 Hi, good afternoon everybody. Tom Stewart here smart business moves. I'm with Liz Trotter-Hollez And we have a really special guest today, I've been in front of mine for a long time Properly social distancing wearing his PPE Ernie Hart song. Hey, Ernie. How are you? Hey, I'm terrific top Thank you. This is my soapbox statement about wearing masks. I mean, I just I've become a fanatic really. I mean, I just think it's it's really important with what's going on in this unprecedented time and I think that You know, if you're not wearing masks, you're irresponsible And if your owner and you're sending cleaning technicians into a home without wearing masks, you're worse than irresponsible So that's my my pitch for mask wearing Yeah, we Um, you know did our our covid class through modern cleaning and we also touch upon this quite a bit within the pac program all the training that we're putting out is certainly emphasizing, you know, safety practices all the proper PPE and masks during a covid-19 world during this unprecedented time is certainly Not optional. It needs to be a an all-time thing You know Ernie Come up there. He still had to get his own little unprecedented in there. You were so fast. Yeah Let's keep scoring. I don't know if it counts if somebody else says it or not It absolutely counts. Well, that's why I titled my program the way I did today when you asked me to join you Yes, indeed now which probably would Be worth our while to Go through What we're going to be talking about the rest of the week just so we don't forget All I need to do share screen I hope you guys were able to shut my Go ahead Liz Okay, we're good Okay I hope you guys were able to join us yesterday Courtney wisely She's an awesome. She's a powerhouse. So entrepreneurs got Several things going all in the area of residential cleaning shared a lot of heat software platforms that would be useful to cleaning businesses to Save them time and get better outcomes. So if you didn't see that Yeah, you missed something you need to go back and watch it Today we've got Ernie and Ernie, you know, I'm gonna when we get started I'm gonna ask Ernie to to go back and give us his background. He's had a lot of interesting positions over the years and There's a lot about the cleaning industry Uh, Greg Shepard's going to be with us on on wednesday Uh, Greg's going to be telling us About how we started a or stumbled into created wound up owning Two house cleaning businesses in the same market with two different price points. So Somebody doesn't like uh, the service he's offering and one service He refers them to to one of his other services in the same market and Um, we're probably an interesting model. I'm looking forward to hearing that. Who do we have on Thursday, Liz? That's my baby girl Shara, that's my baby girl. And how much does she sell per year tom on average? 40 million Dollars that's four zero million Over 40 million Every year Yeah, she's she's gonna share her top her top sales strategies, but you guys need to be ready Because people think I like to talk tom. You've met my daughter in person. She talks and she talks fast She's like Sometimes i'm like love. I'm sorry. I can't understand a word you're saying She just talks so fast. So be ready if you're if you're gonna be here on thursday Yeah, get get plenty of sleep wednesday night and bring your coffee and uh You're undivided attention Yeah All right, and then I didn't give a A clue yesterday tom for our secret guest. I forgot to give one at the end remember Yes Do we want to do that now? Yeah, well Yeah, so I have two today instead And I did write them down. So I wouldn't forget. Well, the first one is Our secret guest currently has COVID-19 So she's gonna be a guest. She's not that ill obviously because she is going to be on the Webinar or on our facebook live um So that's probably the first time we've ever had anybody that we knew had COVID-19 on our um smart business moves here Um, and then the second thing. What was the second one? Oh My second clue where'd it go? ah her operations manager of five years moved and is currently Continuing to work as a virtual employee. And so she has some information there as well Okay So the plot thickens It's a big only Tuesday Anybody have any guesses out there go ahead and throw it in Not that we will confirm or deny But it's always fun to guess, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah Let's see Uh, oh denny my daughter does sales for a company called electric guard dog It's electric fencing and they put up, um, you know security fencing like for wal-mart and those kind of places It's really kind of we were we looked at that for for our office at north charleston. We I can't hear you. You can't hear me I can hear you tom. You're fine okay, um Our office in north charleston has fence around it and we had some break-ins and They basically wire like high voltage electric fence and if somebody they've got signs up it says it's electric fence So you would really want to get in you know pretty bad But if you do you'll you'll you'll get shocked. Um It's pretty interesting. I talked to my assurance agent about it and there's some pretty interesting liability that goes along with that and Um, it's kind of expensive too. So honestly, you know, I understand how she can do 40 million dollars worth of sales because you know, that's it's it's expensive technology, but Um, anyway, it's it's it's really cool. I'm looking forward to hearing it Can you hear me? I just found out what's wrong with my computer I can hear you now. Can you hear me? Yeah? Yes Uh, I I have this thing splash top Streamer warning. I just got it our benchmark shows frame capture is very slow on this computer As a result, you may experience slow screen refresh and high CPU in a remote session It is an indication of insufficient video memory Our support site describes several workarounds for this problem And then mirror driver has proven to help with this issue You can choose to install it now or later from advanced tab. I'm going to try it now All right, you're you're let's go. Let's