Speaker 1: Welcome to the Master of the NZ podcast, the ultimate
destination for anyone passionate about the electrical trade. Whether you're
a season electrician, an eager apprentice, or just someone who
wants to dive deep into the world of electrical work,
You've come to the right place.
Speaker 2: Join your host, Paul.
Speaker 1: Abernaby, a true authority in the industry with over thirty
eight years of trade experience, as he electrifies your mind
within depth discussions, expertips, and valuable ensights.
Speaker 2: That will keep you ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1: Each episode, Paul will illuminate the complexities of the trade,
decode the National Electrical Code, and share the latest industry trends,
all while empowering you to take your electrical career to
the next level. So gar up, plug in, and get
ready to supercharge your knowledge because with the Master of
the NZ podcast, the power is in your hands. Now
get ready. Here is your host, Paul Abernaby. What up, everybody?
Speaker 3: Welcome to another episode of Master the NEEC podcast, where
I Paul Aberneth. They talk about the National Electric Code,
electrical trade in general, even contracting tips tricks, as well
as how to deal with disgruntle customers and that's the
topic of today's podcast, so one of the podcast requests
that came in through Paul Abernathy dot com. Remember, you
can submit your requests for upcoming shows, whether it's something
on the NEC, whether it's something on business, whether it's
something on hiring and firing.
Speaker 2: All those type of things. I'm an open book.
Speaker 3: If you want to ask me about taxes, how I
do my taxes as a Chapters corporation. Maybe you're a
sole proprietor. I've been there. I've owned electrical contracting businesses
for many years. I'm a licensed master electrician in multiple states,
and I've been there.
Speaker 2: I've had successes, I've had failures.
Speaker 3: I've been podcasting since early two thousands, way before this
thing called podcasts, or way before social media was even
a thing. We were uploading stuff to AOL. So I've
probably been there or done that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: We also have over one thousand episodes of podcasts on
all different type of topics, ranging all the way back
and into the early two thousands.
Speaker 2: They're available.
Speaker 3: You can listen to a lot of our stuff that
is still relevant today by getting our free mobile app.
Speaker 2: It's free, doesn't cost you anything.
Speaker 3: Just go to fasttracksystem dot com or you can go
to any c c chat dot com.
Speaker 2: Did you know that? Did you know that?
Speaker 3: That's a Did you know that you can go to
anyc chat dot com and also download our mobile app
there as well. Yes you can, and that's a free
service from Wis as well. And I talk about that
only because I have done podcasts about grassroots marketing and
I explain how easy it is to get a free
Wix account. Every person, whether you're doing side hustle or
your own the company or whatever, you need to have
at least a one page website, and Wix makes it
so easy. I don't get paid for Wicks, but they
do sponsor and take care of all of the costs
on dealing with our Paul Abernathy dot com, but also
the nec chat as well, which is a way to
get our mobile app simply quickly if you don't want
to go to our website and get it. Okay, enough
of that, so today we're talking about on today's episode
is we're going to talk about dealing with disgruntle customers.
And this is going to be really good for all
of you owners out there that have the people that
work for you.
Speaker 2: The electricians. You should make them listen to this episode.
Speaker 3: Play it at the at lunch, play it at your
morning meeting, because this is going to be important for
them to listen to. Okay, and if that doesn't get it,
think about bringing us out to your job site or
bring us out to your company wherever you are in
the country.
Speaker 2: We're more than happy to come out there.
Speaker 3: It's a nominal fee to get us there, but we
will more than happy to come out there and do
a lesson, do a training, maybe do an hour of
some code for you. But then we can also do
an hour on leadership. And then I can also get
in how to train your employees to deal with customers,
how to take a first impression that may be not
so spellar and fix that while they're still there and
recover that bad experience for the customer. But today we're
gonna talk about what the hell do we do when
we've got to disgruntle unhappy customer.
Speaker 2: Some people are just unhappy.
Speaker 3: Okay, I've got followers over on YouTube and all my
other channels that are just unhappy.
Speaker 2: They live in this world of negativity.
Speaker 3: And so you're gonna get that with a customer from
time to time, and you're gonna go out to do work,
and you got to understand how to overcome it, how
to deal with it, how to process it, and leave
it there, leave it at the job site, leave it
at the service call, don't bring it home with you.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I only set the scene here.
Speaker 3: What we'll we talking about in day's episode, we're gonna
we're gonna understand that, we're gonna acknowledge that no matter
how guild you are, how professional you are, you could
be the most the greatest electrician in the world. Okay,
you could be so good at installing that there is
no troubleshooting tasks that you cannot overcome. You're just God's
gift to the electrical industry. You're still going to have
potential conflicts, disagreements with clients. It's inevitable, whether you're on
a project and you're dealing with the GC, whether you're
dealing with a customer on a service call. Hell, it
might be even dealing with other trades that are on
the job site. And you need to understand how to
overcome all of that. So we're gonna be talking about
that a little bit today. We're going to emphasize the
importance in this episode of handling these situations in a
professional manner to not just protect your reputation, but to
also turn that frown upside down and it may just
grow your business.
Speaker 2: Now, we've all heard the old saying word of mouth.
Speaker 3: Is the best form of advertising because if somebody, if
they like what you do, they tell somebody they like it,
and then they hire you and you they like it
and it breeds right. But I can promise you when
you have somebody that's pissed off, ticked off, unhappy, they
sometimes will go out of their way to spread it
to other people, and that can be a cancer upon
your business, especially if you're trying to target a local market,
because people tend to listen to social media is for example,
and all this type of things. Nobody does the background
checks anymore. Nobody looks to see history on somebody.
Speaker 2: This.
Speaker 3: They just believe what somebody tells them. Oh, I did
not like Jay's Electrical. Really would you.
Speaker 2: Like about them? I just didn't like it. It was arrogant,
whatever didn't the price was overpriced. I just didn't like them.
Speaker 3: Well, Jay's Electrical may have done a great job, but
sometimes you have these people and there's something that they
did during that.
Speaker 2: Interaction that caused a problem.
Speaker 3: Now, somebody might not like a price, and that's one thing,
but there are ways that you can explain why your
price is what it is, and if you understand how
to deliver these things.
Speaker 2: We call these soft skills.
Speaker 3: By the way, everybody in business that wants to be
successful needs to understand soft skills. It's so critically important
to understand how to interact with somebody. It does doesn't mean
they're always right, it doesn't mean you're accepting their arms right,
but you understand how to navigate around that and say, well,
you know, we may agree to disagree, but you know
your your feelings, your position is valid, and I'm going
to work with that and we're going to.
Speaker 2: Get through this. But I want to leave you with
a good experience.
Speaker 3: So we're going to talk about that type of thing,
because again, word of mouth can be great. And I
talk about this in my marketing podcast that I just
recently did. I think it's episode seventeen in the Master
of the NEC podcast where I talk about guerrilla marketing,
and one of the key things is that you know
you can have a very bad first impression, but you
can overcome it before you leave that project and things
like that, and so there's a way to recover it
and grow your business. Right, So again that's the key
is to make sure we leave on firm ground that
we don't leave with them being able to spread. Now, again,
some people just wallow and evil and it is what
it is. You can't fix evil. You can just try
to mitigate it. But at the end of the day,
we do have some tools we can follow. So remember,
why are we doing this Because a satisfied customers are
your best marketers. But even that dissatisfies customers can be
loyal advocates. Maybe it's only the price, but they say
you do good work. Okay, well I'm not cheap, but
I do good work. So they may come across as
a negative, but they do tell you that they do
good work. So again, there's different ways we can approach it.
All right, So well let's talk about it. Understanding the
root of the issue.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the.
Speaker 3: That's the first thing, root of the issue. Understanding the
root Okay, Okay, this is really important for people to
listen to this and that is the whole function is listening.
