YOUR CUSTOMER BILL OF RIGHTS!

WHAT WILL YOU NEVER ALWAYS DO?

As the title suggests, every organization should have a customer service bill of rights as part of the foundational operating principle and guidelines that you run your business on. I already know what many of you are thinking, especially from the appraisers listening to this show. Many are thinking, ‘first of all Blaine, I don’t deal with customers, I deal with Clients, and I only deal with the named client in my report. And to be honest, I don’t really even like them! There ain’t know way I’m gonna give them any rights other than the right to send me work and the right to pay me!” This, my friends, is one of the huge problems in the appraisal industry and one of the reasons some appraisers are in the predicament they’re in. A predicament where they don’t get to name their own fees, they have to take whatever is sent to them in blind rotation, they don’t know who they’re dealing with, and they have all of their eggs in one big basket. This is just bad business folks! What we talk about on this show is digging your well before you’re thirsty and a big part of digging your well is self examination and learning to recognize your own weaknesses so that you can begin shoring them up. If you don’t begin within and start to make changes regarding how you see things, everything else will just be a tactic or a hack and wont have near the positive effect on your business that it could have. Part of beginning within is recognizing that you don’t have to follow the crowd, you don’t have to let somebody else dictate how you communicate, you don’t have to define your business by somebody else’s silly rules, and you don’t have to limit yourself simply because that’s what everybody else is doing. That’s one of the big problems in almost every industry! Everyone is following everybody else. Its only when a business does something different than everybody else that people take notice and start spreading the good news about that business.

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Take the fast food Chick-Fil-A, for example. As of this episode in March of 2020, Chick-Fil-A has the highest profitability per restaurant out of all the fast food restaurants in the QSR rankings. QSR stands for quick service restaurants and it tracks a bunch of different metrics in the fast food industry. Of course, as you can imagine, McDonalds typically ranks number one each year with the highest overall sales, with Subway a close second, although Subway has more stores than McDonalds. Subway has about 43,000 locations and McDonalds has around 37,000 locations. Here’s the most interesting stat, as far as I’m concerned. Although McDonalds and Subway have massive annual sales because of how many locations they have, each individual McDonalds restaurant averages around $2.5 million in revenue, while the average Subway franchise realizes around half a million in revenue. The average Chick-Fil-A store, however, averages around $4.8 million in annual revenue and they have less than 2500 stores worldwide. Why is their revenue so much higher than the average McDonalds or Subway? Well, first easy answer, their food is better. While I don’t agree with the chick-fil-a evangelists who swear that it’s the best fast food ever, I have had it and will say its decent. However, what I will swear by is that they have the absolute best customer service in the fast food world, bar none! If you’ve ever eaten at one of these little oasis of great service, you’ll notice that most of their frontline staff are young kids, just like McDonalds and Burger King, but they are the friendliest and most well spoken young people a business could find. They never use the words ‘no problem’ when told Thank You for fulfilling a normal request, they always say, “its my pleasure”, or “absolutely”, or “of course”. They have staff walking around offering to refill your soda for you, solve your issues if you have them, and simply the nicest people around. How do they do this? Simple. They hire those who have a high service aptitude and they have a customer bill of rights. They show all of their employees a training video of the day in the life of a sample of their customers and the struggles they go through throughout the day and week. They learn to empathize with the human aspects of their customers and how lunch or dinner may be the best part of their day. They learn that people don’t come in to be hassled and told ‘no’, they come in to be treated well, get what they believe is decent food, and have a great experience. If you aren’t wired that way, you simply don’t work there. Is there any correlation between a fast food restaurant that has the best customer service in the whole industry and one that also has the highest per store revenue? Well, correlation does not always equal causation, but my guess in this case is that it’s a huge factor!