see Okay It's an install driver do it now Go ahead. What's the worst that happened? Download a virus and lose all your personal information Do I look like Derek? I don't think so That explains it because your your your resolution is kind of fuzzy. You're not You know, oh really is You used to be It says the driver installation failed Oh This is tragic. All right. Well We're going to power through this but we need to we'll we'll come up with some better solutions for tomorrow Ernie, how you been? Fabulous any better? I couldn't Oh, that's from denit. I'm like, um, what are you saying the effort for on facebook? But that's denit No, it's all good. It's all good Ernie for you know, I know a lot of uh, folks here know you from from from arcsy and your your your your work there, but Your professional background experience goes back further than that and it's it's really diverse and interesting Could you just share a little bit about You know my checkered past Oh Well, I started uh really in college when I Broke my ankle prior to football practice and became a sportscaster instead of playing football and Did that went to work for a couple of commercial stations In the mid ohio valley in marietta, ohio and parkersburg west virginia And One day the mayor of marietta Knocked on my door and said the guy at the chamber of commerce has just Decided to resign you ought to apply for that job I said why he says big well first of all it pays 1500 a year more than you're making now and I said, okay, we're in Right, uh, so the uh, that was with the marietta chamber of commerce and went to the uh, Columbus chamber of commerce here in columbus, ohio as the vice president of economic development Uh left there and had the greatest job in the world For a guy like me that loves golf I was a caterer on the pga tour. I ran a catering company that did corporate hospitality and concessions and That kind of thing on uh for pga tour events senior tour events and lpga events It was a fabulous job. Uh, the only problem was my kids were two and six And in 1985 I was gone from home 29 weeks Mostly three weeks at a time because the golf tournament is a three-week job for the caterers the week before a week of the week after so I just walked in one day and Said you know what I can't do this anymore. I'm just missing too much stuff with my kids And I had a national contract with a company called bunzel, which is in the distribution business and uh called that guy up And said hey, I'm leaving. Here's who you talk to don't worry. You're not going to lose the contract And he said well, we need a salesman come and see us and I said come on I don't want to sell paper plates And he said no come and see us and I said okay. I said I'll come and see you and we'll talk about it But I said I'll tell you right now. I want to get back in the chamber of commerce business Uh, so I interviewed you offer me the job and I said okay for you know lack of anything else to do I'll do it, but I tell you I may leave next week. I may leave in six months Well being a commissioned salesman much like your daughter lives. I'm sure she is It was a very lucrative kind of position. So my temporary thing lasted for about 11 years And then a little chamber of commerce The timing is everything They were going to close our branch here in columbus and I was going to have to move to Cincinnati or Pittsburgh or someplace like that didn't really want to do it Uh, so there was a little chamber of commerce a little suburb called clintonville that was looking for an executive director and I said great I went and applied my wife freaked out because of the salary cut But we managed and put it together and I did that for about three years and then low and behold Uh, there was this organization called arcs. I and the Volunteer president of that organization happened to be someone named allison palmer who was In my wedding As one of my wife's bridesmaids because she had my wife or sorority sisters So she called me up and said, you know, jeez. We're looking for an executive director Can you help us find one and I said sure And so alice and I would talk like once a week and I said get the board together. Tell me what you want and So low and behold I uh one night after doing a little research on arcs. I I pulled a dick chainie on her. I said, you know what I found your guy And she said, well, that's terrific. I said, yeah, it's me And she immediately said well, we can't talk anymore. You need to call chuck turp for done in town so because I need to take myself out of this equation so I talked to chuck did a couple of phone interviews with the board and The next 10 years were history and it was traveling up the the best 10 years of my career quite honestly based, you know and the people I met the fund we had and You know took an organization that quite honestly back in 2009 was struggling a little bit and ended up with money in the bank and became so attractive that ISSA said geez would you guys be interested in merging and Jeff and I at the president at the time uh said, you know what I think we would and There we are today and then I decided I was going to retire because it was turning 70 and a cheese That lasted about a month. It was michael corleone. They keep pulling me back And uh, you know you called me and we want to know if I wanted to help out with cleaning business today And a fellow named chuck willis called me out of chicago with the gifts of clean and uh, I want to know if I wouldn't you know be interested in working with them And so after a month of retirement and playing with the grandkids. They said well to both of you I said, you know, I think I'd be interested in that But on my terms Which means if I want to go play with the grandkids, I do but it's uh, it's worked out very well. I'm on you know life is good Uh-oh You're back. You're you're okay. It's for a second Okay, oh, I'm glad I couldn't this time to not move. I thought it was me again Okay So that's a life at times of running hearts on And and here we are And when you are in the uh, distribution business you I mean, I