Speaker 2: Now, like I said, I spend a lot of time talking.
Speaker 3: I do a lot of podcasts, I spend a lot
of time.
Speaker 2: Interacting with people and teaching and all.
Speaker 3: But when it comes to a situation where you're on
a project and you have somebody that's unhappy, they got
something they want to say and they're trying to get
it off their chest.
Speaker 2: So one of the important things that you can.
Speaker 3: Do is before you immediately And I try to tell
this to everybody, whether electricians, people that work and have
people that they report to, whatever. If somebody has this
urge to talk, and whether it's good or bad, then
you need to learn a skill called listening. And listening
is allowing that customer to voice their concerns with without
interrupting them.
Speaker 2: And this is, dude, this is the hardest.
Speaker 3: One of the hardest things that I struggle with is
because sometimes you can be so passionate about something that
when you hear them saying it, you and I do
this and I have to catch myself and practice what
I preach. I say, okay, stop, stop, because the tendency
is to finish their sentences. The tendency is to to
maybe engage with them the moment they say something you
disagree with. So I'm gonna give you a tip of
how to do this, how to do how how you
should do this? Okay, and it forces you to listen,
all right. So I always used to tell everybody have
a notepad with you, and you know a little.
Speaker 2: I used to we sell these journals on our website.
Speaker 3: Okay, inspector journals, but they don't really have to be
inspector journals. They call code nerd journals. I encourage you
to have some thing like that with every lead person
or everybody that interacts with a customer, so that they
can pull it out when a customer has something they
concerned about and listen to them and let them fully
say it until they finished and they got nothing else
to say. Let them say it. So allow the customer
to voice their concern fully and kind of kind of
reject the urge to interrupt them.
Speaker 2: Let them say it.
Speaker 3: The next thing you want to do is take notes
to show them that what they've got to say is
extremely important. So anything they got to say that concerns them, say, okay,
hold on, let me let me get my notepad out,
because I want to make sure that I address your
concerns Okay, First of all, you're gonna diffuse them. They're
gonna they're gonna be like what I thought you were
just gonna listen. No, no, no, no, no, sir. I
teach people, I say no, you get your notebook out
and you go. I want to write these down because
obviously they concern you, and I want to I want
to make sure that I can address these, So I
write this down right, Okay, So take notes to show
that you're in show that you're taking whatever they got
to say very seriously. Also, it allows you to make
sure to highlight the important parts that you want to
retort or that you want to say something back about.
And then it gives you time to think about how
you're going to constructively respond to these things without being
vial flip it in other words, so eager to respond back.
Speaker 2: And again it's a temptation.
Speaker 3: We're all very defensive about our work, our company. We
all get defensive about something, and I get it.
Speaker 2: But when I'm.
Speaker 3: Training employees, I'm training people that interact with customers, I
want to let them talk until they've they've exhausted it. Okay,
they got nothing else to say. Now, I'm not going
to say something smart like are you done that?
Speaker 2: No, I'm going to look at them and and basically
it's ammunication, one on one thing.
Speaker 3: I'm going to look at them, make eye contact with them.
Anything they say that that that that I feel I'm
going to have to respond to I instead of immediately
saying something, I open, I look my notebook, and I
look down and I'll start making a note respond to
issue of whatever.
Speaker 2: What did that do?
Speaker 3: First of all, that took me away from that impulse
to respond, And you'll get better at it where you
may not have to do the notes, but the note
process allows you to separate yourself from it and make
a note and say, first issue is price, second issue
is h whatever? Okay, just paraphrase it enough so that
you after you're done, you can address these issues. Now,
in that process, you want to make sure that you
ask clarifying questions, folks. So it's so important that that
when they're talking to you, they might be all over
the spectrum, but you want to ask and find out
exactly what they're unhappy about so that you can get
rid of all the fluff and you can get down
to what the discussion is about.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So for example, Uh, listen, actively, allow the customer to
voice their concerns without fully interrupting them, take notes where necessary,
to take the matter seriously, ask clarifying questions, and you know,
understand exactly what the customer is actually unhappy with. Whether
it's you're pricing, is it the quality? Is it the
time that you spent on the project? Is it your appearance?
Is it? What is it that put them in this
this feeling that they had to tell you? Okay, And
the other part that I'm gonna tell you is it's
this is a thick skin, thin skin thing and everybody
has it.
Speaker 2: They can say they don't.
Speaker 3: Salespeople get better at it, but it is basically avoid
jumping to conclusions or becoming very defensive.
Speaker 2: And hey, I'm guilty. I am guilty of it. I
get it. I'm like human.
Speaker 3: I mean everybody else is you hear somebody's upset about
something into pricing and you feel like you're worth every
dime that you charge. But they start in on pricing
and you so quickly want to jump into it and
be combative to I guess to support your pricing structure,
for example, rather than listening to it at the end
and then calmly, calmly explain to the customer why you're
pricing is what it is, and say, look, you know
the reason is, I have overhead.
Speaker 2: I have insurance that I have to pay.
Speaker 3: I have employees that have to pay, as you know, taxes,
I have to match their taxes. I have licenses I
have to pay. I have my employees licenses I have
to pay. And I have overheads. I have burdens that
I have to worry about. I have gas, I have
insurance on the vehicles, I have tool costs. And then
you kind of spin it back to and say, and
that's how I deal with the pricing thing. I go, look,
I've tried to do my best to keep my prices
where I can make a living.
Speaker 2: You're getting a fair price.
Speaker 3: And I'm able to pay for my employees or what
I'm doing and my marketing costs and things like that.
So remain calm and kind of make it as if
you're showing them why okay, Even if the customer is
upset or confrontational, you could always explain things from your
perspective of why you did it.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: You can't make them understand, but you can say things
like I understand why you're frustrated, or thank you for
bringing this to my attention, or I agree that this
may appear to be something that is concerning, but let
me explain that type of thing, and then it's your turn.
Now they're not going to practice the same restraint guarantee you.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: They're going to probably jump right back on you with
their defensive or whatever, because now they have to support
why they told you your pricing was so high or whatnot,
or why they think you're overpriced on something. But they
don't know your business, and you have to understand that
that that's just their frustration.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that you want to avoid
doing is taking any criticism personally.
Speaker 2: Okay, focus on how do I leave this?
Speaker 3: If I'm with the customer for two hours or an hour,
your constant focus from the beginning is how do I
take this interaction and make sure that when it's over
that it's a positive interaction for everybody involved, even if
it starts out being very critical or problematic or somewhere
down the line. Let me give you example. So maybe
you're going to a project. You're electrician. They call you
out and you're troubleshooting something a circuit's not working, and
you're just troubleshooting it.
Speaker 2: You know, you're electrician. You're not a magician.
Speaker 3: You're electrician, so you're you know, everybody's skills, the troubleshooting
is different. So you're working on it, you're working on it,
you're working on it, working, you're trying to to understand
what's going on. And then they think that you're taking
too much time. And so they come to you and say,
I think you're just padding the bill. I think you
can have found the issue. And you go, and that's
when you take your time. You let them speak and
you go, I understand your your concern, but I'm telling
you that I am a master electrician.
Speaker 2: I I'm trying to find the problem.
Speaker 3: And some problems are easy and some problems are a
little more complicated. And I'm trying to to work on this,
and I understand your frustration with it, and trust me,
I would like to get this done as quickly as
I can. Okay, And that type of thing, and by
explaining it and not trying to hide it, not trying
to bullshit it, not trying to bluff it. Uh, you
know that type of thing. It can diffuse that situation.
But make sure that you're you're not criticizing them, make
sure you're not talking down to them like you don't
know what I do. You're not an electrician, don't belittle them.
Just basically explain it the same way you would explain
it to your mom as the way I always tell
people it is like Mom, I'm doing my best. I'm
trying to find the issue, and I'm doing everything I
can with my meters and I'm trying to resolve it.
