Getting my house ready to sell is reminding me of the most simple Do's-and-Don'ts for business.
We needed the place painted and some carpet replaced. The realtor recommended some painters that came in and did a decent job for about $5k. When I called them to come do touchups and some missed spots, they no-call-no-showed three separate times.
I called the flooring guy I worked with a few years ago and bought $1400 in carpet over the phone. Told him I need this stuff in ASAFP, we're trying to list in a week and we really need the carpet in the kids rooms done. "No problem, might be tight but we'll see what we can do." I've since left 5 increasingly unhinged messages for the install scheduler with zero response.
So what's The One Simple Thing you can do to stand out?
Just actually communicate.
Seriously.
It sounds like the bare minimum, and it damn well should be, but for some reason that's too much for so many people and businesses.
If the painters had called me when their truck died, I'd have been fine with it. If they'd texted me when the repair got delayed, I'd understand. If the carpet installer had picked up the phone or called me back, even just to tell me that they can't work me into the schedule that quickly, that would have been totally acceptable. But instead, I'm sitting here twisting in the wind, stewing about how much time I'm wasting running these people down to get them to do the most basic part of their jobs, and knowing that once it's finally finished, I'll never be their customer again and I'll never recommend them to anyone.
Simply because they wouldn't pick up the phone.
We needed the place painted and some carpet replaced. The realtor recommended some painters that came in and did a decent job for about $5k. When I called them to come do touchups and some missed spots, they no-call-no-showed three separate times.
I called the flooring guy I worked with a few years ago and bought $1400 in carpet over the phone. Told him I need this stuff in ASAFP, we're trying to list in a week and we really need the carpet in the kids rooms done. "No problem, might be tight but we'll see what we can do." I've since left 5 increasingly unhinged messages for the install scheduler with zero response.
So what's The One Simple Thing you can do to stand out?
Just actually communicate.
Seriously.
It sounds like the bare minimum, and it damn well should be, but for some reason that's too much for so many people and businesses.
If the painters had called me when their truck died, I'd have been fine with it. If they'd texted me when the repair got delayed, I'd understand. If the carpet installer had picked up the phone or called me back, even just to tell me that they can't work me into the schedule that quickly, that would have been totally acceptable. But instead, I'm sitting here twisting in the wind, stewing about how much time I'm wasting running these people down to get them to do the most basic part of their jobs, and knowing that once it's finally finished, I'll never be their customer again and I'll never recommend them to anyone.
Simply because they wouldn't pick up the phone.
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