guess part of what you were doing was like working with with janssen products Yeah, well, I had some we had some janssen. We were mostly uh paper and plastic We did have some janssen products and I did work with a lot of of small janitorial companies And then I had a brief where I went to work for another janssen company where I was actually stripping and waxing floors and Cleaning vacuum cleaners and disassembling them of putting back together and things like that So I had a pretty good background in in janssen. So plus my association and chamber of commerce management So the ARC as I think was really a pretty good fit awesome So What we want to talk about today we're going to be talking about customer service And yeah, and it's you know, it's it's it's been a passion of mine and really since my very first real job Which means somebody else on my paycheck Was one of I was a gas station attendant back in the days when Gas station attendants actually came out and pumped the gas And cleaned your windshield and checked your oil and so that was about customer service And and I don't know if that really started it, but you know, I Throughout my entire career. I've always been passionate about customer service Even in the association business in the chamber of commerce business. I never had members. I had customers And that's the way I viewed the folks that were paying their dues. I viewed them as customers and So I've been passionate about customer service for a very long time and as Liz knows Several years ago. I became a disciple of john de julius and the de julius company Who I think are actually the best when it comes to customer service and a lot of what you're going to hear from me today Is going to be straight out of the john de julius playbook quite honestly What's bunzel Bunzel is a distribution company. They do paper and plastic. They're big in the grocery industry And they also serve smaller paper wholesalers and that kind of thing They're an international company about a 10 billion dollar international company Okay, so really huge he wasn't exaggerating All right Bill golder we're here 23 cents a gallon I paid that once upon a time Was that back when you cranked it and it went up into no, no, I didn't quite have to crank it You had to push it and then let the clutch out and it would go Okay so You know, I I think customer services is you know, just just paramount. I mean if you really want to take price out of the equation It's it's having world-class customer service that does it Uh, and I there are stats that prove that I actually did do some research before decided Uh before the show today and and just some of the things from from the de julius website is, you know 50 52 percent of customers will buy more and pay more if they think you have exceptional customer service 85 percent are willing to are willing to pay more to ensure superior service Uh every dollar invested in customer service returns three And Here's the one that you really need to be concerned about 85 percent of customers with a bad experience want to not only not have that Service anymore, but they want to warn others about that service and urge them not to use it That's the key and particularly in the days of you know, all of the online Sites and everything else Where you do reviews. I mean that that's where customer services Is the bottom line Unhappy customers are more motivated to tell people that they're unhappy than Happy customers are to tell people they're happy There you go So, I mean it's custom You know when I when we talk about world-class customer service, um, um I often think of the uh comments of former chief justice potter steward the late potter steward When someone asked him about pornography. He said I can't define it, but I know it when I see it And that's kind of what happens with customer service, you know, sometimes it's a little tough to define But I think in this day and age with people like the julius. We're beginning to define it more But we all certainly know it when we see it Well, we were talking about that Customer service is even more important right now during the pandemic And well, why do you say that Ernie? Why do you think it's more important now? And in what ways do you have any advice for people on uh business moves? Sure, I mean, I think that you know one of the ways that the the julius group defines customer service is removing the customers risk And obviously removing risk is is really important now. So I mean whether it's you know a matter of You know Absolutely having your your techs, uh, you know Take the proper ppe and where the proper ppe. There's some things happening around the country that are really interesting I uh, I saw on a facebook post and actually talked to a vendor a few weeks ago uh, there's a cleaning company out there that is actually Asking their customers to purchase microfiber claws and it's you know relatively cheap He's got to deal with a vendor. So it's maybe like 15 bucks or something like that for a stack of microfibers Uh, but they keep them in your home. We're going to use these microfiber cleaning claws in your home Uh, and then when we're done, we throw them in your washer and boom, boom, boom, boom But they stay with your home so that there's Absolutely no risk of of cross-contaminating with anyone else Uh, so I think that's you know the kind of innovative things people are coming up with around the country Uh, and again, and you know in in some cases, you know We'll we'll not use our vacuum cleaner or use your vacuum cleaner in your home It may be a little tougher on your text. It may not be a great vacuum But again, it's going to be Keep the customer happy One not very good customer service comment that I saw on facebook Probably a month ago now Someone had a cleaning tech that tested positive And this person was asking if they should tell the customer And I about went through my computer screen. I mean I said absolutely you have to tell the customer Uh that you know one of your techs has you know tested positive for COVID-19 I mean, that's not even a You know, you