So what is a customer or client service bill of rights? Its simply a statement or a document within your business that outlines all of the guiding principles and actions that your organization takes on a daily basis to make every interaction with another human being the most pleasant and uplifting it can possibly be. You see, most organizations have company handbooks and rule books that outline what cant be done, what company policy dictates, and what the penalties are for breaking rules. Most businesses have signs and rules for customers that are based on what less than 2% of people would ever think of doing in or to a business. No shirt, no shoes, no entry. You must wash your hands or else!  No Dogs Allowed! No Smoking! And while the ideas and commands behind them may be necessary, it’s the mindset  and words behind them that could be rethought. Instead of telling people ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’, how about a sign that simply says, ‘we love taking care of our customers wearing their shirt and shoes!’ Instead of ‘no smoking’, how about a sign that simply says, ‘enjoy our smoke free air’. Instead of telling me my sweet pooch can’t come in your store, how about a little hitching post, a bowl of water, and a sign that says something like, ‘thank you so much for leaving Fido outside, come in and grab a treat for your furry friend!’ Friends, businesses make this mistake every single day by focusing on what you can’t do for somebody and what you aren’t willing to do for somebody else. The appraisal business specifically is well known for being one of the least communicative, least friendly, and least pleasant to deal with should somebody have some questions. Why? Well, primarily because nobody in the appraisal industry is hiring and training for service aptitude. Whats worse is that most trainees are behind taught early on who, what, and why they cant, and don’t have to speak to anybody. Most appraisers hate the very people that pay their mortgage for them and they don’t see anything wrong with that attitude. Then they wonder why there are groups and people that blackball them from their deals, want them out of the transaction, and would love to see a computer handle the whole valuation process. Do you think there is any correlation in that causation? You’d better believe there is my friends! Businesses that bend over backwards to treat everybody in a transaction with dignity, respect, and create an over the top experience don’t get drummed out of an industry. Those that don’t are mere commodities and are subject to the harsh rules of the market which is heavily based on Darwin’s theories of evolution and adaptability. He never said the strongest survive. What he hypothesized is that the most flexible and adaptable species survive and pass on their traits and genes. Those that could not, would not. It’s the same in business folks! The most flexible and adaptable to market trends and demands will adapt and become what the market demands.

When it comes to markets, businesses, and customer and client service in the 21st century, the most flexible and adaptable are the ones who recognize the massive power that customers and clients have thanks to social media and the power of the review. Before social media and the internet, if you treated somebody poorly, and by the way appraisers, treating somebody well does not mean you appraise their home or their deal the way they want or need it, it means treating them with respect and educating them on the process. It means allowing them to maintain some of their dignity while pleasantly educating them through the process. But if you treated somebody poorly back in the day, they simply expressed their dismay to a few friends and colleagues and went about their day. They would do the same if they had a great experience. Now, if somebody is treated poorly, they not only tell 5-10 friends and family members, they go on Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, and your website and they tell the world what kind of experience they had. Right or wrong, they will tell the world what their experience was and how they were treated. I read comments every week in appraiser forums about how somebody got a bad review from an unhappy agent, lender, or homeowner and how the appraiser didn’t use the comp down the street, or how they appraised it lower than it was appraised last year, or any one of a dozen common complaints that sometimes uneducated people say when they don’t understand the process. When I see appraisers bitching and complaining to their fellow appraisers about how stupid these people are I think to myself, ‘is it really the homeowner, agent, or lender that’s stupid? Or is it the one bitching to people who will just side with their complaint and have no ability to change the situation for them?’ It is a clear indication that the appraiser likely has no idea how to have a conversation with this individual and clear up any misconceptions about the process. Its well known that appraisers, accountants, engineers, and a handful or other industries tend to attract those that don’t have the best communication skills and bedside manner, but that’s not a justification, its only an explanation about what you may need to start working on and what skills you need to develop to excel in the 21st century.

So, developing a customer bill of rights is fairly straight forward and simple and I recommend everybody listening develop one for their business, regardless of the size of your business.  While its very important to have one the larger you grow as an organization to ensure that all of your people are on the same page and have a killer service aptitude, its just as important for the one man or woman business to have something like this, not just as guiding principles, but as a very clear set of instructions on what you’ll never do to a customer or clients and what you’ll always do instead. All you need as a business are maybe 5-7 of these never always rules to make a very clear roadmap for excellent customer service. Lets stop here for just a minute and take your temperature. If you’re hearing the words customer and client service and you’re rolling your eyes because, as you say, ‘you’ve been in this business for 30 years and have never had to say thank you or please to any of my clients!’ I get it. That has been the way of things for as long as the appraisal profession has been around. Appraisers and appraisals are a necessary evil in the eyes of many and, therefore, the people on the receiving end of our services have simply tolerated whatever they’ve gotten. Its not unlike the city assessor or the tax man. They don’t have to have personalities or say please and thank you because they have the control and the power of the government behind them. But when you’re talking about business in the 21st century, it just ain’t so anymore. Appraisers are not government workers, although many act like they are. Appraisers are independent business people and many like to think of themselves as entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs look for leverage in the markets they serve and one of the least costly, and most profitable forms of competitive advantage in any business is high level customer and client service. Just think of the hotels that have the highest room rates. Do people pay the rates those hotels charge because they have the nicest rooms? No, those hotels have the nicest rooms because the customers pay their rates. Why do they pay those rooms rates? Because of how they’re treated when they stay there. Hotels with the highest rooms rates typically also have the highest levels of customer service and give the individual paying those rates the absolute best experience possible so that the person wants to come back, and also tell 10 friends about the experience. People pay considerably higher ticket fares to be in first class, of course because of the accommodations up there, but also because of the experience. So just understand that you may have been doing this for 30 years and have never had to provide any real level of service above providing your appraisal service, but times are changing and if you want to have a competitive advantage in the market today, follow these rules. And, by the way, if you think you’re exempt because you do primarily commercial work, you’re not.

