
I find running a small business anda service business myself is that we
(08:24):
never we're so busy.
And six months can go by and you getthat message from an employee saying,
I've been here for six months, canwe talk about a raise or something?
And it's like, oh my gosh, doI even have a file of feedback?
Have I compiled this? So by doing this,
you're putting all of that reportingand all that record keeping on your.
(08:44):
Customers.
And now you've got files,you've got feedback,
you've got all the proof youneed to promote, to give raises,
to not give raises. It's all rightthere for you in a really organized,
systematic way. And as well,
just another point is that the customersabsolutely love this because as we
know, what customers want morethan anything is to be listened to.
They want their feedback.
(09:05):
Imagine being the only business in townthat actually has customers giving real
reports directly to the owner.
And.
That's how much you careabout how your business is.
So it's an amazing marketing tool as well.
I want to do this when I get back homeand I can immediately think of two or
three things that I knoware not up to snuff.
(09:27):
And the temptation Ican already tell is I,
I'll wait to do it after I get all thosethings up to snuff and then I'll do it.
But the truth is, well,you're never perfect.
And so would you just tell people justto start even though you know, have gaps,
just.
Do it. Yeah, and that's exactlyit. I mean, feedback's scary.
And again, you're puttingyourself out there every day.
You're trusting your staff, you'reselling something that you've created.
(09:50):
And nobody's perfect, right? I mean,
we all know we're going to getnegative feedback sometimes,
but it isn't better to get it on a reportthat's used for internal training than
it is for that to be posted on Googlefor the whole world to see. And if you
can be on top of it, I think it's abusiness owner. It's really, really,
(10:11):
I mean, it's your duty to be on top of it.
You need to know what your staff are doingout there, not just for your clients,
but as a leader,
you need to know exactly what your staffare doing and what they're not doing.
And then you need to becommitted to fixing that.
And when you see it inblack and white on a report,
it's going to compel you totake action. And on top of that,
I think you'll be surprised with howmuch incredibly positive feedback you get
(10:33):
as well. So it's actually a really,really positive thing for everyone.
Okay. Let's get the nitty grittyhere. So how do you set this up?
Earlier you mentioned there's acouple of different ways of doing.
It.
Walk us through those different options,
but then let's just get into how dowe do this from step one to step.
A.
To Z?
Absolutely. So what you want to dois really start by recruiting people.
And again, that can be as simple asan Instagram, post a Facebook group.
(10:55):
While you're sort of recruitingfor that though, at the same time,
you need to tell your staff. So again,
this isn't the kind of thing thatwe're sneaking up on our staff with.
So always tell your staff right atthe same time that you're going to be
launching a secret shopper mystery shopperprogram in your company. Here's why.
This is all the positives,and this is to help us all.
So this is to get genuine feedbackbecause again, your staff want feedback,
(11:18):
but they also want fair feedback.
So if they know that every time they'recleaning a house that they might not
know that they're missing something,
or they might not know that a customerreally wants the stuffed animals on their
kids' beds arranged nicely or they wantthe toilet paper folded into a point. I
mean, these are littlethings that matter to people.
And by giving that client like ananonymous way to tell you that,
(11:41):
now you can start to understand what'sreally important to your customers.
And it might not beanonymous to you, of course,
we as business owners are goingto know who that client is,
but we don't tell the staff that.
So now we know and we can use our bestjudgment to figure out how to tell the
staff or maybe all the staff need to know,
but it's going to highlight areas inyour business that need improvement,
and then that's what you can focus on.
(12:02):
Cool. Okay. You definitelynotify your staff.
Tell your staff,
start recruiting the people who aregoing to be mystery shoppers. From there,
you explain to them exactly what'sbeing reported on. And again,
it doesn't have to be complicated at all.
It can be as simple as your staff oryour customers are going to check the top
of the fridge to makesure that they've dusted,
(12:23):
that they're going to ratewhat the uniforms looked like,
how clean and organized were thecleaning caddies or the vacuum,
if you brought a vacuum, did they showup on time? It's just little things.
It can be a 10 point checklist.And from there, then the client.
So you're going to setthat up, the report,
and of course I suggest doing it onlineand with some kind of fillable form.