don't even think about that. You just do it automatically So so I think that you know again is you know, COVID-19 has you know, absolutely presented some challenges I got I got a question though, Ernie So I mean on the one hand it seems kind of obvious, but how far back do you go? Do you go back to every customer that in your whole entire company that they may have cleaned anybody that they've cleaned in the last week In the last day in the last month, how do you make that determination? Yeah, I guess I would lie on the scientists for that list and and say that you know If I if I had a if I had a tech that tested positive That I would certainly go back to at least Any customer that she had been in their home in the last 14 days I mean 14 days seems to be the magic number Uh, so I would go back and tell those people You know and it and it's certainly it it If you've got the ability it may even be smart to do it longer than that Uh, you know, I mean it it's just one of those things that's you know One of the ways that obviously the scientists talk about continually to stop the virus is is the fact that You know, we've got to identify these clusters or when things happen and Get people tested and so we can can isolate them and Certainly if I had if I had a tech that tested positive I would a let all those first, you know, let all those customers Secondly test anybody in the company that she's come in contact with That you know, that's kind of a no-brainer as well, but uh, you know, it's just she just have to deal with those kind of things Yeah, I I also think that um, excellent customer service the reason why Everybody across the board doesn't provide excellent customer service is because it is It it it's it's not clear. It's very floaty So it seems like yeah, you absolutely should tell every single customer if one of your technicians comes up with covid positive, but There's another side. Is it possibly better customer service To only tell the people that could potentially be at risk So maybe making a judgment call based on yeah, we were in the home of a 75 year old woman And we definitely want to talk to her and we might even want to pay for her to go and get a test Maybe that would be better customer service than just blanket calling every single customer getting them worried for what could maybe be no reason, especially since Everybody agrees that you don't know who has covid 19 right now. I currently know two people Actually three people that are covid 19 positive tested and have zero symptoms So how many people are walking around out there with no symptoms? I could be so I don't know, but that's liss. That's that's that's why we keep getting the spikes of the and while You know the european community has gone down and they have to seem seem to have it someone under control Here in the united states it continues to spike because of those asymptomatic folks out there That are walking around that they don't know they have it Uh, and they continue to spread it and whether they don't wear a mask or they you know It's it's the young folks and just like you know I saw the mayor of atlanta in an interview last night. She has it her husband. Have it one of her kids has it And but they don't have terrible symptoms. Okay, but they still have it um So I think it's those asymptomatic folks that really Are you know caused the greatest concern and part of the reason why and i'm certainly not a doctor scientist, but you know, it's certainly part of why we continue to have the spikes in this country Diane has a question for uh, she wants to know You know, would you as a company owner pay to have the staff tested? Well, i'm not a company owner So you two are but if I were a company owner the answer was simply yes Well around here where I where I am the tests are free Is a lot of stages a lot of a lot of places you can get the test for free. I'll tell you the other challenge So obviously is In some places you can't get tested. I mean, you know, you look at the lines in in texas where people are At testing sites and the and the line of cards is a mile long. It's it's difficult Sorry don't go ahead No, we we basically did the research and came up with a lot of different testing options within our various markets and um When appropriate, you know encourage our people to to get tests and There's free options everywhere and you know, they're you know getting scheduled can can can be a little bit of a challenge But we we try to help with that to what extent we can and and make sure that they're available and Facilitate that process for sure But but do you have to no diane? You don't have to But would we yeah that common. I both would do that, but you don't have to do that That's just one of those things that you get an option to do or an option not to do as well When that is between the times it's true It's true marlowe, right? I could have a negative test today And tomorrow I can pop positive. It's not like absolutely now until the rest of your life So a negative test is again for psychological safety, right? It's not actually for your physical safety That's not the point of the That's why all this is so tricky But we're kind of getting down a funky path here. We wanted to talk about customer service today there you go yeah, really Really wanted to talk about customer service and you know how to have excellent customer service in this This um Pandemic what what are some of the things that we can do to have excellent customer service? Well, I think you know that you know that world-class customer service is something you want pandemic or no pandemic and and uh, you know one of the things that that To julius is is adamant about is it doesn't matter what your management style is whether it's top down bottoms up 360 higher good people and get out of their way or whatever Customer service is absolutely top down. I mean it absolutely has to be an obsession with the owner It's just something that you know again you have to be obsessed about World-class customer service to all of your customers and that includes your client customers