Let’s develop your never always list! As I mentioned, your never always list is simply a list of things that you vow never to do and, instead, will always do something better. So the first one that I’ll recommend every single one of you have at the top of your list is this: never tell the customer or client what you can’t/won’t do, always tell them what you can/will do. This is sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? Never tell them what you can’t do, just tell them what you can do. However, as simple as it sounds, this one is very difficult for those who are not wired this way and haven’t practiced this one. I’ll give you an example from a fairly common complaint I see in some of the appraiser specific forums. From time to time, ass appraisers having to schedule time slots with busy people, we’ll get folks who will ask us if we can send them a text reminder on the day of their site visit, or maybe a text when we’re on the way. I see appraisers bitching about this one all the time. “No, I will not text you, put it in your f***ing calendar! #adulting!” Well, this is a never always. Never tell somebody what you won’t do, always tell them what you will do. If you don’t want to run a professional operation, so be it. Tell them then what you are willing to do. Maybe you’d be willing to send out an immediate calendar invite as soon as you hang up so that it goes into their calendar. Maybe you’d be willing to make a couple phone calls first thing on the morning of the inspection as a simple reminder that they have an appointment. Heck, you can set pre-timed texts and templated emails to be sent out whenever you’d like them to be so this could solve that problem for you. If you’re simply not willing to do anything because you’re just too busy, ok, you’d better not also be the one in the forum bitching about fees and disloyal clients. You’d better not be the one in those same forums bitching about upset homeowners and agents. If you cant see the connection between how you run your business, how you express your attitude, and how it plays out in your business, you’re simply destined for the dust bin of history or a heart attack from all the stress you create for yourself. I’ll share what we do in my organization to help in this regard, we simply offer it on every scheduling call. We just say, “we schedule in one hour blocks but if it would be more convenient for you to have us text you when we’re leaving our last appointment, that should give you 20-25 minutes to make it to the house. If the appraiser arrives before you, don’t worry, they have some outside work to do while you’re in route.” That’s called great customer service folks. Learn to identify it when you experience it in your daily walks through life and then implement the things you observe into your business.

An important concept to understand is that you’re not competing against the next closest appraiser in your little village. You’re competing against all of the other customer service experiences that human beings have throughout their days. When the homeowner hangs up with you after a scheduling call, they’re going to call a pizza place for dinner, they’re going to go to their yoga class. They’re going to have 26 other interactions with other businesses and human beings. Some who do it well, some who don’t. You get to decide where you land on that service and experience continuum in their day. So never tell somebody what you won’t or can’t do, always tell them what you can and will do. This one applies when somebody calls to discuss the appraisal with you. What do most appraisers do? They act like assholes, plain and simple. Every if you’re nice about it, it’s an asshole move to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you about the appraisal because you’re not my client, you’ll have to talk to your lender.” It might be true, to some degree, but it’s a jerk move folks. Just because every appraiser does it doesn’t make it the right thing to be doing. Follow the never always rule and figure out what you CAN do for them. You could say, “I’m so sorry, I know this will probably sound confusing since your name and address are on the appraisal, but we have some really strict rules we have to follow regarding who we can speak to about much of the appraisal results and who we can’t, at least not without the bank (or client’s) permission.” Then you follow up with the always part which says to always tell them what you can or will do. If you just want to leave it there because you don’t want to talk with them, fine, dust bin for you. If you would be willing to discuss the appraisal with them as long as you’ve been give explicit permission to do so, then tell them what you’d be happy to do. “Mr. Homeowner, here’s what I can do for you, I’d be happy to reach out to your lender to see if it would be ok for me to discuss things with you, does that sound fair?” See how easy that is? And listen to what that sounds like in your ears when you hear it. That’s customer and client service at almost its best. I say almost because I’ll tell you what ‘best’ sound like. It’s the script all of us and our staff use when this question comes up. Here it is if you want to write it down: “I’m so sorry, I know this will probably sound confusing since your name and address are on the appraisal, but we have some really strict rules we have to follow regarding who we can speak to about much of the appraisal results and who we can’t, at least not without the bank (or client’s) permission. But here’s what I’d be more than happy to do for you, while I have you on the phone, I’d be happy to send an email to our client and ask them if it would be ok if you and I have a discussion about the appraisal. I’ll cc you on the email if you’d like, that way you are kept in the loop on all of this. Would that be fair?” Then we proceed to open up a templated email stating that we’re on the phone with -insert name- regarding the appraisal we just completed and they have some questions. We’re writing today to ask for your explicit permission to discuss any and all assignment results with Mr. Smith. If there is some part of the report you’d like to remain confidential, please let us know so we can remain compliant with your request.”

