Instant Custom Signs – Drew Brims' Blog

Customer Service is Key

Before I opened Instant Custom Signs, I did a phone survey of all sign companies in the local Yellow Pages.  After all,  there was no Internet in 1992;  no web browsing, no on-line phone directories.  And there was only one phone directory – the Yellow Pages.  I was a little surprised to find that a good third of the businesses listed had no service.  I assumed they had gone out of business since we were in the middle of a recession.  Many of the others were answered by answering machines (again, this was before the advent of phone company voice mail and Bell was the only phone service available) and a scant few were answered by real live people.  It occurred to me that if we were to be successful in this business, we had to distinguish ourselves from the crowd.  Being the new guys in town, we had no portfolio of signs to show people.  What we did have, was a desire to exceed our customers’ expectations at every turn.  One way I thought we could do that was to answer the phone!  It sounds like a simple thing, and it is.  By answering the phone, we made immediate contact with our potential customer and that gave us an opportunity to dazzle them with our brilliance before they might have moved on to the next listing in the phone book.

Have you ever done a phone survey, calling a list of companies to see if they have the product you need?  If you find one that has its phones answered by live people, don’t you feel more confident in their ability to fulfill your expectations?

I’ve said before that I’m old-school.  And old-school is how I will always be.  If I expect customers to do business with our company, the least I can do is treat them with a little respect and answer the phone when it rings.

Voice mail has its place.  When we are closed and no-one is around, calls automatically go to voice-mail.  We don’t want to miss any calls but since we do business with clients across the country, some of them in different time zones, sometimes they need to leave a voice mail message for us.  As much as possible during our regular business hours, we make a point of answering the phones unless all lines are tied up.  The only exception to this is for one hour on Monday morning when we have our regular production meeting.  The entire team gets together and discusses the previous week’s production and all projects that are currently in production. It allows for every team member to understand what is happening in the other areas of the business so that there are no surprises. This is a very important meeting for all team members and the one time we allow calls to go to voice mail.

We’ve built this business on several values that may seem alien today, including  great customer service (answering the phone is a part of that).  We practice this every day and it resonates with our customers.  Our customers know that when they call, the phone will be answered and they can get immediate information, whether it be pricing, updates on a project or just advice on a project they are considering.

Give us a call – we’ll answer the phone!  What a concept!

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Tags: customer service, ICSigns, Instant Custom Signs, relationship