And it also includes your other customers also known as employees Uh, you know if an owner is not obsessed And presenting the same kind of customer service To the employees that she expects those cleaning technicians to apply the you know apply to the customer It ain't going to work I mean, I thought you had a great example of that You know a couple of weeks ago when you had Karina on as she said she said in a company meeting and said, you know we want our customers to feel like they've walked into a five-star hotel And somebody came out, you know, it's a little puzzle that you asked them after the meeting And that person said I've never been in a five-star hotel. I've never been in any hotel I don't know what that means So I part of that is is you know, you need to be Providing that training for your cleaning technicians So they understand what you mean by world-class customer service and they're on the same page I that you know a great example. This has been you know four or five years ago. I heard from Noriko Karns out in Colorado Springs Noriko took her entire staff to the Broadmoor They you know, obviously five-star resort in Colorado and she took her whole staff over there so she could see what Five-star looks like and I thought that was a brilliant You know move on Noriko's part to do that with her entire staff I think Stephanie Tucker and nested does that too and I think she does it annually She takes all of her employees to a five-star meal So that they can see what five-star service looks like and what it feels like So yeah, I You know, that's a good investment Right there the other the other thing that you know And again, I went back and listened to several the Julius podcast and you know Right up on some old stuff that I'd read a long time ago and that kind of thing One of the other recurring themes and everything that the Julius group talks about is the 98 to rule And and actually I was a proponent of a 98 to rule long before I knew to Julius And the 98 tool rule is simply this Most often we create a lot of policies that Are because of the 2 percent that are always trying to scan the system And in doing so we penalize the 98 percent Uh And you know, I've always had the philosophy you might bundle days in my chamber of commerce days Whenever is I don't have time to worry about the 2 percent I focus on the 98 percent And you know one of the things that that to me is really the epitome of the 98 to rule Is a cancellation policy What's the real purpose of a cancellation policy? That customer inconvenienced you so you're going to make them pay That's a cancellation policy and you know Nobody signs up for your service with the intent of canceling So if they do have to cancel You know I'm sorry, you'll never convince me Liz if you've got a cancellation policy Your customer service is not as good as it could be You know, have I been have I been burned by the 98 I gotta we have a customer and I think it's Atlanta That signed up for bi-weekly service to get a cheaper price And then cancels every other cleaning so that they can have monthly cleaning But pay the bi-weekly price because the bi-weekly price is cheaper Well charge a monthly Charge a monthly or fire the customer, you know And you know But but you know White penalize. I mean, have I been burned over the course of my checker career by the 98 to rule? Sure. I have probably At least four or five times in 50 years You know has it been catastrophic? Never All right And so I mean that's the thing that I say, you know I was with with arcsi and I'd have this discussion with somebody about a customer service issue And I'd say, you know, well, why don't you try doing this? And they say, oh, we can't do this everybody would start doing that. Well, they won't the 2% will do it, but the 98% won't And so I mean, I mean julius Speaks of this much more eloquently than I can But I mean, you know the basic thing is, you know, it It's a myth that everybody's going to start doing it. They won't the 2% will But the 98% won't you know, and it's kind of a case-by-case thing I Like the idea You have to ask yourself, what is the risk of the 2% what what they have a harm can they do? I know like on some commercial contracts You have to buy a whole bunch of equipment and stuff to get started and You need some assurance that if they cancel, I mean, you can put you out of business if if you know, you didn't cover that or If I'm in the business of of airport security I need to worry about the 2% because those are the ones are going to You know, pull up an airplane right so You know Doesn't work all the time, but in a lot of cases I'm with ernie. It works 98% of the time 2% of the time We've enough risk that you got to worry about But You know, quite honestly, that's one of the you know, I mean, I've spent my whole career and I just Don't worry about it. It didn't worry about the 2% I mean, I'll be I'll give you a really another example when I first came to arcs. I um The board had a policy That if you signed up for the convention And you cancelled They were charging you a $50 cancellation fee And I said that's absolutely nuts I said, well, I got nobody signs up with the intended canceling And if we charge them with a $50 fee, all they're going to do is be mad and not come next year so so above Some objection from some board members, uh, we did away with the dollar cancellation fee. Yeah, and Sure over over, you know On a bad year, we'd have Five people cancel, you know, that was a lot so You know, what did it really do? So that's what we did away with Yeah, I I work with um, a lot of companies and one of the things that I have seen many times is Like the agreement that they want the customer to sign That they have to send it With like an e-signature and it will be page upon page upon page upon page of policies and rules and procedures and All of them have come from that problem Like no, I've got a policy against This because one time seven years ago a customer did this thing Right, you know, you probably don't need it to be a you know, we don't probably need pages probably six