Then we wait. If we hear back from the client and they say its ok to talk, we talk. We love talking with people and explaining the process to them. We love educating the public about what we do and how we do it. And we love the responses we get from those people when we take the time to explain everything in the report to them and why certain things had to be the way they are. You know who else loves it? Our clients! My friends, if you are confused at all about who would be best to explain the appraisal and the appraisal process to the world, let me un-confuse you! Pointing people to their lender to explain the appraisal you completed is the dumbest thing you could possibly ever do when it comes to being a professional. Would an architect tell somebody to call their realtor to explain the blueprints they just drew up? Would an accountant tell you to call your attorney to explain the financial documents they just prepared for you? Would the attorney tell you to call your accountant to explain the court motion they just prepared for your divorce case? Hell no they wouldn’t! And you shouldn’t either! The best person to explain the appraisal process is the appraiser. In fact, 99.9865% of appraisers get all bent out of shape when they hear a lender or a Realtor explaining the appraisal process in a YouTube video so why would you ever leave it up to them to explain what you did on that appraisal? Stop it! Take control of your business folks! Its your work! Its your service! It’s your company name on that document! Its your company logo on your shirt! Stand up for yourself and have some self respect. Stop telling well meaning people who simply want an explanation about something that they cant get an explanation from you and that they’ll have to get it second or third hand from somebody who’s probably doesn’t fully understand the process to begin with. By the way, the  script I gave you for that phone call follows another one of our never always rules and that’s never point, always show.

The Never point, always show rule comes from brick and mortar stores like Home Depot, Barnes and Noble, and Best Buy where when somebody asks for something, the employee is not supposed to point to aisle 16 as an answer to your question, they’re supposed to say, “absolutely, happy to walk you over there.” of course, we know they don’t always get it right, but the best businesses do. In an information business like an appraisal business, never point, always show simply means to never tell somebody they have to look elsewhere for an answer to their questions. If you don’t know the answer, it’s ok to say so. Just follow it up with the statement, “I’d be more than happy to do some research for you and get back with you, would that be fair?” Don’t tell somebody calling your business that you can’t or won’t speak with them, ever! Even if its somebody who has no connection to an appraisal they’re asking about, you can still say, “I’m so sorry Mr. Smith, but I’m sure you’re aware that we have client confidentiality rules that we’re strictly bound by so I can’t discuss anything regarding that address with you, but I’d be more than happy to talk about the appraisal process, what we do and how we do it, and anything else that doesn’t violate those confidentiality rules. Does that sound fair?” You see, people and businesses make rules and policies for things that happen typically less than 2% of the time by less than 2% of the population. How many times do you think you’ll have somebody completely unconnected with the appraisal calling for information about it? Does it happen? Sure. Does it happen all the time? Very unlikely. So why not have a process for dealing with all of the scenarios but in a way that rewards you and your business and treats everybody with dignity and respect. People from all over our city send us business and business inquiries, not just because we’re good, but because they know when they send somebody to us that we will take the time to talk with them, explain things to them, make them feel at peace with the process, save them money if they don’t need our services, and treat them with dignity and respect. How do we do it? With a pretty thorough Never always list.