It's if it was easy, or if it was sticking
out to me, I would be done and gone, trust me.
But I'm trying to find it, and I'm going to
find it. I'm gonna keep working on it, and we'll
work together at the end on this resolution. On this Uh,
maybe it took three hours, and maybe at the end
they're like three hours and you're like, Okay, I'm willing
to knock it down to two and a half. For
two hours and forty five minutes or whatever, I'm gonna meet you.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna meet you somewhere. But I did. I tried
to find it. I worked it. Okay.
Speaker 3: Every situation is a little different, but that's the approach
that you want to take and some people in contracting
or like, no, my way, I don't care what you say.
You called me here, I'm going to do it. Piss
on you, and I'm telling you that it's not today,
in the modern world that we're in today, that is
not how it's going to win you more business. And
maybe you don't care about more business. Maybe you're just like,
I don't give a shit, I don't care.
Speaker 2: It's my jib. I'm doing it.
Speaker 3: I'm doing it my way. I don't care, I don't care. Okay,
well that's the case. Somebody's going to be there next time,
and you're not going to get that repeat business. And
I'm going to tell you something. If you're in business,
you don't have to kiss the customer's ass, but you
just have to be honest with them and understand and
have empathy for the fact that they don't understand what
you do. And so I want to explain to them
why it has taken longer. But I'm not going to
talk down to them, Okay, I'm not going to criticize
them and not going to get personal with them. I'm
not going to take their criticism personal. They don't know
me they don't know how complicated this troubleshooting task is.
And so that's what I try to explain to the electricians,
you know that go out and work with customers like.
They're not going to like you when it take you
two hours and they think it should have taken an
hour because they're paying the bill.
Speaker 2: You get it. They're still not going to like it.
But there's a way that you can diffuse it.
Speaker 3: Okay, Now, if you acknowledge mistakes, if you made a mistake,
if you've made an error, admit it and assure them
that it'll be corrected. Assure them that, you know, if
there's something in pricing, or bid your bill or bid
or what if something was wrong, don't try to shift it,
you know what. Acknowledge it, own up to it and say,
you know, I apologize, I'm going to take care of
this right away. I'm going to you know, we're going
to make sure that this is not going to happen
in the future as long as you acknowledge that it
is an issue.
Speaker 2: Because again, they're not always right.
Speaker 3: But in that interaction, I want to walk away with
them not pissed off, me not pissed off, and I
have to deal with that the rest of the day.
It can be done, folks. I know you get some
people that are disgruntled, really bad. But again, there's tones
that can be done and there's a way to eat
take a Maybe they won't hire you back.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 3: There's a high probability that they won't at least bad
mouth you to the next person.
Speaker 2: And that's a win in itself. Okay.
Speaker 3: So again there's a way to not so if you
make a mistake, acknowledge it. It's sure then that it'll
be corrected, especially if it is.
Speaker 2: An error that needs to be corrected. Okay.
Speaker 3: The other thing is I think it is very important
and again it's to bite my pride because I'm here.
I'm not here to you know what I used to
tell people as like, I'm not here to be their friend.
I didn't go to this job for this customer to
be my buddy to crack a beer with and go
out to the pub.
Speaker 2: Okay, I came here to do a job.
Speaker 3: So if that means I have to do what I
have to do to make sure that that relationship is
still that way. And when I leave, they're thinking it's
very professional. I'm not their friend. I tell people like
that all the time. I work with a lot of
people on committees. I'm not there to be their friend.
I'm not there to be there go to out to eat.
I don't go out. That's one thing I tell about
on choir with them, and they know that. When I
went to conferences and I went to meeting here, Vince
Delacrosse will tell you. All the people in the code
panels will tell you I am not there to be
anybody's friend. I am not the guy you want to
take out to the to the eat afterwards and go
have a beer or whatever, because I'm just not Now,
there's some people that I have a friendship with personal.
Vince Delacroise, for example, is a guy. He's just a
sweetheart of a guy. You can't not like Vince. But
the other people in the committee and they asked me
to go out the meetings and things like that, and
you know, I don't. I'm not interested. I'm just there
to get my job done. I'm there to us to
work on the code. I'm there because my company pays
me to be there and work on it, and once
that's done, I'm leaving.
Speaker 2: Right. I'm not there to be there friends.
Speaker 3: So I teach employers to teach that to their staff,
to like, look, be bubbly, smiley, empathetic, understanding problems solving,
don't be confrontational, admit when you're wrong, all these types
of things. That's not ass kissing. That's in keeping the
ensuring that the business is going to be retained within
your company, and that they're going to call you if
they need more work done.
Speaker 2: Bite your pride, Bite your pride and leave. Smile.
Speaker 3: You can cuss somebody else. You can cuss somebody out
through smile. You can tear them out through goodness. Just
smile at them and say thank you, appreciate that, or
I work on that, or I'm sorry that I'm sorry
to feel that way. Can I explain, I understand why
you're frustrated, but let me explain what goes into it,
and this is why we're we're at. They don't have
to like it, but you've explained it professionally and you
move on.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: The moment that you tip for tat back with the
customer and they get loud and arguing defensive, it's over.
Speaker 2: You're already in the recovery mode. Okay, So avoid that. Okay,
Also again like I say, show understanding.
Speaker 3: Say I can see how this situation has impacted you,
and I want to make it right. Well, maybe I
cut off fifteen minutes, maybe I don't round up my hours,
maybe I do something that, Yeah, I might lose a
little bit, but I can see that this is really
stressing them out, and I want to make it right.
I had one incident where you had a customer that
just I think they just woke up on the wrong
side of the bed. And I think I was putting
in Alexa devices or whatever.
Speaker 2: We were smart home.
Speaker 3: We're doing the cost effective smart home thing, and they
just walk up on the wrong side of the bed,
I think it was. And I had already done the
job and they were already bitching about price, and I
didn't have to go into the pricing. Why, but I
get it. I looked at him, I said, I get it.
You know, the prices today is tough. I mean, our
prices are based on the overheads, the burdens, the taxes,
everything that we have to pay in order to keep
these trucks rolling or keep me vehicles rolling. I said,
I get it. It sucks. I would hate it, but
it is what it is. What else are they going
to say that? But then what I would do is says,
you know what, let me make it right. Let me
go on and do give you a free since I'm here,
let me give you a free panel inspection. Just look
around and make sure that everything's working good.
Speaker 2: It's free.
Speaker 3: Let me give you an energy audit. Let me look
at your panel, Let me look and see what. Let
me just give you that it's free, doesn't cost you anything.
I'm already here. Let me make this right for you.
Let me give you a little bit extra of my time.
In the end, I'm not I'm really looking for ways
to find other things to leave on the report that
they could possibly get fixed, that could get me back there.
Speaker 2: But I'm offering this for free.
Speaker 3: So you learn ways to do this right, You learn
ways to diffuse things.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Now, I'll also tell you right now, and I tell
this to all of the people that interact with the customers.
I said, look, avoid shifting blame tank responsibility for your
part of the issue, even if the external factors were
involved that cause the problem that's outside of your control.
In other words, your office sells you to do something,
and you do, and you don't want to sit there
and go, I'm sorry the office and those people up
there in the office, they don't get me.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm the electrician, but the office don't. Don't.
Speaker 3: I do this all the time when I have to
do something for Encore, I do not shift blame and
blame the people in the office or blame something, even
if it was their fault or somebody's fault, or I
take responsibility for it.
Speaker 2: I don't let it. I let it die right there.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I don't give the fault in my company that I represent.
And again, every time I walk on a job site,
I represent my company. This is why, for example, when
I'm speaking around the country and if I'm there for
Encore or Prismium, I never go to the bar afterwards,
or I never go to an afterwards with the company
logo on.
Speaker 2: I change or I cover it up.
