“Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues” SECTION-BY-SECTION Division I: Continuing the Paycheck Protection Program and Other Small Business Support Section 01;(more…)
Tag: business
Rise above the competition
As a business owner, ignorance is your worst enemy. Ignorance leads to lost business opportunities, the inability to hire the best employees and of course, an inevitable loss of income and profitability. As the leader of your organization, you need to stay focused on continuously improving your technical, business and leadership skills. As soon as you think you know it all, or even that you know enough, you’ve begun your descent to business failure and industry obscurity.
So…you want to start your own water business?
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”
– Mark Twain
2012 – Culligan Bankrupt?
2021 Update and Comments: CDANA stood their ground, strengthening individual dealerships and helping others to consolidate in the fractured marketplace. Culligan Corp has been bought(more…)
Improving Residential Service Calls
A topic of frequent discussion when dealers congregate (apart from the depressed-economy) is frustration with wasted time on service calls, or the desire to increase service-call revenue. Residential water softener service calls are the cornerstone of business operations in most water treatment dealerships. Effective troubleshooting, repair, and follow through are crucial for long-term business success as a residential water quality improvement dealer.
Some dealers actually consider service calls to be a waste of time and resources. This attitude often stems from the fact that they have a flawed sales cycle. These dealers frequently justify the high retail selling price of their products by promising end-users years of flawless performance, or even making statements like “just feed it salt and everything will be OK”. Ironically, it is these dealers who are constantly demanding lower prices from their OEMs, tend to choose inferior offshore products and spend significantly more on advertising than on training and equipping their service staff. These dealers are masters at marketing, and selling the sizzle, but fall short when it comes to meeting or exceeding customer expectations. They are the epitome of the old-school soft water salesperson.
The 21st century water quality improvement expert understands that clients are not suckers and that endusers are now more empowered and educated than ever before. Thanks to the internet, consumers have access to a wealth of technical data at their fingertips as well as the ability to read and post reviews of the quality of work performed by dealerships.
A smart dealer always has three simple goals when interacting with clients:
Improve their lifestyle by making their water better
Create and maintain a lifetime service relationship
Generate a reasonable and sustainable profit
Water quality improvement systems are wonderful devices that embody complex technologies to make customers’ lives better. As with any working appliance, they require periodic maintenance and even occasional repairs over their working lifetime. Smart dealers are already performing annual tune-ups or cleaning and disinfection services for their customers. If you aren’t currently performing annual services for your clients yet, now is the time to start.
The first step in improving service calls should happen before you ever go to the home; acquire the knowledge necessary to properly service the system and to address the myriad of water quality concerns that today’s customer might have.
Are you taking full advantage of the various vendor, dealer network, and OEM training programs, or do you think that you know it all already? If you have employees, are you empowering them with the technical and customer relations skills that they need to properly service your clients? Are your vehicles properly maintained? Do you use modern technologies to your advantage, like digital work orders, email, routing software, GPS and the plethora of other technical tools our predecessors could only dream of?
When a client calls for service on their water system, they need your help. They trust that you are an expert in the field and will be able to provide them with an honest, objective evaluation of the problem and offer insightful options to remedy the problem, including repairing, rebuilding, or replacing the treatment system or possibly adding additional treatment methods to help address their problem. The client doesn’t want an overt sales pitch or a rushed attempt to fix symptoms instead of addressing the root cause of the problem. They expect a visit from a professional who respects them and their time.
Bottle Drops, Utilities and Water Dealers
I read this article and it reminded me of two issues we still encounter in our industry:
Water Quality Improvement dealers and water utilities still don’t get along as well as they should..
Certain water quality improvement marketing techniques are outdated and borderline deceptive.
Water is the lifeblood of all industry, our very civilization hinges on the quality and quantity of water that we have available. Water utilities are tasked with a difficult job: Deliver lots of water at a cheap price. Since the vast majority of water delivered by a utility is never used within the home or consumed by humans, it makes no sense to deliver extremely clean water throughout a city; it would be cost-prohibitive and illogical. It makes far more sense to deliver a “utility-grade” water through the entire system; water that meets or exceeds minimum standards and is generally usable. Individual users can then (at their own expense) improve their water quality to meet their specific standards or requirements for drinking, bathing, cleaning or business/industry. Utilities live in constant fear of being sued by consumers, so they never want to even hint that their water isn’t “perfect” and “pristine”.
It is time for us all to be realistic: Utilities do the very best job that they can within the operational and financial restrictions placed upon them. Utility-grade water in the United States is better than many other nations but it is NOT perfect and there is nothing wrong with educating end-users about products/services to make their water better. Utility managers need to acknowledge that they provide a utility-grade water, and that there is indeed room for improvement in quality and even aesthetics like taste, and odor.
Water quality improvement dealers need to realize that the utility is their friend; delivering good water that can usually be significantly improved without spending too much of their customer’s money. I wish more dealers would do business the way that my ProFlow dealers do, and spend more on water quality training, research and education than they do on marketing. Be the best, don’t just tell people that you are!
Bottle-drops and other similar water-quality marketing techniques frequently concern consumers, especially when the water dealership has words like “environmental” in their name. There are better ways to do business in the 21st century, and certainly better ways to begin your relationship with a prospective new customer.
There are many ways to market yourself to prospective customers, but the best way is to so a good job at a fair price.
The WQA’s Code of Ethics is very helpful to dealers who need guidance in these matters.