(12:43):
And then they submit it within usually24 hours you want from the end of the
appointment,
you want that report completed and theysubmit it to you. And then you can look
at your reports once a week,once a month as they come in.
And then pretty much once a month you'llwant to hold a staff meeting and you
just tell people how they did basically.
So you'll sort of compile an average ifyou want to have one-on-ones with your
(13:06):
staff and get a little bit more detailedand give them more one-on-one feedback,
you can, but essentially what Ido is just at a staff meeting,
I tell them what their score was and thenthose people get a cash bonus kind of
idea.Yeah. So it's really simple.
And then what it alsodoes is when you have,
let's say a little bit ofslower season or a slower week,
and suddenly you're kind of worried,
(13:27):
how am I going to fill the schedule rightafter Christmas and things like that.
You know what, you can justsend out a whole bunch.
I need 10 mystery shop appointments.
So you might just be breaking evenon it because you're offering it at
50%, but it's going to save you a lotof money in the longterm because again,
you're getting all of thisreporting and it's coming through,
and then you can use it to informeverything you do as a business owner.
(13:49):
And it's really about as simple as that.
So of course there's some more steps inthere, but that's essentially the idea.
Yeah. Okay. So I'm thinkinglike Google survey forms,
maybe Google forms any form as long asit's easy for the client to fill out.
Katie, this conversation is fantastic.I have a lot of questions for you,
but before that,
let's take a pause and talk aboutjobber and why we like it so much.
(14:10):
How does Jobber help you maintain ahigh level of quality in your business?
The most important things for me arethat customer profile, that intake form,
understanding our customers deeplyand ensuring that everything that has
happened through their life cycle withyour business is passed on to the next
person who is still with your business,
(14:30):
but maybe new as thetechnician who works for them.
And it's important that they know. Sofor a customer, they're going to say,
well, I told you about this two yearsago, or This has happened three times.
This is the kind of stuff thatcan be updated right in jobber.
And so any employee who works for you,
any person can go in and checkand see all of those details,
and then they can update things as wellso that everyone always knows everything
(14:53):
that customer wants.
Yeah,
I think one of the most frustratingthings is when clients tell today's guy
something special, and then the nextweek it's a different guy. Exactly.
The jobber in the instructions of thevisit use technical jargon within Jobber.
It's all there. And so youcan update that every time,
and it's the code tothe doors there and all.
That kind stuff. I mean,there's no mistakes.
(15:13):
When everything is accurate and everythingis updated for the customer profile
and everything's secure as well.That's a huge, huge part of it.
So for staff to be able to have that attheir fingertips, it saves you all. It.
Eliminates staff headaches. Absolutely.And they don't want to have,
they don't want chaos.
They don't.
Order.
Absolutely.
You need jobber two for all thereasons we just talked about,
new users can get an exclusivediscount at jobber.com/podcast deal.
(15:38):
Go start today and bringorder to your business.
I'm envisioning from A to ZI think.
Tell me if you think this is a good idea,
having a client call in from the verybeginning and just I want to quote.
That's exactly right.
Okay. So it can be for just thequality of the work. It could be.
Or.
It could be the entire customer.
(15:58):
Experience. Yeah. Experience.Exactly. Yeah. So it can be,
and I definitely suggest that becauseyou've got the person there and the
reports don't take anincredible amount of time.
So if you're doing a cleaning thatshould be $250 and they're getting $125
off, you definitely should begetting a little bit from them.
So definitely you cangive them, like I said,
(16:19):
specific things to look at on yourwebsite. Was it easy to find the price?
Was it easy to get a quote?
You can have them test links when youclicked on Contact us was our social
media test.
Each of our social media links make surethat everything's going to the right
place. You can have them look atyour Instagram. There's tons, I mean,
it's just limitless, but youcan ask them for feedback on.
(16:42):
How often should this be done.
I found the most effectivestrategy is to have staff receive
a mystery shop at least once everypay period, so about every two weeks.
Oh, wow. That's a lot. Itseems like a lot. Okay.
But once you have the program setup, it's pretty much automated,
so it's really, really simple. Youcan send out that email and say, Hey,
(17:04):
I need three of these done.