Speaker 3: I just you know what, I do not want to
ever give a bad impression to my company. And I'm
constantly focused on this, and it's just how I am
centrically focused on that.
Speaker 2: I respect them.
Speaker 3: If I work for a company, they pay my paycheck,
they give me money, they pay my insurance. To that
I'm gonna be good stewards of them. I'm never going
to pass the blame onto somebody else, even if it
wasn't my fault. I'm going to own it and I'm
going to see what I can do within my power
to make it right now. Always want to think about this.
When somebody's upset, you're taking the notes, you're interacting with them,
you should be thinking of a proposal of a solution.
Speaker 2: What solution?
Speaker 3: What can I offer them that will make them all
of a sudden they're upset?
Speaker 2: How can I turn that around instant?
Speaker 3: For an example, if there's an issue that needs to
be addressed and I can take care of it at
an additional cost, then I'm going to offer to do that.
I'm going to say, you know what, let me take
care of this for you. I'm not going to charge
you for this. You know that type of thing. Let
me let me take care of it. Maybe I had
one occasion where you do something and maybe see a
cracked plate or cracked receptacle plate or something like that,
and you happen to have one.
Speaker 2: You know, your truck is stocked or service like. You
know what I get? You know what I get?
Speaker 3: How you feel and you know the cost, but let
me let me give you let me replace that cover
for free.
Speaker 2: Let me just give that to you. It may be
something as little as that.
Speaker 3: Or maybe maybe you have the ability to offer a
round down your hours rather than round up and say,
you know what, let me I understand it, and I
explain to you why it is what it is.
Speaker 2: But I get it. I see how in your shoes
this could how it impacts you.
Speaker 3: So you know what, how about I give you a
partial refund, you know, as long as it's appropriate and
you have the ability to do that, then again offer that.
Speaker 2: If it really is a real situation where you want to.
Speaker 3: Diffuse it, then maybe giving a partial something rounding your
hours back rather than rounding up that type of thing
may diffuse it. Okay, So there's different ways. Every company
has their own ways that they would approach that. But again,
offer a remedy on how to fix the problem that
they're presenting to you.
Speaker 2: Think of a way that you can address it.
Speaker 3: And again, if you're a contractor or electrician out there
that says I ain't going to do any of that shit,
I'm just going to I'm here to do a job,
whether you like it, or not. I'm doing that's okay,
that's you, but your business is never going to grow
to the level that it could be. You're doing good now,
but it'll never grow. I'm just telling you you know.
So Also always remember, if possible, I like to do
what's called involving the customer in your solution. Ask them
what you want. You'd be surprised say, well, what can
we do to make this right? Most people believe it
or not. Even if they think you're overpriced, they won't
say give me a discount. They won't say cut some
money off of it. But it puts them on the spot.
And you're saying, I get it, I understand what solution here?
Speaker 2: What do you What do you think we should do
to make this right?
Speaker 3: You'd be surprised that most of the time the customer
will go nothing, there's really nothing. I mean, I'm not upset,
and you know I get your price now because you
explained it now, but you put it on them now
to give your solution.
Speaker 2: I'll use you a great example of this.
Speaker 3: So my wife, for example, if we want to go
out to eat somewhere, I always will go so where
do you want to go eat? And she'll go, I
don't care wherever you want to get. I already know
she's going to do this. She's not going to pick
a place. You know, I could spend the wheel of
death when it comes to places to eat. But I
can always ask my wife. I can go, all right, well,
where do you want to eat? I don't care wherever
you want to eat, so already in my mind, I
know where I want to eat when I ask that question.
So I mean again, if it's McDonald's, I'll say, where
do you want to eat? I don't care wherever you
want to eat?
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: Good, that's a win win for me because I'll say
McDonald's is fine.
Speaker 2: Some people don't like.
Speaker 3: That because they're like, oh shit, now I got to
make a decision. No, I use it opposite. I just
started doing this months ago, and I'm like, you know what,
I already know where.
Speaker 2: I want to eat.
Speaker 3: So if I ask somebody where do you want to
eat and they go, I don't care whatever you want
to eat, perfect opportunity for me to say, cool, I
want to eat at the mineral restaurant right down the
street and they say, you know, I don't want to
eat there, and I'm like, all right, Well, where do
you want to eat?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. Well I'd like to eat at
the mineral restaurant, So that's where I guess that's where
we'll go unless you got somewhere you want to eat.
And you know that type of thing. So I gave
them a vested interest in picking and they choose not to.
Speaker 3: So you'd be surprised when you get your customer involved
in that situation that they will end up wanting you
to do nothing and they'll still feel like they want
and it diffuses the city. And that's when I'll come back.
I like, well, what do you want to make this right?
And you go, well, I don't think there's anything you
explained it. I'm just I don't know. It's just I'm like,
we'll tell you what.
Speaker 2: Here's what I do.
Speaker 3: Can I give you a free inspection, a free looking
at your panel and make sure there's no hazards involved.
Speaker 2: You just might not have encountered them yet. It just
can I it's free, it won't cost you anything. Or
maybe you say I want to do free do with
free energy audit. It's free. I'm already here. It's not
gonna cost you anything.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna sell you anything, but I'm gonna look
around and tell you what luminaris you may be able
to change and get more energy efficient that type of
thing and then make things look newer and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: You don't know.
Speaker 3: No obligation, no obligation. You get creative, Get creative, but
feel like you're giving them, giving them something. You can
diffuse a negative situation so quickly if you understand the
mentality of how this works. Now, I need you to
be transparent always with the customer. If a problem can't
be resolved, immediately explain the steps that you will need
to take. So maybe it's even bigger picture that has
something that has to do through the company. Maybe you
have somebody you answer to and you have to make
bigger decisions. Don't leave them wondering if you're going to
call back, don't leave them wondering.
Speaker 2: I make it.
Speaker 3: I make them realize that I am connected with them.
So this is why I was really big on what
we had called sparks card with the tap NFC, because
I had a way of putting it on the phone
and saying, Okay, look, I'm staying connected with you. Basically,
it was a way to put your contact information on
their phone. But I had a hard time conveying that
to people. So Sparks Card just didn't take off the
way I wanted it. But I still use it. I
still use the NFC cards, I still have the products.
They're available on our websites. But people didn't understand what
we were doing. It was a way for you to
stay connected with that customer so that they did not
feel like you're leaving them. I'm gonna I'll give you
a great example. We're having a fence put in, so
we had a fence company come out. It's hard to
get fence people to come out.
Speaker 2: They came out. I liked what they said.
Speaker 3: I paid them up front to down deposit, and I
haven't heard a word from them since. And anxiety will
kick into anybody when you're dropping three or four thousand
dollars down on something as a down payment for something
and you don't you're not connected with them.
Speaker 2: It's for me.
Speaker 3: I would have said, if once they pay me the money,
I would say, okay, Well if this takes a little
longer to get resolved or something has to be resolved,
I'm like, here you go, let me put this on
your phone. And this allows us to be able to
communicate directly through this a little app. It's quick and simple,
the web based, and I want to stay connected with
you because I do want resolution for you and to
get this for you and see what I can do
for you. Customers love that they eat that stuff up.
And so you could start out with somebody that's really
set off a bad impression, but before you leave that project,
they would be loving all of the interaction that you
give and staying in with staying in contact, and it's
not going to be big for you. It's like like
with Paul, I don't want to I don't want to
have to be so connected with every damn body that
I got to go back and get No, it's not
that difficult to do, it's not. It's a mindset, right,
So be very transparent with them.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I want to tell you
with some customers now, don't get me wrong, is we
want to make sure that we prevent what we call
escalation of an issue. Not every employees created same, not
every master electrician, journeyman, electrician, HVAC plumbing master, what They're not.
Speaker 2: All created equal.
