A recent e-mail asked: We're new to the business and I run my husbands office. We're not customers but I read some of your material on the internet and wonder if you would mind telling me how you established your office routines and customer service policies when you started in business? Amanda
Actually my wife, Elizabeth, was responsible for them. She managed a doctor's office and used the procedures from her job to establish telephone manners, filing systems and the scheduling of appointments. Her boss was a stickler for keeping accurate records and that has proven to be valuable to us over the years.
Her love of old fashioned department stores led to our customer service policies and procedures. Her favorite store, L. S. Ayres & Co., had a policy that customers were always right even when they were wrong. Our policies were established based on those of both L. S. Ayres & Co., and her job with the doctor.
These decisions paid great dividends. In '72 we were offered a licensed department for Ayres' carpet cleaning which generated millions in revenue over the next twenty years and their cut was only 10% of the gross billing. Those policies also have our company in good standing with our BBB and the premier referral program of the day, Angie's List.
By the way, Amanda, the story of how our company grew over the years is available in a book, "We did it their way!" It's filled with information about things we did in the early days of our first half century in business. The fifteen year-old hard cover book is in its second printing and is now only $14.95 on our web site.
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Please e-mail me at wfbane@baneclene.com.
