Putting egos aside for a moment, who do you think is the
most important person in your modular home company?
For a modular home builder that is self employed, you
probably think you are and you certainly are but you’re not the most important.
Maybe you’re a mid size builder with a sales person, production foreman and an
office manager. Are any of them the most important person? Probably not. Is it the customer? No, because they don’t work for you.
Moving on the modular home factory, we have the owner, upper
and middle management, sales reps, service techs, production and office staffs.
Are any of them the most important? If you got them all together, they would
probably say it was the owner but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The most important person in your company is the last person
that “touched” your customer. That person sets the tone for all future
interaction with the company.
Let’s take a look at a couple of things that might happen.
Let’s assume you are a modular home builder and your customer just visited
their new home while it was being finished by your trim and paint people. The
customer walks in on one of the crew drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette while
painting the wall. Do you think the customer will be happy? Do you think the next
call to you, the builder, will be as pleasant as all the previous calls have
been? Even if the painter was a subcontractor, he was in the customer’s house
smoking and drinking. I would bet a bundle that the customer tells everyone
that will listen just how crappy the people are that work for you.
In the modular home factory, there are many people that
touch the builder. If the very last person that touched the builder was, for example,
the Service Manager who told the builder that he was not going to reimburse him
the $85 to repair the interior door simply because the factory would never ship
him a bad door, you can bet the builder will be hot when he calls first calls
his sales rep, then the sales manager and finally the owner. Each call will
become more dramatic. The builder will threaten to find another factory and
just might do it all for a broken $85 door.
If you work for a modular home factory or a builder, it is
extremely important to be the best last “touch” your builder or customer gets.
I was reminded of an incident in a Holiday Inn many years
ago where the meal wasn’t ready on time for a wedding and the bride was
screaming at the front desk person; water was overflowing in one of the rooms,
a bus just pulled up outside with 40 people wanting to get their reserved rooms
and at that very moment the phone rang.
The front desk clerk picked it up and in the sweetest voice said
“Holiday Inn, how may I help you.”
Even in the worst situations, be sure you are the best “touch”
you can be.
This makes YOU the most important person for your company!