Speaker 3: So we have to make sure we understand what escalation
is and how we make sure that it does not
get to.
Speaker 2: A point of escalation. What is that?
Speaker 3: Well, if a customer that you're working with becomes abusive
in some way and they really start are uptoning you
or really getting up in your face, and you know,
it doesn't matter whether you're the jolly John from backwoods
of Kentucky and you're like, I'm defending my honor and
your chest pokes out and you want to get in
their face.
Speaker 2: If you work for me, you better not. You better not.
Speaker 3: So if a customer gets unruly, maybe we don't want
them as a customer. Now, that does not mean, okay,
that you have to take abuse. I told my customers,
I told my employees in the day, was look, if
somebody gets very aggressive and abusive and you haven't even
done the work yet, they're up in your face. Now,
if you've already done the work, you gotta be careful
because we're gonna still get our money. But if they
come at you up up front, then maybe we don't
want their business. So you can say, very politely, you
know what I think, before we get down this road,
maybe it's better that we don't do business together.
Speaker 2: I'll let them know. Back at the office, I'll let
them know. Don't worry. You know, maybe we came off
the wrong foot. Don't be afraid to walk away. But
I teach the employees to be able to understand that
because that is.
Speaker 3: A very rare situation. Okay, because they called you out
there to get something done. Chances are they're not going
to be up in your face right away. Something had
to happen. Now, if they become abusive, calmly state that
you're willing to resolve this issue. But you know what,
you don't have to tolerate the disrespect. And you can
say that in a very polite way. It says, Look,
I don't deserve to be disrespected here. I'm trying to
work with you. I'm here to solve an issue. Are
we going to be able to get you know? And
here's another thing I tell people. De escalation is the
ability to tell the other person, are we going to
be able to get beyond this and work together? You
got something you need done and I'm here to fix it.
Speaker 2: Can we work together? You know? That type of thing.
And if they say no, no, no, walk away, walk away? Okay.
Speaker 3: Now, the other thing is written communication when emotions are
running high. Uh, then maybe you don't sit there and
you banter and you say, you know what, I'll get
you something. We'll email you, or we'll give you something
in a formal communication to keep records. And that way
we reduce the misunderstanding. Okay, if somebody is arguing with you,
for example, if I'm out there and I'm telling them
what are what our policies are on this that, and
then they don't understand it, and I go, you know what,
rather than escalate it, and they're really starting to get like,
I don't understand this is stupid.
Speaker 2: That's a dumb rule. You know what. Maybe I'm conveying
it poorly.
Speaker 3: And UH, tell you what, let me send it to
you in any email or in a formal communication from
our office. Uh, and I'll explain it. We'll put it
in details so that it's written out. You can keep
it for your records and uh and if there's misunder
any misunderstanding there, we can take it item by item.
And that's easier than to us just sit here, do
this because I'm really here to solve your solve your
problem for you. And uh, they might say, okay, well,
that's fine, Just can I get it in writing. Absolutely,
don't be afraid to put thing in communication. Just make
sure that whatever you put in your communitytions, remember anything
that you put in an email or anything that you
put in a communication that has kept as a record.
Speaker 2: Think of it is.
Speaker 3: It's the same thing that you'd be pulling out in
front of you if you're standing in front of a
judge in a courtroom. Okay, don't ever think that anything
that you say in email or an your communications as privates.
If I had to give anybody any advice, the first
thing I would say is, do not put in a
text message, an email, or a formal communication that you
would not want blazoned on the five o'clock news. Hey,
do not think that these people are your friends. They
are not your friends. The eighty year old grandmother that
I put in illumina air for who loves you to death,
that thanks, You're just like her grandkid. That's great.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: I've gotten those I love that. I love going back
doing work for them, and then I go out of
my way to do everything I can for them.
Speaker 2: Okay, but at the end of the day, I realize
what they are.
Speaker 3: They're a customer. I'm making money. I mean, I'm in
business to make money that type of thing. So remember
anything that you put and when something happens. And let's
say I love that granny and I do that work
for but I say something in an email, something that's
outside of company protocol or whatever I do. Don't think
that they don't have a grandkid. Who's going to think
that they know better than their grandmom. And the next
thing you know is your asking sued for something. Okay,
So never think that the sweetest person in the world
is always your friend. Please, if I have to give
anybody some real advice, nobody, Okay, listen to me.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you again, nobody you do work for
out there is your friend.
Speaker 3: Nobody. Please, I'm gonna say it again. They are not
your friend. Do the work as if you were doing
it for your mom, the same as you do it
for your friend down the street, as you would for
a random customer. Okay, to do the work and you're
gonna get paid. Treat it professional. So at the end
of the day, if you don't think that somebody that's
related to somebody, or when shit hits the fan, I
can go do some work for this eighty year old grandmother.
But then all of a sudden something happens in her house.
It catches fire. It has nothing to do with what
I did. You're gonna have some ass attorney come in
and say, well, did you have anybody do any work
on the house lately?
Speaker 2: Well, yes, I had this sweep, I had this sweet Paul.
Speaker 3: Abernathy from Abernathy Electrical came out.
Speaker 2: And put this plug in. Oh he did, he's sweet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, Well a lawyer is gonna twist that and
say the last person that worked on the home was
Paul with Abernathy Electrical, and there's a chance that it
was caused by him. And now you're already you're already
on the defensive, trying to prove why trust me, you're easy,
because they're gonna throw you under the bus to save
their own interest. Everybody does. Don't fool yourself, folks, this
is business. They will throw you under the bus in
a heartbeat. Anybody will to save their own ass. I
hate to say that, I hate to sound skeptical, but
that's the way you treat everything as if that could happen, okay,
and also if it ends up being a really bad situation,
and you have really bad disagreements between you and the customer,
then there are third party arbiters that you can do,
trade associations, a neutral mediator. If the disagreement cannot be
resolved directly, then you can go to mediation, and a
lot of contracts that people have will have that clause
on there rather than go to court, that you accepting disagreement,
that you accept mediation, and that pretty much trying to
waive the go to court, and that way you can
have a third party come in. Again, I'm not a lawyer,
not giving advice, not a tax accountant.
Speaker 2: I don't give tax advice.
Speaker 3: But I'm saying there are ways to have mediation to
be used if there's a total discruntal. But again I'm
telling you, most of the time you can get you
you won't get to that point. Okay, all right, getting
to the end here, folks, But I just want to
cover a couple more things here, learn and improve, evaluate
what went wrong. After you have a situation like that,
don't just forget about it. If you have a disgruntal
contact or a discrintal customer, or something like this happens
and you're writing those notes that I tell you about,
make sure that you actually review that situation with your
office or with the other people and your team or
whatever to see how can we have changed this, How
can we have post experience, How can we have corrected this?
What did we say? How did we do something differently? Okay,
how did we set that bad impression? What did we
do what triggered this? Well, if you say, well, it's
the price that triggered it. They didn't like our price,
Well that's a pretty broad Okay. Well, then you look
at it and go, well, hey, guys, let's come up
with a response for our price.
Speaker 2: Let's come up with a response.
Speaker 3: That you all can use to explain why our price
is what our price is. And that's a canned response
that we're gonna use.
Speaker 2: So we have it already available, and so we can go, well,
and we have the overhead, you know, and then throw
some empathy in there, say I get it.
Speaker 3: I'd hate it too if somebody came to my house
in charge. But we have overhead. We have expenses.
Speaker 2: We have to pay the insurances, we have to pay, licensing,
we have to pay.
Speaker 3: Marketing, we have to pay. It's not like we're a
mom and pop. We're just a one person show. I
mean I have expenses, and maybe you are a one
man show, but you still have expenses, but your prices
are probably going to be less anyway, right because you
don't have the same level of burdens. My brother, for example,
is just a one man show. He does multimillion dollar houses.
That's all he chooses to do. He's lucky if he
does a couple of year. That's all he wants to do.