By the way, you can develop never always lists for almost every aspect of your life and business. The never always process is great for your appraisal process, your relationships, your investments, and anything else where a set of curbs or walls guiding you in the right direction may help make better decisions. For example, I set a relationship rule for myself that I learned from my good friend Alex: never allow yourself to be in a situation with another woman that would make your current relationship question anything. Always think of her first and put yourself in her shoes when in the presence of another woman. What this means is that I will never put myself in a room alone with a woman that isnt my girlfriend. I’ll never be out at a bar or restaurant with another woman alone with somebody that isnt my girlfriend. I’ll never put myself in a situation where my partner would have questions about what I was doing or saying with another female and I’ll always put myself in her shoes first when a situation arises where this may be an issue. Is it ever an issue? Cant thinks of a time when it was but that’s probably because I have a rule for it. Did she come up with the rule? Absolutely not and she probably doesn’t even know it’s a rule I have. It just makes me feel better and make decisions that I can walk away from feeling good about. Where would you use a rule like this? Business meetings, interviews, in the office never having your door closed with a member of the opposite sex in there alone, whatever scenario you can imagine where you would find yourself in close proximity to somebody not your partner, alone, and where there are no other witnesses. I had to have a similar rule for all of my instructors at my martial arts academy. Never be in a room or space within the school alone with a student, especially a child student. Always have another instructor, a parent, or other students in the room with you. If you’ve ever traded stocks, bonds, or financial instruments like currencies, you’ll have never always lists as rules for trading. Never trade on emotion, always follow your trading rule. Never trade on news, always trade on fundamentals. Never trade more than 10% of your capital on one trade, and so on. And you can have never always rules for your appraisal process. Never assume the MLS photos are are accurate, always do more research. Never assume the MLS square footage is accurate, always do more research. Never use MLS photos, always take original comp photos. Whatever your process is, use a never always list to help create guidelines in your business and help with training.

To end this episode, I’ll share with you just a few of our never always rules in my organization. You can obviously choose your own. The first ones we’ve already talked about but they’re important enough to state again: never tell somebody what you cant do, always tell them what you can or will do. Never point, always show. Never speak negatively, always find something positive to say. Never criticize, always help everyone in some way. Never make excuses, always make it right. Never hide mistakes, always assume you’re on camera. Never hide behind policy, always find a solution. Never place blame, always own the problem and find a solution. Never say, “I don’t know”, always say, “let me find out for you”, Never make the client or customer wrong, always find a way to make them right. Never show frustration publicly, always be a duck, and if you have an office and some staff, never cold transfer, always warm transfer phone calls. We have a bunch of other never always rules in our business but hopefully you get the gist. You can come up with any that you think will help you and your people deliver the absolute best customer and client experience possible for your type of business.

Thank you for investing your most valuable currency and resource with me again this week my friends, and that is your time! Use your time wisely to come up your own customer and client bill of rights if you want to have a competitive advantage in your market and deliver the best experience possible in an industry that is, lets be honest, a tad boring and not that sexy. There’s simply nothing sexy or fun about a 25 to 40 page document filled with graphs, charts, thousands of words, and some pictures. But you can make the process fun and, more importantly, the experience amazing for those who are lucky enough to cross paths with you and your business. The times they are a changin’ and if you aren’t delivering great service in this economy, you’d better be the lowest price. At a time when there are serious forces commoditizing your product and service and in the greatest information and data age that has ever existed, there is a heavy push back toward customer and client experiences over just data and policy. People are craving, more than ever, personal relationships and interactions. In a world where social media has made us less social, less creative, more time crunched, over tasked, over stimulated, and further away from other humans than before, standing out in the business world as a leader providing a killer product, which is your service when you’re an appraiser, means having a competitive advantage. The bar is extremely low in the appraisal and real estate business. It doesn’t take much to be really good in this business. It does take some work to be great at the delivery however and those that focus on it will win going forward. Trust me on this one friends!

With that said, our spring coaching groups are forming now so if you’ve been thinking at all about hiring a coach for your life and business, now is the time. The small group coaching begins at the end of March and we still have a few slots left. If you have questions, just reach out and ask. We’ll answer every single question you could ever ask and we may give you a few you hadn’t thought of. Either way, our coaching program is the only one that is absolutely guaranteed for a full 60 days so the risk is 100% on us to help you in your life and business or you pay nothing. In fact, I go as far as to say that if you aren’t realizing a 5X return on your monthly investment after 2 or 3 months then one of us isn’t doing our job. Either way, good coaching doesn’t cost you, it pays you, you just have to be willing to do the work and make the changes I suggest you make. You can find out more info at realvaluegroup.com/coaching and you can call or message me anytime and I’d be happy to set up a free coaching call with you.