IT'S ONLY FIVE MINUTES

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the largest expense (investment) a BSC has is labor. Ever wonder if there is any wasted time in your organization? Without DAILY control of our labor expenses we can sink into a loss on the bottom line very rapidly. 

I remember a few years ago I had a client that was constantly complaining about "little" things we weren't doing in her building. I talked and trained at length with my 4 person crew and to no avail. They kept telling me they just didn't have enough time to do all that was required. They said if they could just have 15 minutes more per person per day I would not have to worry about complaints in the building any more.

I gave in and asked the client if I could talk with her about an increase in our monthly fee. She said it's 5 o'clock and I am ready to leave but I'll wait on you to discuss the issue. I hurried to her office and sweat blood and maybe some tears to convince her that 1 additional hour per night in her building would solve the problem. 

I left her office at 6:20 and decided to go to the basement where there was a break area that I could get a soft drink to congratulate myself on a sales job well done. 

As I walked into the break room, lo and behold ALL FOUR of my technicians were sitting and visiting. I counted to 10 and then reminded them I had worked hard to secure the extra time they requested and here, 20 minutes past starting time they had not yet begun to work. Let's see, 20 minutes times 4 is 80 minutes and they had just wasted nearly an hour and a half of precious time. I kept my composure and explained the importance of going to work on time. I wanted to explode but I would have cleaned the building myself that night and I didn't want to. I then left the building and started making plans to replace the crew, which I did. One of my old sayings--I took them to lunch and bought theirs to go.

The point here is a few minutes wasted each night on the job can be the difference between customer satisfaction and customer lost. How about you, checked up on your accounts lately?

I have a chart that shows what only 5 minutes lost each day can cost a company. I reviewed it at least once each year with our staff, not to brow beat them but to remind them that the time spent or lost can be the difference between a customer kept or lost. You are welcome to download this free chart from our web site at www.consultantsincleaning.com then click on the worksheets icon and scroll down to the "It's only 5 minutes" title and run it off. Maybe it can be helpful to you as well.
For those of you that don't want to take the time to download the chart let me say that if you have a staff of 10 employees and you pay them $9 per hour, 5 minutes lost per day equates to $2,268.00 per year. 

I remember presenting this to a group at a BSCAI convention and one of the participants came up to me after the session and said my presentation made him sick. I told him I was sorry that I wasn't more effective. His reply was the chart made him sick. You see, he had about 1,000 employees with an average wage of a bit over $10 per hour which, in his case, equated to $252,000.00 per year. I could understand why he was sick. 

Let me suggest you check your buildings and see if there is any wasted time that could help you keep a customer (or lose one). May just do the trick. 

Let me know your thoughts. 

Until next time.