Now he's in his sixties. Great contractor, right, he's built
his customer base that type of thing. But he will
do anything for anybody in uh. But he knows his limitations, right,
So you know everybody's different, but you need to evaluate
what you did wrong and so that you can build
a case for it to be used. It's kind of
like people talk about the pricing flat rate pricing, where
you have set structures of pricing, which is great. Maybe
one day I'll do a podcast on flat rate pricing.
But because I used flat rate pricing when I was
in McKinney, Texas before I stopped doing contracting. But one
of the things is if you can established why your
prices are why they are, then you can diffuse a
lot of people that have problems with your pricing. Update
your process, always adjust your contract. Always look at the
contract to make sure your contracts are clear so people
aren't confused by the verbage. Don't be afraid to take feedback,
even if a customer's upset.
Speaker 2: Here's a big thing.
Speaker 3: You're not asking for a review, You're asking for feedback.
And this is something that we used to do on
the Sparks card. Was to allow a customer to go
in negative or positive. It wasn't what you're going to
use on your media, wasn't what you're going to use
on your website. Allow the customer to vent, even if
they are totally pissed off. Give them a platform, give
them a way to vent. Now, they may think that
what they're venting is going to get posted somewhere and
they're going to be trashing your name.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to get to that.
Speaker 3: But allow them to vent and give them that avenue
to let them so collect that feedback, whether it's a form,
whether it's on the website, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Tell them, look, I understand.
Speaker 3: Your concern, and we do want to learn from this situation,
and we do want to make it better, but we
do value your feedback. So I understand that you're upset,
and I've asked you what you think we can do
to help all that for you. Here, I'm willing to
try to resolve this and make this a good experience
for both of us. Okay, you know, swallow your pride,
but also you know they're pissed. Ask them to give feedback,
because you'd be surprised about a feedback you get back,
and again, don't take it personal.
Speaker 2: It's just feedback, okay, all.
Speaker 3: Right, So those are the type of things to do,
and there's different ways to collect that data. I'm more
than happy to answer those if you want to email
me or send a request to Paul Avenuet dot com
little tips on how to do forms and how to
set up those things.
Speaker 2: I'm here to help you, folks.
Speaker 3: I'm here to teach you what I've learned in almost
forty years of contracting, so that you don't make the
same mistakes. This is a different world. Everybody is more woke,
everybody is more offended easily, and so you have to adapt.
And you might say, I don't have to change a
damn thing I do. Okay, I'll give you an example.
So I remember a couple of years ago, the guy
on it, Dustin from Electrician You, contacted me. He was
just getting started with Electrician You. He was just getting
started and he called me and wanted to work with me,
and I gave him some advice and different things. And
his videos he used to cuss like a sailor, I
mean really bad. And I told him, I said, you
know what, as you get more popular, because there's a
market for the videos that are just watching people install stuff.
There's a market for it. I can't watch it, but
there's a market. I said to him, I said, you
know you're going to change. He said, I'm never going
to change. It's in my contract that these people realize
that I can say what I want to do it
I want.
Speaker 2: I said, don't worry.
Speaker 3: You will change when the money starts rolling in and
people start saying that I can't use your content because
it's either too vulgar or whatnot or what the F
bombs every two words, You're going to change. And he said, no,
I'm never going to change. I'm never going to change.
And then he changed. This happens to everybody. Okay, I've
been doing this long enough that I can tell you
it happens to everybody. I have helped many people get
started in this industry when it comes.
Speaker 2: To podcasting or videos.
Speaker 3: Again, I tell people I joke about being the godfather
of this type of stuff. I was doing this stuff
online before anybody was doing it, even before Mike was
doing it.
Speaker 2: I was doing stuff online.
Speaker 3: And so at the end of the day, I like
to keep people from making the same mistakes that I've made. Right,
So again, these are just tips to help you. Now,
proactive tips to help you avoid a dispute.
Speaker 2: Here's some proactive tips. You're ready, We're just going to
run down a couple tips. I don't have the many.
Speaker 3: I just have a few, and then we'll into the
conclusion and we'll end this podcast.
Speaker 2: But proactive tips to avoid disputes.
Speaker 3: Number one, clear communication from the very start, set realistic
expectations with timelines. Make the cost is very clear and
the outcome. Let them know when you're going to start,
what the cost is going to be, and when you're
expected to finish. Now understand, things can happen and you
kind of get a timeline that gets wonky, But go
in with clear expectations. I hate it when people give
bids and pricing and all that and they do not
make it clear. What's my timeline, what's the cost, what
are the outcomes, what I'm going to finish? Okay, make
sure that you always provide a clear scope of what
you're doing. If I'm doing a service call, I make
it clear upfront. I teach people electricians who interact with customers,
because not every electrician can interact well with customers, and
every business should have employees that interact well with customers.
So I train them for this in my mentorship and
I tell them, I'm like, look, when you're going into this,
you want to make sure that you're very clear from
the beginning.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm Paul Abernight from Electrical Service Specialists. I'm here
to you called about having this fixed. That's what I'm
here for. I'm here to troubleshoot this or replace this
or do this. That that very clear. Uh, these are
our rates.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: People say, oh, don't talk about money. Well, it's the
elephant in the room, so get over it. Talk about it, okay,
and say look here, I'm here to fix this and
do this. Do this if you have any questions, Please
feel free to ask me while I'm here. No questions
off bounds. I would love to any concerns you have.
I'm here, but I'm gonna get to it. So because
I want to be a good steward of your money,
I want to be a good steward of your time.
I want to make sure I try to get in
and get out and get what you need done quickly.
Speaker 2: Is that okay? That sound good to you?
Speaker 3: Does that sound And That's another tactic that I use
when I'm dealing with customers, is I ask them questions
for responses right is.
Speaker 2: I'll say something like is that good for you? Is that?
Does that work for you? Or is this? Does that
sound reasonable to you? Because I want them to say yes.
I want them to.
Speaker 3: Get engaged that type of thing okay. So I'll tell people.
For example, when I go to do service calls, people
would follow me around and I noticed they're following me around,
So I.
Speaker 2: Would address the elephant in the room.
Speaker 3: I say, even though I know they're following me, I'd say,
well come on with me, let's go.
Speaker 2: Look.
Speaker 3: If you have any questions on what I'm doing, I'm
more than happy. Some people don't want to interact with
the customer. I got nothing to hide. I'm like, come on, yeah,
I'll show you. I'm going into the panel. You maybe
you've never seen your panel before. Step back, stay back
a little bit, okay, But you got any questions, more
than happy to ask me about them. You want to
know what circuit breaker is, you want to know what
that while we do this, I'm more than happy to
engage with them.
Speaker 2: You'd be surprised how it wins over a customer.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, all right, so set a realistic expectation, timeline, costs,
and outcomes. When we got somebody in and instagram says
you used our YouTube videos to help pass their master's exam,
well congratulations. I love living vicariously through other people's success.
A lot of people think Paul Abernathy is all about
Paul Abernathy. That means you really don't know who I am.
I got my haters out there, but they don't know me.
They don't know what we've given to the industry. They
don't know what Mike Holt gives to the industry. They
don't know what Ryan Jackson gives to the industry. They
just not might not like our videos or might not
like our podcasts, and they judge people. Okay, the James
stoulecups in the world, they hate me. All those people
they hate me and they don't even know me. So
I've only ever met the old man. So but his
son hates me. Yeah, because that, you know, is what
it is. I don't care. But again, hate is a
strong word. I have to generate hate by meeting somebody,
or if they actively go after you, try to hurt
you in some way, then I can develop I hate.
But other than that, I typically there's not many people
that I hate in the world.
Speaker 2: I don't know how I got to that, but anyway,
I digress.
Speaker 3: Make sure you're clear about your task as a contractor.
