The Contractor, the Bathroom Remodel, and the Customer Relationship Fail

While having our bathroom remodeled, I experienced poor customer interactive skills from the contractor and crew that resulted in communication confusion and, ultimately, mistrust.

This experience led me to consider the similarities customers face when our AV/ IT techs perform onsite operations at a client's facility.

Our house was built in 1979 (we bought it in 2000) and my wife has repeatedly referred to the bathroom as the worst room in the house. No anymore! I’m happy to say it no longer resembles a 1970’s bathroom. It’s been updated. Yay! ??

Here’s the thing, though: if you were to ask me how it looks, I would say, “good”. But if you were to see it, you might say, "It looks great!". I can’t bring myself to say “great” because the experience from my verbal and non-verbal interactions with the contractor and his crew always pops into my head, and it was a negative experience. If you’ve dealt with contractors working on your house, you anticipate the usual missed deadlines, the mess they make, the mess they don’t clean up, etc. However, when you add sullen workers, and a contractor that plays a verbal ‘sleight-of-hand’ with every conversation you have with him, another dimension is added to the contractor-customer mix.

He started off on the right foot. He was communicating and showing up on time. Three days in, it became a different story. Something was going on with him outside of the project he was working on for us. His communication became sparse and confusing. Some days his crew didn't even show, and, you guessed it, completion of the project got extended: a couple of times. He didn’t have good leadership or management of his crew so verbal and non-verbal communication was poor across the board. His crew seemed to be independent ‘specialists’ he pulled together for the project. Which was fine, if only he was able to manage their work and their attention to detail. How is your management of your tech crew?

One day my wife and I were sitting on the couch watching TV. A stranger walked into the house and, without a glance or a word, casually went up the steps and into the bedroom leading to our bathroom. It seemed he knew where he was going. My wife and I looked at one another and my wife said, “Who’s that?”. I shrugged, and said, “I don’t know”. The resulting five-second silent-wife-stare got me off the couch to find out who he was. ?? He was one of the workers. Do you or your techs behave that way at the customer's site?

There was one individual from the crew who did a great job in communicating—verbally and non-verbally. It was the guy who installed the glass shower stall. He was neatly dressed, pleasant, polite, prompt, and answered all my questions. When he was done setting up the glass walls for the shower, he came looking for me so I could review and approve his work of straight lines and perfect fit before he left. He confidently assured me there would be no leaks, wished me a wonderful day, and left. Alas, this one positive note was not enough to wipe clean the negatives that had already piled up. If your techs are anything like this shower-install guy, good for you!

I was never expecting to have friendly chats over coffee with the contractor and crew. Nor was I expecting them to smile broadly the whole time they were there, whistling happily while doing cartwheels from the house to their work van and back (that would have been very weird).

However, how you are when interacting with the client permits them to assume who you are. Once they’ve assumed who you are, it allows them to make up in their minds as to what your company/ business/ organization is all about because the tech standing in front of them is all they’ve got to go on. If you want them to infer the correct brand representation of your company, make sure your representatives are projecting the correct and positive message that defines your brand for anyone interacting with them.

It’s a good idea to remember that the success of a customer project is about more than the equipment, products, and technology you set up, install, or integrate. It’s about leveraging the professional interpersonal skills of team members to help your organization build long-term and mutually fulfilling customer relationships. Do you work with your team to invoke trust and be supportive in verbal and non-verbal interactions with your customer?

When you're a B2B you don't want transactional customer relationships. You're not a retail store. You want long-term customer relationships. Professional interpersonal skills backed up by solid technical skills will get you there.

Although this bathroom contractor was a B2C, building a long-term relationship is important because it becomes a funnel for repeat business and referrals. In this case, unfortunately, it was a transactional relationship between us.

Over time, I expect the feeling of negativity will dissipate which, for me as a customer, will be fine because I’ll be taking my time looking for another contractor for our next home project. For the contractor, his lack of professional interpersonal communication skills caused him to lose out on benefiting from any repeat business or referrals, the lifeblood of any business.

All this is to remind us that our professional interpersonal communication skills should always be the first thing we pull out of our 'tech bags' when interacting with a client because that's what makes the connection, and that's what they remember.