Or you can even just contact aregular customer and say, Hey,
I'm going to give you a hundred dollarsoff your regular biweekly cleaning next
week. Would you mind filling out thisreport for me? It'll take 10, 20 minutes.
Yeah, no problem. They love it.
And then they get a discount and that'sit. And then you can book them in.
You can even have that specifictype of service labeled as a mystery
(17:28):
shop or something, so you geta different email automation.
So that email just comes to them,it's got a link to the report,
they fill it out, it's submitted. Youget the email that it's there, it,
and it just works really, reallyeasily. And once it's set up,
you don't really have to do much with it.
Yeah. I'm curious,
do you have this option on your intakeform if people want to opt into it?
I haven't done that.That's a really good idea.
(17:51):
And you definitely coulddo that. In my experience,
I have found that current customers,
like customers who sign upjust to be regular customers.
Have.
Almost never opted to be mystery shoppers.
So even if I reach out to a thousandcurrent customers and say, Hey,
does anybody want this?Very, very few have ever.
So it really is an incentivefor people who have not bought.
(18:12):
Yeah, it's really a brandnew stream of clients.
It's a whole other list. Yeah.It's really quite exciting to.
See. Now, on the form, I'm envisioningtwo different elements per question,
if you will. One is like a slidingscale, one to five. So you have a.
Numeric.
Grade.
So.
You can average that number wise. Butthen a box that says, tell me more.
(18:34):
Why did you say four out offive? Any other elements.
You can ask them to take pictures ifthere's anything that they are finding.
Yeah, the toilet doesn't look that great.
So they could staff a photoeasy enough to do nowadays.
They could upload some photos at theend. You can easily have attachments.
They can upload in any form, they canemail you. I mean, it's very, very simple.
(18:56):
It can be, again, as slick as youwant or as manual as you want,
depending on the size of your business.
But I would just definitely recommendgetting started because then you can scale
it as you grow and you tweakit more. Tweak. Exactly. Yeah.
Do you share the form withyour staff? Absolutely.
They see exactly what's onthere. Absolutely. Okay.
I thought you said that earlier.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Soif you've got, you're.
(19:17):
Giving them the answers to the test.
Exactly. Again, this isn't about,you don't want them to score bad.
So if you're telling them, okay,
they're going to be checking the undersideof the toilet, the top of the fridge.
I'm just thinking of certain things thatare always missed in a house that come
back time and time again.
So it's like if they know that that'sspecifically what's being checked or
(19:37):
the kitchen floor, suddenlythey know like, okay,
there's only 10 things Ihave to do extremely well,
and then that's really important, right?
Priority. So we have a quality controlchecklist at the end of each visit,
my gutter company does.
And so there's like 18 differentpoints on there or less,
and they have to check thoseoff every visit, every job.
And so I imagine that thoseshould be pretty darn similar.
(19:58):
The form that the customer fillsout should reflect what's on there.
It absolutely.
Because that's congruent. You don'twant to have those two different.
Things. You'd cross reference that.Yeah, for sure. With cleaning,
it's maybe a little bit different becausethere's so much going on in a house.
And what happens a lot with staff iswith cleaners is that they'll check off
things that maybe don't even exist.Like, oh, yes, we cleaned the microwave,
(20:20):
but there is no microwave,right? This is actually, I.
Always wonder, yeah, whatshould you do in that situation?
Tell them not to check itoff or do you not? Or do you.
Yeah, no,
they definitely should not be checkingit off if they haven't cleaned it. Right.
But what happens is people startgetting complacent. Of course.
That's exactly it. Especially the longeryou've been cleaning for that person.
(20:42):
And of course, what all customerswill tell you is that, oh,
the cleaning was amazing thefirst time, the second time,
the third time suddenly, why does thequality start to go downhill? And that is,
I mean, that's just human nature.There's complacency. It's like, oh,
we've been doing this client for years.
They don't care if weleave a checklist or not.
They don't even know.
It's okay, I'm having an off day.They love us. It's fine. But again,
(21:03):
that's not fair to anyone.
What it also does in terms of complacencyis not only do staff start to get a
little bit complacent,
but also so do the clients. Sowhat you'll find as well is.
Your standards go down.