Make sure you're clear about your task and your contracts.
If you're going to a project serve, even if it's
a service call, make it clear what you're there for,
what your timeline is, what's your expectations is, what's the
scope of the work as you're here for, so that
they know what they're paying for. Also, provide regular updates
to keep your clients informed and involved. This is why
I was a big believer in our app our little
NFC cards because it puts something on your customer's phone,
and that way, it was allowing me to contact with
them and keep them engaged, to let them know what's
going on. But this also could be why you're on
the job. Don't be afraid to let them know what's
going on. That's proactive to avoid disputes because they don't
know what the hell you're doing. Like if I'm going
to the panel, I might say to them like, okay,
I'm going to go to your panel.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'm going to the pan. They don't care.
Speaker 3: But you might say, I'm going to the panel because
I need to turn the power off. And by the way,
I'll look at it real quick to make sure there's
nothing funky going on in here. Just while i'm looking
at it, glance it for you. Don't worry about that.
I'll take care of that for you as you never know.
But I'm going there to cut it off so I
can work on the surface because it's circuit because I
don't want to work on it. Energized that type of thing.
You might think that they don't care about that, but
it helps to diffuse their disputes because they're kind of
knowing what you're doing, they know what they're paying for. Okay,
how you interact that in your company, it's up to you.
I'm just giving you tips. Okay, these are proactive tips.
Next is document everything. Maintain a written record of all agreements,
changes in communication. This is one thing I tell people
all the time. My brother doesn't do this, but I
tell this is I'm a change order guy. If anything changes,
any agreement, anything changes the scope of what I'm doing,
or what I've been hired to do, anything like that,
I make sure that I document it, that it's written.
Okay at some point because everybody, I believe needs to
know if the scope.
Speaker 2: Of what you're there for changes for some reason.
Speaker 3: And so I'm a big believer in making everybody aware
and keeping communication, keeping records anything that changes in the
scope of what I'm doing. I want everybody to know
that you can avoid disputes. It's about what they don't
know is what they get pay off about.
Speaker 2: Okay. So again, kind of.
Speaker 3: Wrapping this thing up for everybody in this episode is
number one.
Speaker 2: Listen actively.
Speaker 3: It's so hard to want to jump up and finish
somebody's sentence and whatnot, but you need to learn to listen,
proactively make notes so that you can address these issues calmly, logically,
stay professional, propose a solution, ask them questions and ask
them to help with the solution, and also make sure
you document it and learn from the conflict so it
doesn't happen again. Or you can train your group of
individuals that you work with on.
Speaker 2: How to engage these.
Speaker 3: I think one of the other things is think about
the bigger picture for your company, because everybody knows somebody.
Speaker 2: It sounds like there's a song about that.
Speaker 3: Everybody who somebody sometime and so at the end of
the day, minimize these disputes. Turn a turd into a
silver nugget by understanding how the communication can turn south
pretty quickly, and you stay and work on your professional
skills interacting with the customer, understanding how to overcome the weaknesses,
building your reputation because you were somebody that explains it
to them. I will tell you, as an electrical head
of electrical inspections, I was in northern Virginia. Some of
you may remember or you listen to this was I
was the head of the jurisdiction over electrical in the
city of Alexandria. Virginia and also Richmond, Virginia. Now, when
I came out to the job site, there was something wrong,
either you disagreed with the inspector, there was an argument,
or something wasn't going on. Very rarely did I go
out and do inspections after the first year or two,
unless I was going out to follow behind my inspectors
to just kind of make sure that they're doing things
the way they're supposed to do things, and you know,
that type of thing. But what the customers liked about
me is when I did come out there, they were
already pissed off because they got rejected, and so I
already knew why they were ticked. And you know what,
even as an inspector, I tell inspectors out there, you
work for the city. You're a public servant. These people
out there that pull permits are your customers. You treat
them the same way. You don't need arrogance as an inspector.
You don't need to shove things in their face. You
don't need to make things up. You're doing an inspection.
They are your customer. You're getting paid.
Speaker 2: Because of that. Now I don't get paid because of that.
I get paid from the city.
Speaker 3: The city's making money off of these inspections. You're getting paid.
You've got to be good stewards of these people.
Speaker 2: And so what I.
Speaker 3: Used to tell them is when I went out there,
I was already prepared for them to be upset. So
I would go out there and I would diffuse it.
I didn't put blame on my inspector. I didn't put
blame on the process. I didn't do anything. I would
sit up there and say, hey, how's it going. They go,
They had already start out pissed off.
Speaker 2: I've been doing this for thirty years and I have
never had an inspector on me for this. And I
wouldn't say a word.
Speaker 3: I'd pull out my whole notebook, my journal, and I
would start taking notes and I go and every now
and then i'd look at them and there's a little
tip that you do. And those on Instagram that are
watching this, and I don't have very many followers on Instagram,
I'm recording this while I'm streaming on Instagram, by the way,
if you didn't know. And I would look at the
customer and always make eye contact, and as they would
say something that they were very passionate about that they
don't understand.
Speaker 2: I've been doing this for thirty years.
Speaker 3: And I'd look at them and I would just took
my fan on my chin like this, and i would
look at him and I'd shake my head at him
like like I'm agreeing. I'm like, I get you, I
get it, I hear you, I hear you, I hear you.
Speaker 2: I'm feeling you. I'm letting you vent.
Speaker 3: I already knew what I was going to support my
inspector because unless they were totally wrong.
Speaker 2: But I'm letting them vent to me, and I'm making
a note. Okay, right, thirty years and then they're done.
Speaker 3: And then at the end of it, when they felt
like they were done, they got nothing else to say
because we had this long, awkward silence. Then I would
look at them and say, okay, let me let me
see if I let me get some clarification here on it,
because I need to be clear. Now you're upset because
this or this or this or this or this, and
they go yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'd go okay. Now
maybe they would say, well, I'm upset because the inspector
failed me and he didn't give me a code reference. Well,
the inspectors knew my policy on that. So I would say, okay,
that's fair, that's fair. I would be as frustrated as
you would be. So let's kind of get you that
code reference. Let's see what the reason is. And I'd
asked the inspector and I'd say, what's the where what
are we looking at?
Speaker 2: And maybe the inspector didn't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I must be fair, but he knew it
was somewhere around there, but he didn't know. When it's okay,
I'm not going to jump down their throat. I would
take that disgruntle customer and my inspector. I'd be the liaison.
Speaker 2: I'd go and look at it and go, okay, so
this is is this the issue you talked about? Yeah,
I'd say okay. Well, I'd say, well that's that's an issue.
Speaker 3: Of three point thirty dot ten US is permitted MC
cable blah blah, oh us is not permitted three and
say okay.
Speaker 2: I'd say to the guy and say okay.
Speaker 3: So it is possible that an inspector like this never
failed you for this because maybe they just didn't know.
And I can understand that. Again, there's a lot of
codes to learn in the code. I mean, we're talking
thousands of codes to learn, and I get it. It's
frustrating as hell because you need to know what you
need to know to fix right. It's only fair, right,
And they go, yeah, that's right, that's right, and I'm like,
I'm going to make sure you get your code reference.
Speaker 2: I didn't overrule my inspector.
Speaker 3: I helped my inspector out and if it was legitimate,
there was it. Now have I had a situation where
I got out there, and again people are saying, how
do we get to this when it comes to dealing
with customers, because the customer is the person that we
were doing the inspection for.
Speaker 2: They're the customer.
Speaker 3: And I would say to him, I'm like, okay, if
the guy failed them, I'm using this as an example.
If a guy failed them and he didn't give a
code reference and I was out there, I got called
out there because a lot of times they won't argue it,
they'll just say whatever. But if I got caught out
there and I found out that that wasn't actually a
code violation and my inspector wrote it down, I never, ever, ever, ever,
ever disrespect my inspector in front of the customer. I
never ever do that with an employee in front of
a customer. I don't do it in front of his helper.
