by Doug Chasick

Posted June 6, 2003

Customer Service Is In the Eye of the Beholder

Well, it’s true – if Customer Service was listed on the stock exchange, it would have declared bankruptcy years ago! Why is it so hard to find REALLY good Customer Service? The answer is easy – ATTITUDE and TRAINING!

We are one of the only businesses on the planet where the office is closed when our customers are around – nights and weekends. Or, the office is open for a while on the weekends with the “second-string team” – the part-timers. If most of your residents are around on the weekend, why isn’t the first team working – and why isn’t there weekend maintenance service? Why don’t we schedule one maintenance person to work Tuesday through Saturday, so that weekend maintenance calls and appointments are possible – without overtime?

Where is it written we “can’t” make appointments to complete service requests? Who thought up this “take it or leave it” policy: “We don’t make appointments – we’ll get there as soon as we can.” Take a tip from Burger King® and let your resident have it “their way” - if the customer wants to be there when the work is done, or when a “stranger” is in their apartment, what is the problem? (Yep – sorry – the way many of us interact with our residents, we ARE strangers)

And, while we’re in the apartment, let’s do the “extra stuff” – check the sinks and toilets for drips or leaks, replace burned out light bulbs and missing or torn screens, check and lubricate all the locks – and leave a note that tells them we did all that for them, to ensure their comfort. Train your staff to go the extra mile – it will pay huge dividends in creating good will – and good residents.

We all agree that the maintenance staff has the most contact with residents – let’s acknowledge they also get the least amount of Customer Service training and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! There are plenty of resources out there – classroom training, web and computer-based training, self-study courses and HUNDREDS of books about Customer Service – if you aren’t training your front line people on delivering GREAT Customer Service, your customers probably won’t receive GREAT Customer Service – and they need to!

A recent industry survey identified the number one reason that people moved was that they “didn’t feel special” (The number two reason was “poor maintenance” – surprise, surprise!) Yet, time after time I hear the following response to resident requests: “Sorry, can’t do it - if I do this for you, I’ll have to do it for everybody” Well, we certainly don’t want anyone to feel TOO special, do we? While part of our job is to practice fair housing, and to offer equal treatment to everyone, that doesn’t mean that we can’t make EVERYONE feel special in the process. And, so what if you have to do it for everybody, if it makes financial sense and makes everybody feel SPECIAL – why not? Train your maintenance employees how to solve problems on the spot, and give them the authority AND the accountability to do it.

Finally, you CAN judge a book by it’s cover – it’s often said that we have 7 seconds to make a favorable impression; I think we have 7 seconds to make ANY impression. I’m no fashion expert, and if I see someone with a bunch of tattoos, body-piercings, a dirty shirt and shoes caked with mud, I’m not real thrilled about letting them enter my apartment. Train your staff in the fine art of personal curb appeal, because your residents will judge the quality of the work performed AFTER they have judged the employee based on their appearance – I know it’s not fair but that’s the way it works.

Forget the “Golden Rule” – people want to be treated the way THEY want to be treated, not the way YOU want to be treated. So, hire for attitude and train for skills; you will end up with a staff that is pleasant, helpful and committed to taking care of your residents. When is the last time you experienced Customer Service that was SO GREAT that you called or wrote the company responsible and told them how great it was? When was the last time YOUR residents had that same experience? You’d know when it was – because they would have called or written YOU!

Douglas D. Chasick, CPM®, CAPS, CAS, Adv. RAM, CLP, is The Apartment Doctor™, a Multifamily speaker and consultant specializing in restoring rental health to ailing apartment communities and management companies. Doug is also the Multifamily Distance Learning Consultant for CallSource®.