And what happens is, oh, the firsttime we come to clean for you, oh,
we're cleaning up. We don'twant to look messy and stuff.
(21:24):
And then as soon as you start gettingmore familiar and more relaxed and stuff,
well, maybe you leave dishes in the sinkand suddenly the client's not really
preparing for the cleaning aswell as they used to either.
So things start to godownhill from all angles.
And just to touch on that as well iswhat happens when the clients actually
start going through reports,or you can share, of course,
(21:46):
I recommend that you do shareyour mystery shopper report,
not the filled out report,
but what people are reporting onwith your regular clients too.
You can always say, do you know anyonewho'd be interested in doing this?
They get a discount on their cleaning.
And so oftentimes you'll maybe have afriend or a family member referred by a
real client who's paying full price.
And what this does isit educates the clients,
(22:08):
like we've talked aboutwith photos and all that,
is really teaching the clients, wow,I didn't know that they did that.
I didn't know they did that.
So it's teaching them how detailedyour cleaners or your staff
actually are, and it really educates them,
and they start appreciating andunderstanding and respecting what you do.
This is so great. I love this.
I have so many thoughts andso many questions that I can't answer 'em all right
(22:30):
now, but the title that I introedwith Katie was, it costs $0.
It makes you a lot of money so far, ifI'm in the minds of the listener. Well,
it sounds like it costs a lot of money.It sounds like. Where's the money?
So let's talk about that.
It does cost a little bit in bonusesif you do incentivize a little bit.
But the long-term, whereare you seeing a big ROI.
(22:51):
Really what you're doing? I mean,
for the most part in home service industryis what we end up doing is hiring a
field manager. We need a quality controlperson. We need somebody out there.
Again, in the beginning, thismight not seem very expensive,
but now you've got somebody onsalary, 50, 60,000 a year, let's say,
and their sole purpose is to drive aroundand check a handful of appointments
(23:13):
every day.
Well, that sounds so badin this context. Yeah.
That's sort of what I'm saying. Atthe peak of my residential cleaning,
we were doing about 75 to 80 appointmentsa week. I can't check that one.
Field manager can't checkthat. No one can check that.
So imagine the cost that, again, youdon't have to check every appointment,
(23:34):
of course, but things start, if stafffeel like nobody's ever checking on them,
nobody. And it's not fair to themeither. If it's just like, oh,
we asked for a review. Oh, great. Butlike, oh yeah, the house was clean. Yeah,
four stars, five stars. Thisisn't specific. And I find, again,
having analyzed and learning how to trainpeople for 15 years and working with
(23:55):
people all over the worldon how to train their staff,
the actual scorecard andrubric has to be so simple,
pass or fail, like you said, one star,five stars. And it has to be really,
really easy for people to understandbecause otherwise we get into emotional
feedback and people arguingand stuff, and it simply has.
To be personality conflicts.
Exactly. So there's so much.And then staff feel like, oh,
(24:17):
that customer is just beingdifficult, or This is a really,
really black and white, very scientificway of gathering data. And yes, I mean,
yes, there might be costsassociated with giving a discount,
but you would probably not have thatcustomer if you didn't Do the discount.
So that's sort of what I'm gettingat is that there's no, again,
as a business owner,
we don't have money to hirea secret shopping company and
(24:41):
do metrics and focus groupsand all of this stuff.
So why not just find your own customerswith a few social media posts?
Doesn't cost any money.
Ask your current customers to recommendyour program to people who are looking.
It's very similar to a hair salon whensomebody comes on as a junior stylist and
they need to be trained orwhatever, and they get a discount.
So there's no upfront cost withinstituting this. And again,
(25:03):
it doesn't have to be a hundreddollars bonuses. I mean,
this is just what worked forme. But again, we were 10,
12 employees at that pointwhen I brought this program in.
So you might not have that budgetto play with, but that's okay.
Maybe you just do some giftcards or it can be anything.
You can be creative pizzaparties, whatever it is.
It doesn't have to cost a lot, but again,
it doesn't really costyou anything upfront,
so there's no hard dollars put into it.
(25:25):
Yeah, I'm going to saythe quiet part out loud.