policies that cover 98% of your people is probably going to be good to go Here's the thing about that lis is that I'm your customer I don't care about your other 500 customers. I'm an individual and I care about me and I don't really care what those other customers did to you I'm not going to do that to you And I don't really care about those other customers of yours. I care about me. I'm an individual So I want your service agreement tailored to me And and I think that you know when you do that sure you have standard stuff I get that but You know the the real key to world-class customer service is That you and those cleaning technicians are going to that home Have a very very very very clear understanding of what that customer's expectations are And if you have that You don't have to worry about those those other 52 pages in your service agreement Uh That's number one and make sure they understand that Those expectations are being met and your customer understands that their expectations are being Matt sometimes you're doing the things that they want you to do and they don't even see it So you want to be telling them Yeah, well, that's you know, that's that's you know, one of the other You know, I mean all of that you know, that is all important But one of one of my other customer service myths Is the customer is always right No, they're not The customer is not always right sometimes the customer is absolutely wrong But they always are still the customer Right and you have the problem you have the ability To solve their customer service issue It's just a question of whether you want to do it or not even when they're wrong Yeah, I'll give you an example of that one of my Things that happened just yesterday Uh, one of my retirement quote unquote jobs is that Two hours a day I deliver flowers for a flower shop. It's a great job. Everybody's always happy to see me You know, I really love it. So we had a customer call up yesterday And I the woman I work for is terrific if she understands customer service called up and said jeez I've had these flowers for a week and they died And she wasn't happy And the owner of the flower shop simply said, well, we're really sorry you're disappointed We will have you a new arrangement out there this afternoon She didn't go into policies. She didn't go into the life expectancy of the Pne she didn't ask the customer how frequently she changed the water in the vase She simply said, we're sorry. You're disappointed. We'll have you a new arrangement out there this afternoon They go We got a customer for life the one The one thing I like to say is The customer might not always be right, but the customer always thinks they're right So if you remember that they think they're right You're you're going to go a really long way helping them to to get what they want I hope that your florist did remember or when you delivered you did remember to tell the lady that These are probably going to die in a week too. Just so you know The expectation is really important But but ironically when I delivered the first when I delivered the first order She wasn't home. So I texted her and I said, you know Your flowers are on the porch in the shade. It wasn't in the 90s that day So it was finding, you know, we could leave them to porch in the shade till she got home And I got a text back from her that said, oh, they're beautiful. I love them Nice But a week later, she wasn't as happy. So, you know Yeah, so much of customer service really where the rubber meets the road is how do you deal with What they call non-conforming issues. How do you deal with unhappy customers? And if you've got policies in place that allow you to Make an unhappy customer happy That's when you reach the highest levels of customer service. I think uh One large chain kind of did some of those studies and Somebody had a great day you get customer service at some level, but if they had a problem if you fixed it They were even happier Well, it depends on how much discretion you give those people that are out there in the field to make those decisions You could have policies But the last thing a customer wants to hear is What your policy is they just want the problem fixed And uh, so I mean again if you've got somebody out in the field and an issue comes up And they've got the ability to solve that problem And they may not solve it the way you wanted them to or the way That you would have done it But they solved the problem and made the customer happy. That's the important thing And you know, do your folks in the field have that kind of discretion? I'll give you the again I got a lot of customer service stories. I've kind of catalogued them over the years A great one was with avas when ross perot owned avas And there was a young guy that was in the avas, you know Store in somewhere in massachusetts, I believe and someone had rented a car This was a young college kid. He was you know working by a you know He was the assistant to the assistant to the manager or how they want to do that hierarchy In any way a customer called in and they were you know 60 miles away and they had a problem with the car or they had a You know think they needed to get to And they didn't have time to wait for the road service and yet and and and and this young college kid said Sir, don't worry about it. I will be there in less than an hour with a new car for you hung up Took the new car to the customer again. You know took care of the other stuff with the car that didn't work Well, the manager of this particular avas branch found out about this And fired the kid because he had disobeyed policy Uh ross perot found out about that Promoted the kid to general manager and fired the general manager because ross perot was you know believed in customer service And thought this kid handled it right Uh, so I mean again part of it is is and again It's it's and I've had it happen to be in my career where I made a customer decision Which my supervisor didn't think was all that great Uh, but I had some really great mentors and some great folks about customer service along the way