I don't do master, elector, I don't do it. I
take them to the side, and I respect this situation,
and I use every situation as a learning situation. That's
why employees used to love working for me, is I'm
not going to disrespect them in the middle of anything.
I am going to make sure that I gave them
a solution to the problem. Okay, a solution to the problem.
So again that's what I was looking for, okay. So
that's how I would address the issue. And basically I
would tell the customer if it wasn't a I'm not
going to uphold.
Speaker 2: A violation that wasn't actually a violation.
Speaker 3: So I would take my inspector to the side and
I would say, you know, this isn't a violation. I
get it, and it's it's understanding. Maybe we'll have a
lesson back in the office and we'll go over this.
And because I'm sure others would want to know this
of our inspector, so me, it's I make it a
learning thing.
Speaker 2: I did not jump down their throat, okay. Uh.
Speaker 3: And I encouraged them to be specific about something. You
can't fail somebody unless you have a reference. It just
is what it is. So then i'd go back to
the customer and I would tell them I'm like, okay,
if this was the only violation, then I would override it,
and I would say okay, I talked to him, But
I never said it in a way that it made
the inspector look bad like they were Oh, they were
just wrong. They just because it could go wrong quickly
with the customer, especially if they're a contractor that does
a lot of work, and they're like, well, that inspector's
always making up bogus shit. So what I would say
to the customer, I'd say, you know what, I'm going
to override this for this specific issue. Now, there may
be other things in there that you still have to correct,
but this one, I mean, I'm gonna override this one
because I understand it, I feel you, and this is
a giver or take scenario, and I can use this
one and spin it to create a good relationship with
the with the customer in this case, the contractor, I
can say, you know, and I'll remove this one. So
this was not an issue and if that was the
only thing, you're good to go. Uh, the inspector will
issue a passing ticket and you're good to go. We all,
you know, we can all go with that. If there's
other things wrong in here, then I use that opportunity
to say, well, you still got some issues on here.
And uh, again, is there any of these that you're
unfamiliar with or you don't agree with? I am more
than happy to listen to you. And how do you
think we should resolve this? Because you know, we can't just.
Speaker 2: Get rid of these things because we have a minimum
safety standard that we have to follow. Uh.
Speaker 3: And again, as an inspector, we have liabilities. Now people
think we're immune to everything, but we're not. Miss Visus
and mouth Visus and non Jesus. So how do we
make this right? Because again, my job, my guys are
just doing their job. Dude, it one hundred of the time,
one percent of the time diffuse the situation. And the
guy was like, oh, it's no problem, misda Abernathy, I'll
fix those other things. I appreciate that, and then I
left and everybody's happy it. Everything can be resolved. It
doesn't have to go to a tit for tat and
a pissing contest.
Speaker 2: It doesn't.
Speaker 3: So think of the bigger picture and it's going to build.
It's going to strengthen your reputation if you go with
that approach. Ken, we're in business to make money. We
don't want to lose a customer. It's too costly for
us to get that customer. Hell I don't want to
lose a customer.
Speaker 2: So we have to think.
Speaker 3: About those things now. Always remember to do a call
to action.
Speaker 2: Okay. The call to action for you is to make
sure you meet.
Speaker 3: With your people, meet with your customer, with your employees.
If you're an electrical contractor, or if you're one man
or one woman show, come up with possible solutions. That's
your call to action. Come up with possible solution to
engage possible issues. Think of yourself, Think of something that
you've been unhappy with, So think of solution. If somebody
says I don't agree with your pricing, come up with
a solution that you can a canned response that you
can say that you can practice. That says, well, I
feel like you're taking too long. Those type of things,
you know, come up with solutions and constantly think of solutions.
That you can use when a conflict may arise. Okay,
if you're a few minutes late to a project and
you told a customer that you're going to be there
at eight o'clock and you're there at eight ten, that
is already a bad impression.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you need to be there before.
Speaker 3: If the appointments at eight, you need to be there,
you know, five minutes, ten minutes before eight?
Speaker 2: Do you ready? Okay? Looking professional?
Speaker 3: But if you are late, I tell people automatically, don't.
The elephant in the room is something that I tell
the electricians to get out of the way up front.
Remember I said, be clear in your scope, being clear
on what you're there to do, be clear on the
time frames and everything. Also be clear that you're late.
I always going to say first thing. I'll use that
as an icebreaker. I'll say, hi, Paul with Abernathy Electricsurvesys.
Look at first, I gotta apologize. I was supposed to
be here at eight. You don't even have to go in.
Why just say I was supposed to be here at eight.
Situation came up and then I was running a little late.
I want to tell you that I apologize for that
and uh that again. I had all intended purposes to
be here right at eight o'clock, and so I'm ready
to go. Now, is there you know, is there anything
that you want? Are you okay with the fact that
I'm a little bit late?
Speaker 2: We are? We good?
Speaker 3: We want me to continue on, and I understand if
you don't want me, that's just an icebreaker, and they'll go.
Speaker 2: No, I'm fine, we're good, We're fine. That type of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you get one guy that's really you know,
his times, his his thing, and he goes, I'm busy, God,
ten minutes late. I mean, I got things I gotta do.
You're wasting my time. That's when you got to learn
to have.
Speaker 2: Empathy and go. I get it. I hate it. I
hate when people are late.
Speaker 3: I did everything in my power to get here on time,
and it just ran late. You know, it just seems
like I just I just couldn't get here at that
eight o'clock and again, but I got here as quick
as I can and again.
Speaker 2: But I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I apologize for that, and I would I promise you
if we do work here in the future, I would
do I will make every effort to be here on time.
Speaker 2: If not earlier again. I you know, it's.
Speaker 3: Okay to say you're sorry cause you know what, at
the end of the day, you were late.
Speaker 2: You were late. Suck it up, butter cup.
Speaker 3: But I use that as an icebreaker because the first
thing on their mind is not that they were going
to pay you.
Speaker 2: But the first thing on my mind is wasn't this
guy supposed here at eight o'clock and now it's eight ten.
Speaker 3: I'm getting that ediphone out of the room right away,
out of the way. Address it, kill it with kindness
right away.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: That's it, folks. That's just my tips on how to disgruntle.
We do a lot of one on ones When I
come out to companies and they want me to do
disgruntal training, or they want me to do the soft
skills and things like that. We do some one on
one interactions and I have some little scripts that we
follow with the customer. With your employees, it kind of
gets funny. It's fun, and then they kind of realize
how important they are to the company. That they're not
just an employee. They're the lifeblood of the company. And
the owner may be the heart, but the employees are
the veins. They keep it running, so the heart keeps
it pumping, the veins keep carrying it back. Everything is
circular going through the body, so they all work together.
So don't take your employees for granted, but teach them
the skills. Don't expect them to have the skills. Teach
them the skills. These are things that can be taught.
I can give you tips on how to take that
frustration and bite the lip and realize that. People say
I don't kiss anybody's ass, You're not kissing anybody's ass.
All you're doing is preserving the customer and preserving the
relationship the.
Speaker 2: Moment you leave.
Speaker 3: If you want to scream at the top of your lungs,
you do whatever you want, but not why you're injecting
with the customer.
Speaker 2: That type of thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, And people say the customer is always right. That
is not true. The customer is not always right. But
you don't have to go out of your way to
make them know that they're not right. There's a tactful
way to do this, folks, all right, and that's our
soft skills training and we have that. If you're interested
in that, reach out to our office. We'd love to come.
Speaker 2: We do.
Speaker 3: Value doesn't matter whether you have one hundred employees or
one thousand employees or five employees. We give enough tips
to help that type of thing. All right, all right, folks,
that's all we've got for today. Thanks for joining me
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episode a Master of the NEEC.
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