Not long ago I had the privilege of providing assistance to a company on developing their administrative procedures and then placing the information on the intranet and on paper as a guide for their managers.
But what struck me about that visit was several times during my first day there my client would take phone calls and almost every time he would say "We can do that". Finally I asked him what was it he was telling his customers he could do.
He said, "Dick, some time ago you and I talked about how the industry was changing and how our customers are more and more wanting to buy as many services as possible from one vendor. Well, I took you seriously and today we do just about anything our customer wants. For example we,
Move furniture
Lease lunch room micorwaves
Have contracts for repair of office equipment (We subcontract it out)
Offer light maintenance such as unstopping commodes, replacing washers in faucets etc. light electrical that does not require a license but if it requires a license we have contracts with electricians to do the work.
Exterior work such as snow clearing, landscape service, trash removal (most of this work is subcontracted).
Provide the opportunity for the customer to purchase all consumable products from us. This item alone is a huge profit producer"
and his list went on. He told me he took it on faith that my idea would work and, by golly, it, according to him, has turned into a very nice profit center for his company.
Our whole philosophy on doing all these things is to have our customer contact us FIRST and not think about going to someone else. The major issue is that all of a sudden missing a trash can or having a dispenser empty is not as important as it would be if that was all you were doing.
When I was active in the BSC business, I had several customers that we did these additional services for. One large manufacturing plant that we had started out with just janitorial service, then mat rental service, then landscaping for 40 acres, then parking lot striping, sweeping and snow clearing, etc. When competitors approached the customer with wanting to present a proposal they were asked if they performed all of these services and never once was a competitor able to respond in a positive way for them.
So back to my client. His customer retention rate he told me was about 99% since he started telling his customers "we can do that". We got his administrative manual completed and he kept adding business with his can do attitude.
I really believe that the BSC who will spend the time to interview prospective subcontractors and have them ready to go and then start marketing the additional services to their customers will have a much higher customer retention rate than the BSC that provides only janitorial service.
Are you ready to be a full service provider? Can you think of other services than those above that you could provide?
If you want to discuss further just visit our web site at www.consultantsincleaning.com and click on the contact us icon.
By the way, don't forget to listen to our free pod cast every Monday at www.kleancast.com. You can also access it on you tube at kleancast.
Till next time.