and it was a case of You know not chastising me for the decision I made But talking about the decision and being glad that the customer was happy at the end of the day But you know, let's think about how we might have handled that a little differently And still made the customer happy at the end of the day And in part of that, you know, you got to train for that Yeah, I agree. We are getting Towards the end of of of our time here um, we've been talking over the last uh, few days about a big announcement that cbt was going to make and Since urney's here. It seems like it's the most uh appropriate time for us to to have that Let me change masks and put on my cleaning business today mask and and uh, oh come on I got I got more masks and I know what to do with I'm I'm I'm prepared at any rate Uh, we have a great thing uh these facebook live sessions and have gone very well and you know, I I'm here And I tune into most of them just because I enjoy the conversations and the guests and you've had just some spectacular guests on today not included um But at any rate, uh, we're gonna take every other wednesday starting on july 15th and Wednesday july 15th And the marketing department and the uh, of cbt, which is urney has been talking all along about how do we you know Do some things to make this, um Cleaning these facebook live things more financially appropriate and but Tom and liz have always pushed back at me and said, you know, look we we don't want to make these infomercials and we agree We didn't want to make them infomercials either. So what we're going to do Is we have a great deal for you Uh starting on july 15th every other wednesday is going to be deal day On our facebook live program from five to six And what we're going to do is we're going to have 10 vendors That will give you a four minute video pitch about their product or service uh, and it's every you know any kind of product or service related to your businesses and They're going to tell you about it give you the features and benefits and then give you a special deal that will only be available to people that are joining us for the facebook live and That's it. Nobody else gets that deal just the people on our facebook live program But you're going to have to act we'll give you 24 to 48 hours We'll do it on wednesday. You'll basically have until you know five o'clock friday to act on the deal Uh, they're going to be special deals. They're going to you know, some of them are going to be on routine stuff Some are going to be on special things Uh, we're going to leave that up to our vendors But we think that it's going to be a great opportunity for you and and even folks, you know Some folks, you know, they may not be able to give you a discount on your You know comprehensive insurance But if you get a quote, they may give you some kind of you know premium or or you know, you get a special iPad tablet or whatever. We don't know what that's going to be. We're gonna leave that to the vendors Uh, but anyway, we want you to know in advance. It's not going to be a 90-minute infomercial on one product It's going to be different vendors talking about their particular deal of the day and they're going to be legit deals It's going to be average fire. It's going to quick. It's going to go fast and uh, you know You'll you'll you'll see opportunities that that that you won't see anywhere else Liz All right, so the the thing I wanted to say is the reason why we're doing this you guys is because Every time we bring on really good presenters. You guys notice they always have something that they're doing on the side too There's something that they sell or there's something that they do But we don't want these to be pitch fast. So we needed to give all of those people That have great things to sell Courtney yesterday We had debbie a you name it every that we have on has something that they're doing But we don't want every day to just be a pitch So every other week we're going to be able to have a time for them to be able to make their pitch But you guys will know about it. So you don't have to come every day with this idea that Oh, great. I'm gonna have to sit through the freaking pitch to be able to get the rest of the information or just to be in on the conversation now On deal day cbt deal day every other wednesday. I'm just for that. Also. It's not always going to be just less money Some days there are going to be other things going on and then tom give an example of what that might be You want to talk about uh phc Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well We have the professional house cleaning Uh program the phc program We talked about that for a while back What late april early may And a number of you guys signed up for that enrolled in that and that was back when we were on the old platform and We spent a lot of time over the last X number of weeks Finishing the program and the program is awesome for for you guys who who are there I have got a lot of positive feedback on that And we're in the new platform now. So we're ready to start Talking about it and offering it to cleaning businesses who haven't had the opportunity to experience yet Um for you guys who don't know it's uh a class that basically gives the background information for anything that A cleaning professional should know to to function professionally, um gets into safety gets into health it gets into uh the chemistry Physics a lot of the lies behind Uh Why we do what we do is cleaning professionals. And once you know that You know, there's a lot of benefits in terms of reducing turnover and getting better performance and being more efficient Having less damage. I could go on and on about that. It's basically taking what we did with the HCT program and boil it down into something that's more accessible. It's uh Seven classes to complete the whole program plus the certificate completion. It takes about eight hours But you can take it one class at a time or even partial classes at a time because the classes have modules so When your your your cleaning techs have an opportunity to do it