I think a lot of people are thinking this,
maybe I actually think we have somesort of ethical obligation to do this.
What do we do? We've all done this,
whether we do it now or we've donein the past. We hired the guy,
gave him a tool and just told him togo and just hope that no one complains.
And here we are saying that we'reprofessionals and we do a great job.
We're number one in ourarea, all these things,
(25:47):
and we're not really doing anythingto ensure that we keep that
promise. And just waiting andhoping that no one complains isn't
really good enough, especiallywhen you're comparing,
because I think the bar can be sohigh, and I am going step on toes.
I'm stepping on my toes. I don't do thisright now, but I wish we did. We do.
(26:08):
We don't. But quality matters.And it's not okay to be like,
well, no one complained this year,
but they can't see the inside ofthe toilet and see the plumbing.
They don't know. They'rejust taking a word for it.
And so I think we have an ethicalobligation to really make sure that our
quality is good enough.
And I mean, that's our duediligence as business owners.
We need to be asking the hardquestions and we need to be getting
(26:32):
feedback, and we needto give our employees,
again, the black and white answersand it's very objective and
we're giving them the opportunity toshine. And the other thing is simply that,
again, they need feedbackand they want feedback.
And we don't have big HR departments. Wedon't have, again, we don't have this.
(26:54):
So we're smaller businesses and weneed every tool we can and we need
as much help as we can.
So if we can systemize how to givereal feedback directly from our
customers to our staff, that'sdoing them just a great service,
that's giving them the opportunity torise to the occasion and that's what they
want.
As a final thought,
I'm curious what you think aboutthis and then we'll wrap up.
(27:17):
One thing I told my staff a couple weeksago is clients have one standard and
then we have a whole higherstandard. Generally speaking,
a client will look at whateverwe did. Oh, the lawn looks great,
but the owner's like that doesn't lookgreat. Look at all the little mis,
and the client doesn't see the way wedo it. So I think there seems like,
and you tell me if you agree with it,
that there is still a placefor the operations manager go by and take a look at
(27:38):
things through his perspective.
Absolutely. It.
Kind depends on what business you're in,
because a client can make surethere's no dust on the fridge.
There might be other businesses thatcan't rely on the client as much because
there's more know-how potentially.But anyway, I just thought about it.
And that's very true. But again,
then you can take more of a step backmaybe from how the business is operating
in terms of, like Isaid, how's the website,
(27:59):
how's the social media when they callthe business? Because a lot of times as
well as business owners we'rethe last to know about things.
I feel like that's happened to me a fewtimes where you didn't realize this.
And customers, as much as peoplesometimes like to say, oh,
people just like to complain andstuff, I've never found that.
I found that peopledon't want to complain.
They don't want somebody'sjob in jeopardy.
(28:21):
So sometimes we are the last to know.So if you can make a really, again,
just a formal way of doing it,
it takes out any of that awkwardnessand everybody wins in the end.
Katie, this was fantastic. I reallyappreciate all that you said.
I'm going to try to wrap it up inthree steps here. Number one is do it.
Just do it now. Get started. I'm temptedto wait until everything's perfect.
(28:43):
It's not going to be start today andit's going to change your business.
Number two is give the answersto test your technicians before.
Don't make this asecret. Make it a secret,
but not with your in staff and let themknow it's going to happen that way.
Their performance will go up automaticallyand you don't want to be suspicious
of being kind of shifty.
And number three is the checklistthat you have on the job site should
(29:07):
match the form the clientis going to fill out.
Because those two things should prettymuch be the same how you're grading your
technicians, and so it should be the same.
Katie, this is great. Thanks forbeing here. Thank you so much.
How do people find out more about you?
You can go to glisten academy.com.
So listen with the G got lots of actualresources on this program as well for
(29:27):
free if you want to go and learn howto implement this in your business.
Great. Well,
I really appreciate just on the topic ofhow you've implemented quality control
in your business. Your clients are betterfor it, your team is better for it.
So great job. Appreciate that.Thank and thank you for listening.
I hope you heard something that willmake your business more profitable and
efficient and better. I'myour host, Adam Sylvester.
(29:49):
You can find me@adamsylvester.com.
Your clients and your team deserveyour very best, so go give it to 'em.
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