Do More Than Your Customer Expects

by Ken Matesz

“Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”    Damon Richards

There is nothing better than a happy client.

Happy clients are the hallmark of good business.  A happy client will come back to you when he needs more of your expertise.  A happy client will refer others to you; he brings you more business.  He always speaks well of you and your products. A happy client thinks he got a bargain on his deal with you.  A happy client pays you promptly.

When you are building anything for others, you want happy clients.  

One of the simplest ways to have a happy client is to do more than what you said you would do in your contract with him or her.

Think Small

This does not mean you have to build two things when you only promised one.  In fact, sometimes the extra effort can be something quite small – and can be especially “valuable” to your client if you know something about him or her.

For example, when I work in an existing home retrofitting a masonry stove into the home, I try to carefully close off the work area from the rest of the house.  I put up curtain walls or drop cloths taped to the ceiling and floor to do what I can to keep dust and dirt from migrating into the rest of the house.

On one project in particular, the female client would occasionally come into the work area to talk with me and watch the progress.  One time (and only one time) she made a comment about the thick layer of dust on the woodwork in the room where I was working.  That one comment told me how important it was to her to have this room cleaned up.

So, at the end of the job, after I had removed all the curtain walls and drop cloths and done a basic sweeping and vacuuming, I decided to do a little extra – a little more than I usually do.  I got a clean bucket of water and a clean sponge.  Then I went around the entire room and hand washed every stick of woodwork – including the complex bunch of trim around the multiple-pane picture window.  I did not do what you would call a thorough deep cleaning.  But i made sure every piece of woodwork had been wiped down at least once.  I removed the thickest layers of dirt. This probably took me no more than a half hour.

Weeks later, as we discussed the operation of the masonry heater, she told me what a job it had been to clean up the room to her satisfaction – and she commented about how grateful she was that I had taken off the major portion of that dirt with my brief cleaning.

She will never forget that.  She will never forget that the filthy mason who tracked loads of dirt and mud into her home did a small gesture to make her cleaning easier.  And all it took me was an extra half-hour.

Give a gift?

It is my suggestion that you do not give gifts unrelated to the project as your “something more.”  That will not be remembered nearly as much as something you actually do that is obviously beyond what you had agreed to or that they thought they were getting.  If you do want to do a gift, make it pertain to the project.  For example, I might arrange to have a cord of wood delivered and stacked – or do it myself (which is even better).  A customer will remember most seeing you do something great that he never expected you to do.  If you built someone a new walk-in closet, fill a closet rod with new hangers.  If you built them a piece of furniture, supply them with furniture polish.

Again, in my standard contract, I make it clear that my clean-up consists in leaving the room in “broom clean” condition.  The customer knows this does not mean I will wash down the woodwork.  It means I do a simple sweeping and leave lots of dirt behind.   More cleaning is an extra I can throw into almost any project.

Pay Attention!

Also take note of what the customer says about the masonry heater.  If he ever mentions anything that even remotely sounds like a complaint, consider replacing whatever it is that he mentioned (a strange-looking stone?  A brick with a small chip off an edge? A piece that just looks “out of place” because of its color, shape, or maybe some small “defect”?)  Sometimes a customer won’t come right out and say he doesn’t like something, but the comment can be a big hint.  It’s your job to make sure he has no complaint.

Here is an example of a mistake I made in that regard.  On one project, we had carried into the house some scaffolding sections we thought we would need.  We leaned them against painted walls.  We never did use them.  When we packed them back on the trailer, the customer noticed that the scaffold left behind some dirt on the wall.  I said, “Would you like us to wash the wall?”  He said, “No, that’s okay.”  And we packed up and left the completed job.

A few weeks later when he called me with questions, he complained what a headache it had been for him to clean  that wall.  He admonished me for ever having leaned my scaffolding against his painted wall.  The problem wasn’t that I had leaned the scaffold there; the problem was that I did not clean up the dirt I had left, even after he had mentioned it.

It would have been so very easy for us to take fifteen minutes to clean his wall.  It would have been far better for him to remember that I took that time instead of him remembering that I did do anything to correct the situation when he first mentioned it.

Don’t make my mistake!  Fifteen minutes of effort on your part can mean a lifetime of recommendations from your customer.

Take the time to do a little extra.

It’s good business.

Ken