they can do it on their free time But at the end they get a certificate. It's really uh, it's really a cool program. It's accessible to everybody the Rack rate for it if you will is 99 dollars, but we've got discount pricing it starts with as few as six classes If you're a company you can buy them and bulk and use them for over a year period Um if you buy up to like 50 you can get them for as much as 50 off These are the discount prices 15 off up to from six to 15 25 over 16 35 percent over 26 50 percent Once you uh, once you get over 50 Again, those are good for a year Each company now has a portal and this is something that's really cool. And we'll we'll share this over the next day or two Um, we get a chance where you'll see how you can manage Enrolling your own employees and keeping track of their progress So you're really kind of managing the program yourself or somebody in your organization You can delegate that to As far as smart business uh moves is concerned. Oops. This is another program um We're getting 30 off I didn't change my deck because we're doing something for another program, but this is a better deal. I promise you um, we're getting 30 off Here for this program if you enter sb 30 at checkout you get an extra 30 off all those other discount rates This goes only going to be good till friday though So now you take this back around you talk about uh, what we're going to do next wednesday We're going to have a promotion on wednesday We're going to be uh, phc is is going to be offered as one of the deals on on wednesday You will get a discount on wednesday. It will not be 30. It will be less than 30 But there's going to be some other goodies that are going to go along with it that are going to make it really interesting. Go ahead, Liz It's not really a discount you guys. Um on wednesday It's deal day So you don't want to count on always getting a discount It might be a discount, but you might be getting some other kind of a deal And that's what's going to be happening for the phc program on next wednesday today Or this week until friday, you're going to get the cheapest possible deal All right, so if you're looking to spend less money Now's the time to do that But if you're looking for some sort of a good deal where you're going to maybe get something else Additionally, all right, then that you might be interested in purchasing something next wednesday But as far as best price Discount right now I just want to make sure that everybody understands that deals don't necessarily mean Low price they might mean you have opportunities. You get more stuff more value Yeah, it can be a combination of some discounts plus more stuff That's really what your opportunity is here We don't want You will if you use this discount code between now and end of day friday You get your 30% You participated deal day on wednesday 15th, which is like a week from tomorrow You will also get any additional goodies that go along So really you're getting The best of both worlds if you want to take advantage of this 30% off now plus What we're going to be doing next wednesday is as one of the 10 offerings on deal day Yeah, you'll get the deal for free next wednesday So you won't have to buy you won't have to buy more classes or anything like that Don't worry about that anything that you buy between now and friday will be eligible for the for the deal as well Yep on deal day, but you need to be there You need to be there next wednesday not only to see what our deal is because You you'll have a special code that you'll need to share with us to get it But you also don't want to miss the other nine deals that are there. Yes, Ernie Hey, I know we're the clock is ticking and we're running out of time but but Back to customer service for just one second. There are two books that I want to recommend That if you know, you want to Make it dead or improve your customer service or two books that I that I think are terrific The first one is called the milkshake moment Overcoming stupid systems pointless policies and muddler management And it's by a guy named steve little who was a former senior editor with ink magazine And I've known steve for years and I have another story about that, but we don't have time But it's a great book and You'll understand the title when you read the first page of the book It's called the milkshake moment and the other one is the julia's new book the relationship economy And I think that you know The the kind of things that he points out on there can really be a game changer So again, you know, they're on amazon or wherever you want to get on there available an audio or whatever I don't get any commission for selling those but I'm just those those are are two two really good customer service related books Thank you, Ernie. Well, we are up against the clock if you're interested in seeing more about P. H. C. I've dropped a link you can actually click on purchase and go through the process Remember the discount code that you'll need to get the extra 30 percent Is smart business moves sb. Um 30 I will drop that here too to make it really easy We'll be back here tomorrow at five o'clock with greg shepherd We're going to hear about how you can run two cleaning businesses competing each other in the same market to get more market share Really innovative idea Yes, liz And just a really quick wrap up so customer service in a covet environment Remember remove the problems Keep your people safe. Keep your clients safe make them feel safe Give them what they want not what you want to give them and don't forget the 98 to rule All right, so those are your key takeaways today Make sure that you follow those basic principles to have some much closer to world class customer service Ernie, thank you so much for your help and for your being conscientious and following all the safe precautions during This uh unprecedented pandemic that we're uh facing Bonus points for them guys It was a pleasure always to be with you two again. You guys. Thanks so much Ernie. I really appreciate it You guys be safe. We'll see you tomorrow at five Bye