I like to eat out. I tend to have a favorite place, sort of like the TV show Cheers, where everyone knows your name. After all, to me a restaurant is about more than food. The experience, which the food is just a part of, is what you are paying for.
So it was a treat to see an article by Frank Bruni in The New York Times about this topic (I am using his title for the title of this blog!) Bruni enjoys the food at a variety of favorite places while also enjoying the positive predictability of the service, of the experience. Over-the-top service is not what he is extolling. Rather, it is a consistently good and personal experience.
In 2007, we had to find and hire a remodeling contractor to work on our home-to-be 350 miles away from where we were currently living. Doing so took a lot of effort, and making the decision about who to work with entailed a fair amount of risk. What if we made the wrong decision? What could we do?
Suffice it to say, we did make the right decision. And as long as our contractor is in business and he delivers the same level of consistently good service, we will work with him forever.
How do you create that loyalty with your remodeling clients? If you don’t know, one way to find out would be to ask the very best clients you have what is it about the experiences they have had with your company that makes it so they keep on calling you when they need help with their homes.
The fact that Bruni returns to his favorite restaurants has a lot to do with the restaurants being successful. Repeat business is what your company needs. Get more of it by making sure your clients are content with what you do for them, during the job and—more importantly for remodeling contractors—after the job is done. —Paul Winans, a veteran remodeler, is a facilitator for Remodelers Advantage and a consultant to remodeling business owners.
